乔布斯认为，简约化设计的一个核心要素就是让人能直观地感觉到它的简单易用。

Those goals do not always go together.

设计上的简单并不总能带来操作上的简易。

Sometimes a design can be so sleek and simple that a user finds it intimidating or unfriendly to navigate.

有时候，设计得太漂亮、太简化，用户用起来反而不会那么得心应手。

"The main thing in our design is that we have to make things intuitively obvious,"

“我们作设计的时候，最重要的事情就是让产品特性一目了然。”

Jobs told the crowd of design mavens.

乔布斯告诉一群设计专家。

For example, he extolled the desktop metaphor he was creating for the Macintosh.

作为例子，他高度赞扬自己为麦金塔电脑创造的桌面概念：

"People know how to deal with a desktop intuitively.

“人们直观上就知道该怎么处理桌面。

If you walk into an office, there are papers on the desk.

你走进办公室，桌子上有一堆文件。

The one on the top is the most important.

放在最上面的就是最重要的。

People know how to switch priority.

人们知道怎样转换优先级。

Part of the reason we model our computers on metaphors like the desktop is that we can leverage this experience people already have."

我们在设计电脑的时候引入桌面这个概念，一定程度上就是想充分利用人们已经拥有的这一经验。”

Speaking at the same time as Jobs that Wednesday afternoon,

那个周三下午，在乔布斯演讲的同时，

but in a smaller seminar room, was Maya Lin, twenty-three,

另一场演讲正在一个小型会议室里进行，发言人是23岁的林璎。

who had been catapulted into fame the previous November when her Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C.

前一年的11月份，林璎设计的越南战争纪念碑在华盛顿落成，她也因此一举成名。

They struck up a close friendship, and Jobs invited her to visit Apple.

乔布斯和她成了亲密的朋友，并邀请她访问苹果公司。

"I came to work with Steve for a week," Lin recalled.

“我和史蒂夫一起工作了一个星期，”林璎回忆说，

"I asked him, 'Why do computers look like clunky TV sets?

“我问他，为什么电脑看上去就像笨重的电视机？

Why don't you make something thin? Why not a flat laptop?'"

为什么你们不把它做得薄一点儿？为什么不做成平板的便携式电脑？”

Jobs replied that this was indeed his goal, as soon as the technology was ready.

乔布斯回答说那正是他的目标，只是现在技术还没有成熟。

At that time there was not much exciting happening in the realm of industrial design, Jobs felt.

那一时期，乔布斯觉得工业设计领域没有多少令人兴奋的事情。

He had a Richard Sapper lamp, which he admired, and he also liked the furniture of Charles and Ray Eames and the Braun products of Dieter Rams.

他有一盏理查德·萨珀设计的台灯，这是他很欣赏的一个作品，同时，他还喜欢伊姆斯夫妇设计的家具，以及迪特尔·拉姆斯设计的博朗产品。

But there were no towering figures energizing the world of industrial design the way that Raymond Loewy and Herbert Bayer had done.

但没有人能像当年的雷蒙德·洛伊和赫伯特·拜尔两位大师一样，推动工业设计领域的发展。

"There really wasn't much going on in industrial design,

“工业设计界真的没有什么激动人心的事情，

particularly in Silicon Valley, and Steve was very eager to change that," said Lin.

尤其是在硅谷，而史蒂夫急切盼望改变这一局面。”林璎说，

"His design sensibility is sleek but not slick, and it's playful.

“他的设计理念是：造型优美，但不能华而不实，同时还要充满乐趣。

He embraced minimalism, which came from his Zen devotion to simplicity,

他崇尚极简派的设计风格，这源自他作为一名佛教禅宗信徒对简单的热爱，

but he avoided allowing that to make his products cold. They stayed fun.

同时他又竭力避免陷入过度的简单而让产品显得冷冰冰的，要使产品的趣味感得以保留。

He's passionate and super-serious about design,

他对待设计充满热情、极其严肃，

but at the same time there's a sense of play."

同时，其中也带有一点玩乐精神。”

As Jobs's design sensibilities evolved,

随着乔布斯设计鉴赏力的不断提升，

he became particularly attracted to the Japanese style and began hanging out with its stars, such as Issey Miyake and I.M. Pei.

他开始尤其青睐日式风格，还渐渐地和三宅一生及贝聿铭这样的明星人物进行更多接触，

His Buddhist training was a big influence.

比如他的禅修对此有很大的影响。

"I have always found Buddhism, Japanese Zen Buddhism in particular, to be aesthetically sublime," he said.

“我一直都认为佛教--尤其是日本的佛教禅宗--在审美上是超群的。”他说，

"The most sublime thing I've ever seen are the gardens around Kyoto.

“我见过的最美的设计，就是京都地区的花园，

I'm deeply moved by what that culture has produced, and it's directly from Zen Buddhism."

这一文化的产物深深打动了我，而它们都直接源自佛教禅宗。”