To be a designer is to have your work as the subject of a lot of regular feedback, whether it be direct with users, or in a design critique with other designers and stakeholders. This feedback is an integral part of the design process and building successful products. When done incorrectly, or in a space that doesn't feel safe, it can be harmful to the designer's wellbeing and the product's outcomes.
The design critique is a staple tool in the design team pantry, but it can often be a place of fear of criticism or un-constructive feedback. The term “critique” evokes a sense of critical examination; a food critic tearing down the work of the chef. This can be daunting especially when first starting out.
By changing the language around feedback, we can feel safer to share less polished ideas more often.
At Mr Yum, design critiques have been rebranded as “design reviews”. A design review is a sense check; it’s about asking if we’re on the right track, and identifying what we have missed or forgotten with the design solution. It’s there to enable the designer to gather inputs they need to move forward, it’s up to them which inputs they decide are relevant and worth including in future iterations of their solution.
How we design review
We conduct our design reviews weekly remotely using Around, a collaborative video call tool. These sessions exist only to help the designer or research who needs support on what they’re currently working on.
- Generating ideas — When you’re just getting started, and want to collect any ideas that your team may have already thought of.
- Unblocking — Sometimes you can fall into analysis paralysis when looking at a problem or design for too long, and it’s helpful to get other perspectives to move forward confidently.
- Elevating quality & consistency of our designs and research — Leveraging existing patterns, exploring new ones, everything from visual design to interaction details to how we plan a research project.
- Sharing context & insights — Provide the broader team with a heads-up on what’s about to go into delivery, or what you’re learning or unpacking through research or discovery.
We also have a #design-review slack channel for anytime someone has something they need help on, they can share a Loom video recording, a Figma prototype, or even an emoji poll to get a quick sense check.
Framing feedback
Designers, researchers, product managers, and engineering leads attend our design reviews, and we often get drop-ins like our CEO or COO, or team members from customer success, onboarding or support.
Given the diverse range of participants, and in order to maintain a safe space where designers and researchers feel confident and comfortable to share their work in progress, we start each session by setting intentions, context, and guardrails.
- Ask the audience to keep an open mind, to be engaged, be empathetic, and to be constructive. They should be committed to helping the designer move forward.
- Provide context on what you’re working on, why it’s important and what success looks like for the design or project.
- Provide guardrails for the type of feedback you’re looking for, be specific on what is in and out of the scope of the discussion.
Feedback is a two way street, and as an audience member at a review, you have an important part to play. As Julie Zhuo writes in her book, The Making of a Manager, “your feedback only counts if it makes things better.”
- Be clear and specific — focus on one piece of feedback at a time. If you’re too vague or broad, the person receiving it may take it the wrong way, or not understand what action to take from your input. Get to the why behind your feedback so it’s easier for the designer to know what you mean.
- Frame your feedback as a question — by framing your feedback as a question (”have you considered…”), you’re inviting the designer to show more of their rationale or to think of other options, not just the one you’ve presented. For example, have you considered changing the copy on that button to be more action oriented?
- Frame your feedback as subjective — Your feedback is still an assumption until validated with real users. Use statements like “I could be wrong” or “this is just my opinion/bias” to let the designer know it’s okay if they disagree. Ask the designer how they plan on testing their solution, or ask whether they think it’s worth validating your feedback.
Design needs a safe space
Embedding safe feedback practises into our design process encourages more scrappy ideas to come to the surface. People feel more comfortable to share all types of ideas, flexing their feedback muscles more regularly.
Design review can be a place for play and experimentation. We often find ourselves playing with a new tool or product or jumping in and live designing together in Figma.
Building rapport is crucial to providing feedback people will absorb well. If they know that you really care about them and their growth, they’ll be more receptive to your comments on their work. To put your work out there is to be vulnerable - acknowledge their courage and the effort they’ve put in.
This quote from The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle sums it up nicely:
“Building purpose in a creative group is not about generating a brilliant moment of breakthrough but rather about building systems that can churn through lots of ideas in order to help unearth the right choices.”
Rethinking our design critique approach is necessary for creating a positive and productive design process. By shifting our focus towards review and creating a culture of psychological safety, we can foster a collaborative environment where everyone's ideas are valued and our designs can truly shine. ✨✨✨