Steve Jobs was infamous for demanding that every detail proposed to him be thought through to an almost excruciating level. Whenever we brought interface ideas or flows for his feedback, he would dig into the rationale asking “Why is it designed this way?” and “What else did you consider?”. If our reasoning was anything less than airtight, he would send us back to the drawing board. We learned quickly not to bring work to Steve unless every pixel had been obsessively deliberated.

This level of rigorous preparation was stressful but had an upside — it ensured we had considered solutions from all angles before finalizing designs. As difficult as the scrutiny was, it pushed us to have watertight logic supporting each decision. We knew never to go to Steve with half-baked ideas, so we would scrutinize and pressure test every screen until it was bulletproof.

While at times his questioning could feel interrogating, it prepared us to eloquently defend choices with the confidence earned from meticulous consideration. Internalizing Steve’s insistence on covering details shaped how we approached design thinking and doing holistically. Though intense, his high bar for preparedness ultimately elevated our work.