Jobs commented that “one of the design goals was when you saw it you wanted to lick it”. Riffing off that comment, New York Times tech journalist David Pogue later described the scrollbars as “lickable globs of Crest Berrylicious Toothpaste Gel”

How interesting it is that a simple word can convey such a rich (and pleasant) set of sensory experiences. My favorite part of any project is seeing how language and coded messages become internalized by the team, and I consider it a great success when the preverbal communication a team shared can be conveyed to our users and customers.

I wonder if the power of ‘lickable’ is the fact that the team coined it organically. It wasn’t something that they read in a book, but rather it was the output of there creativity. They own that word. It’s definite evidence that the team is in a creative state that they are generating new terms and descriptions.

hehe – I imagine the intern bringing in her design “Lickable?”, she asks. And the team just laughs.

-Newman