Design reviews/critiques can be intimidating. We’re often told that we should separate the individual from the work they produce, but inevitably we feel vulnerable when we put our work out there. That said, the value you get from design reviews far outweighs the temporary discomfort you might feel. A fresh perspective or a different outlook can make all the difference in taking your designs from good to great.
Usually, it’s not as simple as gathering everyone in a room, presenting your designs, and then asking for feedback. If your review is done this way, you might end up with irrelevant feedback, a confused audience, or a crushed spirit. The more strategic you are with the format of your design reviews, the more you can focus on getting the most value out of your design reviews without leaving with a bruised ego. Whether you’re reviewing with other designers or with stakeholders, here are some tips that I’ve found useful to follow when I do design reviews:
- Do a mini design review before the actual one
Review with 1–2 people before the actual design review - Set context
Explain the “why” and enable everyone to participate equally - Specify the type of feedback you want
Guide your audience on what to look out for - Tell stories, not interactions
Focus on your personas while engaging your audience - Reserve feedback for after the first run-through
Keep the conversation on track while still being open to questions - Write down feedback visibly
Show others that you’re listening and open to feedback - Participate in other design reviews
Return the favor and learn something new
Do a mini design review before the actual one
Pick 1–2 individuals who will be attending your design review and do a mini design review with them before the actual one. This sets context for them in advance and gives them a chance to share feedback that you can incorporate before the real design review. These people will then become your allies during the actual design review because they already understand the context and rationale behind your designs. They will more feel invested since they already spent time thinking about and sharing thoughts on your design. You’ll feel better knowing that at least one other person in the room understands you and can support you. It also encourages you to do a couple more iterations to refine your designs before taking it to a wider audience.
I did my first design review ever a few weeks on a job as a new product designer. Frankly, it didn’t go well — no one in the room had seen my designs before, I didn’t set enough background for everyone to understand the problem, and the combination of these things made me nervous. It resulted in confusion and a sad walk back to my desk. After the meeting, I asked my manager at the time what I could do differently, and one of the things they told me was to do a mini design review in advance. Next time I planned a design review, I reviewed with one other person before the actual review. I felt more comfortable in this 1:1 setting and received a ton of great feedback to iterate on my designs with. That second design review went a lot more smoothly. During the review, this person vocally supported my design decisions and even helped me set context for others. I felt more confident and less vulnerable knowing I had already validated with at least one person in the room who I can also lean on for support.
Set context
With everything, it’s important to set context. It levels the playing field and helps explain the “why” behind what you’re doing. Especially when reviewing with people that don’t work on your project, it’s important to talk through the problem you’re trying to solve, technical constraints, or any assumptions that were made. Without full context, you risk people not understanding the motivations behind your design, thus resulting in surface-level feedback. Before showing any screens, cover the bases by talking through the customer problem you’re solving, why it’s important to be solving this now, and any constraints that impacted your design decisions.
Let’s take an example. You’re designing a workflow in which a mail carrier can manually update the delivery time of a package. The reason for adding this feature was that in certain areas where connection was poor, the delivery time wouldn’t be captured automatically. Thus, mail carriers would be penalized for appearing to deliver packages late. During your design review, you go straight into the mockups without setting any of this context. People in the room are stuck wondering “Why would we need to let them change the delivery time?” or “Isn’t this already automatically handled by the system?” and not being able to focus on the designs that you are presenting to give concrete feedback.
Even if there’s only one person in the room that doesn’t have context, set the context for everyone again. It ensures that everyone can equally participate in the review, and it doesn’t hurt to remind others of the context a second or third time. I find this especially important when a new person joins, so that you can help them onboard while giving them a chance to participate.
Specify the type of feedback you want
What type of feedback are you looking for? Specifying this at the beginning of the design review will help the audience know what to look out for. If it’s an early concept you’re reviewing, clarify that you do not want them to focus on the visual details and instead on the overall direction and end to end flow. Conversely, if you’re doing fit and finish, welcome your audience to give you feedback on the visual details, colors, and styles used. This ensures the feedback you get is what you need to improve your design and move forward.
Thanks to Bonnie Zhang for this tip!
Tell stories, not interactions
Use your personas and scenarios to tell a story. Stories keep people engaged and make it easier for people to understand what you’re trying to do. It also ensures that the focus remains on solving a problem for your user, not just building a cool new feature that will sell. It’s also just more entertaining than walking through a step by step interaction that has no plot or characters. Compare the below:
- 👎🏻 The user clicks on the magic sign-in link and then goes to their email to click the link and signs in.
- 👍🏻 Georgina is tired of typing her password for the 5th time today. She sees an option to sign in with a magic link without a password. Overjoyed, she immediately chooses that option and signs in through her email with a breeze, not needing to remember which password she used.
The first example doesn’t tell you much about the persona or problem — it just describes the interaction. The latter example introduces a character, a pain point that character faces, the solution that your design presents, and the resolution of the character’s pain point. Talking in this fashion will keep your design review focused on the user/problem and your audience engaged.
Reserve feedback for after the first run-through
Before you start presenting your designs, tell your audience that you would like to go through everything at least once before they start giving feedback. It gives you a chance to explain your rationale before people start jumping to conclusions. You might even unintentionally address someone’s feedback before they share it out loud. It also keeps the design review focused and limits the potential for the conversation to go off track.
That being said, don’t stop people from asking clarifying questions. Questions are a good thing because they reveal what causes confusion or what needs improvement so you can go back and fix it. 🛠
Write down feedback visibly
When people are giving you feedback during the design review, write it down in front of them. This doesn’t mean you have to take their feedback, but it shows that you’re listening and open to their feedback. It tells others that you’ve committed to at least considering their feedback. It’s also helpful to write down who exactly gave the feedback so that later if you need clarification, you can reach out to that person. The way I like to do this is with the comment feature on prototyping tools. In Figma, I simply turn on the commenting feature and drop a comment to log someone’s feedback. That way, everyone can read what the feedback is and see that I kept a record of their feedback.
If you prefer handwriting notes, you can still write feedback on paper which will also signal to others that you are actively considering their feedback. Or if you’re not the fastest typer or writer, you could ask another person to help you write down feedback. If you do it this way, consider having them drop comments onto the file and then show them along the way after they are logged so everyone can see.
Participate in other design reviews
As important it is to receive critique, it’s equally important to be able to give critique. Since you already know how valuable design reviews are for improving the quality of your work, return the favor and participate in reviews of other designers. Not only is it a good opportunity for you to practice how to give constructive feedback, but also a way to build relationships within your design team. One of the great things about design teams > 1 is having a sounding board with other designers. Maybe you’ll even hear something that you can take back and incorporate into your own work!
Try it!
These are some of the ways I format my design reviews to get the kind of feedback that I need to inspire and unblock myself. Try them out during your next design review and let me know how it goes. 😸
Have more tips for getting the most out of design reviews? Share them below!
