Bring joy to the printed word

The late great Steve Jobs was adamant about the importance of one thing when in charge at Apple. No product should go out until thoroughly tested and the most important thing was user experience. This above all built the foundation for what is one of the world’s richest companies. The importance of user experience has been built into generations of computers, then the iPod and latterly the iPhone and iPad. Rivals would point out that Apple Macs were under powered compared to their PCs and phone producers scoffed at Apple’s plans. They produced perfectly good computers or phones, missing the point that people enjoyed using Apple’s products and suffered when using theirs.

Jobs went further as seen in a video that has reappeared. He talks about the first AppleWriter laser printer. It combined a Canon desktop print engine, Apple’s AppleTalk protocol and Adobe PostScript. When it produced its first page, Jobs declared ‘this we can sell’. Nobody he pointed out was interested about what happened inside the box, just what it was capable or delivering. Many printers have yet to realise this. Many websites will still carry lists (often out of date) of equipment the company has; many more will try to explain what digital printing is as if this matters to print buyers. They do not need to know what happens inside the factory walls or how their job is produced. They want it at the right price, the right time and place and at the right quality. 

This is the user experience that Jobs was talking about. The buyer gets what they want in as simple way as possible. For Jobs the best approach was to decide what the customer experience should be and then work back to the technology need to provide this experience. Printers could do worse that adapt this. What should the reader’s experience be from the piece of print? Does it, in Marie Condo’s words, bring joy? If not, what can be changed? For if readers do not enjoy the print they handle, like Apple’s customers there is always the Microsoft and Windows option.