Steve Jobs' Greatest UX Rule That Most Designers Ignore

The one principle that can transform your design approach and create products users love.

In the world of design, we often get caught up in the latest trends, tools, and techniques. We obsess over color palettes, typography, and micro-interactions. But sometimes, we forget the most fundamental principle of great design — a principle that Steve Jobs understood better than most.

The Principle of Least Surprise

Steve Jobs once said: "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

This quote encapsulates what I consider Jobs' greatest UX rule: The Principle of Least Surprise. Simply put, a well-designed product should behave exactly as the user expects it to. No surprises, no confusion, no head-scratching moments where users wonder, "Why did it do that?"

This principle isn't flashy. It doesn't win design awards or get featured in design showcases. But it's the foundation of products that people love to use day after day.

Why Designers Ignore This Rule

Despite its importance, many designers ignore or undervalue this principle. Here's why:

• The allure of originality: Designers want to create something new and different. We want our work to stand out. But sometimes, this desire leads us to reinvent wheels that were perfectly round to begin with.
• Prioritizing aesthetics over function: Beautiful interfaces get more attention on design platforms. Functional interfaces get more usage in the real world.
• Complexity bias: As designers, we sometimes believe that complex solutions are more valuable than simple ones. We want to showcase our skills by solving difficult problems, even if those problems don't need to exist.

How Apple Applied This Principle

Under Jobs' leadership, Apple excelled at applying the Principle of Least Surprise. Consider the original iPhone:

• The touchscreen responded exactly as you'd expect when you touched it — no calibration needed, no stylus required.
• Pinch-to-zoom felt natural and intuitive, mimicking how we'd interact with physical objects.
• The home button always took you home, no matter where you were or what you were doing.

These interactions seem obvious now, but they were revolutionary at the time precisely because they aligned perfectly with users' expectations. They didn't surprise users; they delighted them by working exactly as expected.

Applying the Principle in Your Work

Here are some practical ways to apply the Principle of Least Surprise in your design work:

1. Embrace conventions: Don't reinvent established patterns unless you have a compelling reason. Users already know how to use a standard dropdown menu; your creative alternative might just confuse them.
2. Test with real users: Watch where they hesitate or make mistakes. These moments of friction often indicate that your design has surprised them in a negative way.
3. Be consistent: Ensure that similar actions produce similar results throughout your product. Inconsistency is a form of surprise that quickly erodes user trust.
4. Prioritize clarity over cleverness: Clear, straightforward solutions might not win design awards, but they win user loyalty.

The True Mark of Great Design

Jobs understood that the best design often goes unnoticed. When a product works exactly as expected, users don't stop to admire the design — they simply accomplish their goals and move on with their lives.

This invisibility is the true mark of great design. As Jobs himself said: "Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple."

So the next time you're designing a product or feature, ask yourself: "Will this surprise the user?" If the answer is yes, you might want to reconsider your approach. Because in UX design, the best surprises are often no surprises at all.