Looking for a word

Found this great quote by Steve Jobs:

“Look at the design of a lot of consumer products — they’re really complicated surfaces. We tried to make something much more holistic and simple. When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don’t put in the time or energy to get there. We believe that customers are smart, and want objects which are well thought through.”

“Living with the problem” might be the best term we get for this. The key to it is that it takes time and sustained focus on a problem to really understand it…to see it from different angles and to understand it fully. For me this becomes easier when you prototype and test often…when you watch people use your product over and over again enough so that you see the usage patterns that aren’t obvious. This can be done most readily by talking with and observing your users use your product every single day…but of course that’s easier said than done.

I think we need a word for this…this sustained exposure to a problem when you live with it long enough that you get through the obvious assumptions…the first pass solutions that most people would come up with. You then get to the more subtle solutions, the elegant ones that aren’t visible at first.