Jony Ive on Product, Data, and Marketing

I think the following quote (at the bottom of this post) is rather interesting, especially in the world of product development, and in some ways, even marketing.

With the rise of tech, and specific software platforms, there has been a rather large boom in the amount of data we can extract from everything we do. There is surely a wide range of platforms that are capable of tracking just about every little detail on your product — clicks, opens, sign-ups, churns, and the list goes on and on. And on some more.

But with all that being said, I recently stumbled across a note from Jony Ive, and it particularly stood out to me because it leaned in the opposite direction — data is a bit overvalued simply because it is not representive of what we actually do with our choices. The simple fact is most people make countless choices each day without data impacting their decision-making at all. Here’s the quote:

“People tend to be much more comfortable talking about product attributes that can be measured with a number. That’s a very safe conversation. Nobody can argue those numbers. People historically talk about things, for example, like price and speed. But in reality, we make most of our decisions in life on the absence of data.” — Jony Ive

For those who don’t know Jony Ive, he was essentially the designer behind Apple’s massive rise, helping Steve Jobs build the first iPhone and other key products.

I hope you found that interesting.

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