The Design Chair: Beyond Titles at Apple

Exploring the Unseen Influence and Interdepartmental Reach of Apple’s Most Pivotal Design Role

SVP of design was Jony Ive's title as the highest ranking official officer of design but none of us ever took titles very seriously.

There is a role with more design authority than SVP of design at Apple and it's the designer who gets to sit in the 'design chair'.

This is a person whose badge works interdepartmentally with more special projects security clearances than anyone in the company.

They are exclusively trusted to design hiring language with a full knowledge of each special projects team.

Since job descriptions are 'designed', this person would be responsible for describing job openings in ways that weren't dead giveaways about what the company was going to be launching next.

It’s important to remember that the industries and job markets that get created from job descriptions at Apple are lightyears ahead of legacy markets and there could not be enough emphasis placed on future planning when describing new job functions.

On top of building the Applications division from ground zero and interviewing candidates, my design chair responsibilities were something I took extremely seriously. To this day, it is difficult to fit in on design teams who don't understand this about me.

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On user enjoyment...
Full article (with animation): https://darius.design/onuserenjoyment

There are two rules that govern people who work at Apple and veterans of the company perhaps better than any other:

1: “You have the rest of your life to catch up on sleep.”

2: “If you ever LEAVE the company, out of respect to the rest of us you better spend your time enjoying the things we build here because nobody here has the time for that.”

After 5 years with the company I had decided it was my time to enjoy what we had built before I got thrown onto twelve more projects without the luxury of time to learn and reflect.

Apple is in the luxury market not the ‘tech market’ and
you learn that TIME is our most luxury possession.

TIME with loved ones.
TIME with our maker.

You see, when your focus is on enjoyment, you have deeper learnings and takeaways.

You also make a lot of enemies at the company who start to resent you for having time for user enjoyment.

Your insights are richer and more meaningful because you have time to focus on how someone else might be enjoying something you or your teammates designed.

When your focus isn’t on user enjoyment, you miss out on how much work actually went into something. It’s like someone who is too busy checking their device at the dinner table, distracted by anything but the meal that the chef worked really hard for them to specifically ‘enjoy’.

For those of you who claim to be working in product who never thought to stop to ask why it’s possible that a product makes you FEEL a certain way…

WE PUT USER ENJOYMENT and MEANINGFUL WORK BEFORE PRIORITIZING OUR OWN NEEDS.

That's how much more Apple Designers ACTUALLY CARE.