Do software designers report to Jony Ive

[Rogifan]

Earlier this year when it leaked that human interface VP Greg Christie was retiring, it was reported that his team now reported to Jony Ive. However, at an event in London today Ive said:

"I like to work on a small team. There is only 18 of us on the design team. Nobody has ever left."

I assume that 18 is in reference to hardware designers, so who are the human interface designers reporting to then? Craig Federighi? And is Craig then responsible for software UI design?

 

[vigilant]

Earlier this year when it leaked that human interface VP Greg Christie was retiring, it was reported that his team now reported to Jony Ive. However, at an event in London today Ive said:



I assume that 18 is in reference to hardware designers, so who are the human interface designers reporting to then? Craig Federighi? And is Craig then responsible for software UI design?

I believe all software engineers report to Craig Federighi, but Ives provides overall guidance for interface design. I don't think he has any "direct repots" in actual software.

I could be wrong though.

 

[Rogifan]

I believe all software engineers report to Craig Federighi, but Ives provides overall guidance for interface design. I don't think he has any "direct repots" in actual software.

I could be wrong though.

That's what I'm wondering as 9to5Mac and Tech Crunch seem to think they report to Ive now. But when he references 18 people on his design team he's clearly only talking about hardware designers. Perhaps the rumor mill was wrong or it's a dotted line reporting relationship?

http://9to5mac.com/2014/04/09/jony-...ne-interface-creator-greg-christie-departing/

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/09/ve...arting-and-his-group-will-report-to-jony-ive/

 

[vigilant]

That's what I'm wondering as 9to5Mac and Tech Crunch seem to think they report to Ive now. But when he references 18 people on his design team he's clearly only talking about hardware designers. Perhaps the rumor mill was wrong or it's a dotted line reporting relationship?

http://9to5mac.com/2014/04/09/jony-...ne-interface-creator-greg-christie-departing/

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/09/ve...arting-and-his-group-will-report-to-jony-ive/

I think theres more to all of this. Smaller teams are more creative, but you can have many small teams each with specific focuses.

For example, the broad UI interactions could be a team of 18, but implementing them in meaningful ways into the Finder has many of it's own more specific interactions. That I'd imagine would be a notably smaller team doing those specific interactions.

I've never done specific UI development myself, but I've managed and worked with team for development for a few years. You can build very purposeful teams that are small to fix very specific problems. A single team could be tasked with updating the Mail.app to use Grand Central Dispatch.

 

[Rogifan]

I think theres more to all of this. Smaller teams are more creative, but you can have many small teams each with specific focuses.

For example, the broad UI interactions could be a team of 18, but implementing them in meaningful ways into the Finder has many of it's own more specific interactions. That I'd imagine would be a notably smaller team doing those specific interactions.

I've never done specific UI development myself, but I've managed and worked with team for development for a few years. You can build very purposeful teams that are small to fix very specific problems. A single team could be tasked with updating the Mail.app to use Grand Central Dispatch.

Based on patent filings Ive's core hardware design team is around 17-18 people. When Scott Forstall was let go the WSJ reported that the human interface team under him was ~20 people or so. Before iOS 7 was released Businessweek ran a story on Ive painting a picture of someone very involved with the UI changes. But whenever he's interviewed he never talks about software which makes me wonder how involved he is.