Design

Steve Jobs emphasized design because humanity deserves better. It's a noble attitude, but paradoxically humanity often ignores design when people run corporations. The main argument is that design provides marginal advantage in the market at best. While empirical studies are not very solid, it's noticeable that many corporations view design as cosmetics. Explaining simplicity isn't necessarily minimalism to corporations often doesn't make profit. In short, few believes humanity deserves better.

Before convincing corporations the importance of design, perhaps designers should establish it as a strategy. People often judge products by their quality and don't necessarily buy the cheapest product. If design can become a critical factor of quality, it may justify the premium.

The market for design is pretty harsh. Despite Apple's success, most corporations pay lip service to its approach. Endless number of executives cut design budget and expect business success.

The reason might run deep. It's that beauty is a mystery. Few people appreciate high beauty beyond sex.

There is beauty in sex, driven by biological evolution. There is also beauty in sunrise and sunset, the reason of which is obscure. And to appreciate the beauty of particle physics and scheme theory requires extraordinary efforts and senses. All of this is still poorly understood, but it might explain why most people ignores good design when running corporations, that they can not see the beauty of a well-designed product.

Designers are against base human nature.