Last night, we went to a barbecue at some first-years' house up in the Berkeley Hills. The boyfriend of one of the first-year students is a product designer who works in Cupertino for a technology company called Apple. They make iPods. He designs what's coming next. So after talking with him for a bit, he tells me that part of his job involves making buttons^(†). Not software— the physical construction of buttons onto the plastic/aluminum. He said he went to Best Buy and just played around with every imaginable consumer product to find out what the best "feel" is for buttons. Turns out, a user can be easily frustrated if things don't feel responsive... the whole interface needs to feel "just right."

I, for one, think it's awesome that Apple cares so much about how the person interacts with the product that they have people spending time and R&D money to make the product just right. Let's hope more technology companies figure this out...

^(†) He also does other things like choose the exact colors and materials for the poly enclosures... to me, it sounded like the best job in the world. I'm so jealous.