Opinion
Kelley: Steve Jobs Was the World's Best Client for Designers
“Everyone would tell you who was a designer of any kind that in their career they did their best work for Steve. He was the world's best client because he cared so much.”
Insight
Kelley: Corporate America lacks patience because early answers look smart
“Patience to wait for the big idea is just not inherent. Well, it's inherent in the design kind of way of being, but it's not inherent in corporate America because you look smart if you have the answer early on.”
Insight
David Kelley: Designers look like geniuses by transferring methods across industries
“One of the tools that a designer has is that they have had a broad experience, and you can apply something that seems pretty straightforward as a methodology in doing things in one industry, and bring it to another industry and look like a genius, and all you'…”
Insight
Kelley: Breakthrough innovations frequently lie adjacent to the original problem
“Really happens a lot in design where you think you're working on one thing, but the real innovation is adjacent to that, and you pivot to the place where the real innovation is, and that's what happened in this case, and it has happened to a hundred times.”
Insight
Kelley: Guided mastery through small successes is the only way to unlock creativity
“And so what we tend to do, which we try to convince companies to do, this management of companies and ourselves, is to convince people that they have that inherent creativity is what we call guided mastery. If you can take the people in your group and lead the…”
Assertion Partly supported
Kelley: Innova Schools has 63 schools, 51k students, and 99% higher-ed rate
“Today, you know, we have 63 schools up and running 51,000 students, and, you know, 99% of those kids end up going to higher education.”
Insight
Kelley: Design thinking is driven by user resonance, not consensus
“No, it's not about consensus. It's about how excited you can get the people that what we call the center persona, what's going to be meaningful to them.”
Assertion Supported
Kelley: David Kelley Design created Apple's first mouse
“We got early involved in Apple and did the first mouse for them and many other products.”
Assertion Supported
Kelley: IDEO Predecessor Designed Around 50 Products for Apple
“And we ended up doing like 50 products for him, and Steve became a close friend and, you know, introduced me to my wife and couldn't have been closer to him. It was really that initial connection to Apple for IDEO, was called David Kelly Design at the time, th…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kelley: The Enorme Phone Failed Commercially Despite Widespread Acclaim
“But neither of us were much of a business person, and so we designed this phone and had them produced, but it just, as beautiful as it was, it appealed to designers, and so it sold to designers, but it wasn't functional enough to be a big hit, because AT&T was…”
Disclosure
David Kelley: IDEO handles 400 to 500 projects annually across industries
“You know, you have four or 500 projects going in a year. You know, you work across all kinds of different domains and industries, and in some ways, that's what makes you better.”
Disclosure
Kelley: Designed the Boeing 747 lavatory occupied sign early in career
“Well, the sign that I had responsible for happens to be one we all know well, which was the lavatory occupied sign.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kelley: Moving seats on Boeing planes required redrawing entire aircraft blueprints
“Every time they move a seat on the plane, the drawings for that plane has to be completely redone.”
David Kelley