The Thing About Design Critiques
8 tips to help you emerge from your next design presentation feeling energized
Whether you’re a UX designer, visual designer, or product manager, you’ve probably had to present design work. Sometimes you emerge feeling stronger than ever about your design solution, or inspired by a new revelation. And sometimes your mind goes into overdrive devising a quick design pivot while tracking a giant hairball of open questions.
Here are some methods and tips I’ve picked up over the years that can help place your average design critique experience somewhere between the first two outcomes:
1. Pre-discuss. If your developer and product manager haven’t seen your designs by the time you all enter the critique room, you’re doing it wrong. Sharing a preview of your work can be as casual as you want, but it’s absolutely critical to gather at least some early feedback to catch edge cases and strengthen your designs before spending the team’s time reviewing them.
2. Who’s in the Room? Your critique should at a minimum include the designers, product manager, and developers who will bring this solution to life. This can also be a good opportunity to invite managerial and business stakeholders. No matter who you invite, request that all laptops be closed so attendees will be fully engaged in the conversation. Remember that you’re here to facilitate feedback, so try extra to draw it out from more timid attendees.
3. The Setup. The goal of the setup is to eliminate already-resolved questions up front and elicit conversations that can push your design forward. There is both method and art to this. Here’s one step-by-step format that I have found successful:
- Restate the problem you’re all here to solve
- Briefly summarize progress until now — keep it succinct!
- State any hard deadlines
- Verbalize new directions you’ve explored and eliminated since the last review. Don’t show visual artifacts yet! At this point, visuals of eliminated ideas are just distractions.
4. Strengths and Accepted Shortcomings. At this point, display your latest and greatest design work. Discuss both the strengths and accepted shortcomings of the work. Accepted shortcomings are weaker points in the design that don’t hinder its goals. Verbalizing these let’s the team peek into your thought process and helps them focus on questions that will drive the designs farther forward.
5. One Voice to Defend All Design Decisions. If there are multiple designers involved in the work that’s being presented and there’s a risk of talking over each other, assign a single delegate to lead. This person can defer questions to teammates if need be. If your design team can’t do this because you aren’t aligned amongst yourselves, you weren’t ready to spend the team’s time for a critique in the first place!
6. Don’t Design or Problem Solve in Real-time. Absolutely resist the urge to make live edits or jump to quick fixes during design review. Take avid notes instead, process the information on your own time, and make decisions when you are ready. Share your decisions with the larger team.
7. Have a Point of View but Keep an Open Mind. It’s important to be firm with your design reasoning while balancing a healthy intake of feedback. This is a soft skill that takes practice. Only back down for stronger reasoning than your own, regardless of job titles. But also try not to seem dismissive of others’ thoughts; you want everyone to feel like it’s safe to contribute. Even seemingly extraneous feedback can hide useful nuggets for designers, but you have to listen really well to catch them.
8. Take Notes. Really. Don’t try to be a hero! I’ve only met a couple people over the course of my career who could perfectly remember a slew of open questions and next steps without the help of notes. As the creator of a meticulously thought-out design, be as meticulous when tying up loose ends. Extra bonus: Participants will feel more heard if you’re jotting things down after they’re said.
I hope the above is useful on your journey to a more constructive, rewarding design critique! Contribute your own wisdom or experiences in the comments below.
