Steve Jobs was known for his complete obsession and dedication to high quality. He had standards that it was sometimes difficult to define that seemed to exceed the normal principles of great design and attempted to transcend into the world of infinity.
His standards were so high, in fact, that at times people were scared of him because they feared that their work at Apple on one of Steve’s projects would not meet up to his vision and it would be the last day they would be employed there. That being said, Steve was not impossible to please. If you tuned into his vision for product and the immense level of quality that he wanted to achieve, you could capture what he was after.
Just for fun, let’s imagine that Steve Jobs is here again to look over and review your business website. What would he say about it?
Borrowing from some of the real quotes and viewpoints that Jobs had on his projects with the Macintosh and the other innovative technologies that he was involved with, we have outlined some of the things Jobs might say below.
We hope you enjoy this and find that we have captured the spirit of Steve as well as get to you to consider how your site might be improved upon.
It has no vision.
If Steve looked at your page, hope that he wouldn’t say this. Vision is the ability to look beyond your present world, your present situation, and your present time and see how your invention (or website) fits into the grand scheme of things. Vision, to Steve, was something akin to religion. Computers, to him, were not a machine; they were an extension of the individual. Everything he did had a grandiose purpose, and every goal he set seemed to reach up to Heaven to spread its universal message to the masses.
Make sure your site has vision. If you don’t, you may be haunted by the ghost of Steve Jobs forever. And perhaps, you should be. Having vision today with your website might mean adapting to the changing technologies, allowing for mobile users, and being able to imagine how technologies that are yet to be invented will play a role in your online business. Dare to dream and then make it happen.
Don’t forget the fonts!
Jobs took Calligraphy at Columbia University before he dropped out to pursue his dreams and leave the bureaucracy of a college education behind. But he loved the beauty of Calligraphy. It was from this attachment to lovely curves in the lettering that he developed a love of unique fonts that he wanted to be featured in his Macintosh computer. When his early creative team forgot this feature in the original word processing program, he had an absolute raging fit and fired at least two people on the spot.
Fonts on your website are important because they help to capture the true personality of your site. Whether bold or faint, scripted or comic, your fonts should reflect the soul of your website by displaying your titles and headings in a professional but creative manner.
You look like the IBM type.
Steve Jobs hated IBM. In fact, it is said by people who knew him well, that his sole purpose in building the Apple company is so that he could put IBM out of business or at least seriously limit their power. Whether or not this is true remains a bit of a mystery, but there is no doubt that he loathed “IBM types.”
IBM built its brain on the business machines model. They represented “the establishment” in a big way, and that is what Jobs fought so hard at defeating. He wanted to show the world that computer technology was not meant just to serve the needs of businesses. It was a “tool for art.”
He once fired a man just because he came in with a white shirt and tie and looked like he never got out in the sun. Jobs was as tough as nails about his opinions, and he leveled many people who stood in his target range. Still, you have to admire his spirit and willingness to state what he wanted and what he didn’t want.
Jobs also created a national TV commercial which featured IBM as a George Orwellian “1984” Big Brother that was there to wreck the hopes and dreams of the world and set up a communist society that stifled independent thinking and the ability to dream of new ideas.
If your website looks too business-like, think about how you could spruce it up and make it a little more fun. Entertain for a minute the view of Steve Jobs and consider what your site is saying to your target customers. How does it make them feel?
Unless you are selling printers or copy machines, avoid looking too business-like. It will come off as annoying and won’t engage your coveted target audience.
This means having interesting content, color, and assets that will excite your viewers. Please, IBM types need not apply.
It’s a tool of the heart.
What does your website say to the heart and soul of your target audience? In his now historical speech in Silicon Valley upon the release of the 2003 iPod, Steve Jobs entered the arena and addressed over a thousand people to unveil the iPod. The iPod, now an icon of musical glee and mp3 archiving was then a brand new idea. He tried to explain what the iPod was about and looked for the perfect words.
Many people might have just said, “It’s a music player.” But that’s not what Jobs said. He said, “It’s a tool for the heart.”
This statement illustrated the extreme passion for sharing and heart and soul of his inventions with others so that they could find that same passion in the invention and share it with others. What is your website saying to your customers? What is it doing for their lives? How does it touch their heart?
If you want to sell an idea, start with the heart and the emotions.
Pretend the universe.
When Steve Jobs came back to Apple to join the Macintosh team again after selling his Apple shares and crashing the company’s stock when they let him go, he came back with a vengeance. He fired everyone but two key executives who had been involved in the “Next” computer company, a company he founded after being ousted from his Apple company months earlier.
One of the executives looked over at him and asked, “So Steve, what are we going to do now?”
Steve looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, “We’re going to pretend the universe.” This extreme view of creating the impossible from nothing is how Steve Jobs ran his business and ran his life. To him, anything was possible, and there were no obstacles.
What are your obstacles? Do you see the vision of all that your website could be or do you just see graphics and text? Do you dream big for your eCommerce site and then create a plan to bring it about?
Do you need some help doing this?
Call on us. We are webdesignteam.com. We didn’t know Steve Jobs. But we know he was a man with vision and determination who valued quality and would never settle.
At webdesignteam.com, you don’t have to settle either.
We can create the universe for your site. And we won’t forget the fonts.