Original Mac calculator design came from letting Steve Jobs play with menus for 10 minutes

Rather than continue the endless revision cycle, Espinosa took a different approach. According to Hertzfeld, Espinosa created a program that exposed every visual parameter of the calculator through pull-down menus: line thickness, button sizes, background patterns, and more. When Jobs sat down with it, he spent about 10 minutes adjusting settings until he found a combination he liked.

The approach worked. When given direct control over the parameters rather than having to…