Why Design Review with Other Designers Is Useless

It’s useless when 80% is about praising the design and 20% is about challenging the design. When someone invites you to a design review session, save your pat on the back later for the pantry’s chat. Challenge the design for 80% of the time. You need to acknowledge if they’ve done a good work, but keep it to 20%. The goal is to improve the design. Ask a lot of WHYs, ask them to share insights from user research, ask them the business goals, ask them about the metrics. For each of the screen, ask them what’s the most important thing we’re driving users to, and how it helps the business to grow. Make sure you’re not just working on aesthetic, or working on the new design just because you feel it’s outdated. Design needs to be meaningful and impactful, to the users and to the business. That’s how you get a useful design review with other designers.