Dissecting a Compliment Sandwich: The Art of Critique

When I first started my current job, all I heard was negativity about my designs. There were no compliments. The only words I heard were complaints, questions and concerns. I’m not going to lie — it was brutal.

Finally I spoke up and asked hey, am I doing anything right?

It was then that my lead realized that her only goal had always been to scrutinize and discover ways of improving my work, regardless of my self-esteem.

Things started to change almost immediately after that conversation. Suddenly she was pointing out what she liked (“I like how you displayed this information here”) followed by a critique (“But I think these two sections need to be tied together more”).

It forced her to take a wider look at the work instead of trying to pinpoint problem areas. It also helped me identify my strengths as well as my weaknesses and guided me on a corrective path.

When everything is negative, it’s hard to tell what fields to focus on when “everything is terrible.”

People tend to get held up on negative feedback. It’s human nature — we want to please others. There are some people who couldn’t care less and continue on their day, but most people seek the approval of their peers.

I’ve spoken to a few colleagues who told me, “If I only point out a few things wrong, that means I liked the rest.”

I asked them how the recipient of this feedback was supposed to know this.

“Well I assumed it was obvious.”

No — it’s not obvious. It’s not obvious at all when your words are only negative. They hang there, echoing in the worst way in our minds. Self doubt leads to sub par work, and it’s a vicious cycle of negativity.

Part of a good critique is figuring out how your designer reacts to your observations.

They may not understand “this design has too much tension” and may be more receptive to “I’m having trouble understanding the relationship between elements. Have you tried increasing the whitespace?”

Identifying problems while also giving solutions shows that you’re not just complaining — you are trying to solve a problem together. Be careful to leave some open room for solutions though, so that it comes across as a suggestion rather than a direct order.

When I’m critiquing work, I usually start with these steps:

• Is it easy to understand what I’m supposed to do on this page/view? (What am I looking at?)
• Does the design satisfy the requirements?
• Does spacing make sense/good hierarchy?
• Does the content stand out in a visually pleasing way? (Not too wireframey?)
• Are we using previously established patterns?

Once I establish some problem areas with a design, I try to follow this pattern:

1. Compliment something — usually I start with a good color choice.
2. Point out a problem area I see (too much text in one area makes it hard to parse)
3. Suggest a way to break up the text and try something more visual (maybe icons?)
4. Compliment something — the typography is really solid
5. Suggest lightening up the body text a little since it’s a little too contrasted against the light background
6. Compliment something — their attention to detail and consistent spacing, and work on improving readability.

For every problem I saw, I tried my best to find something I liked to say first.

I pointed out why I was mentioning something, along with a suggestion on how to solve the issue. I also ended on a high note, and encouraged them to focus their attention on one area for improvement. If they are still struggling on the same issue for the next design, there may be a communication issue and something is obviously not clicking.

My lead and I now have a great relationship, and best yet — an understanding of how we both communicate. She doesn’t even need to complete a thought out loud because I’m already on the same page.

And while she may do the occasional, “I don’t like [x]” and just leave that there like a stale banana rotting on a table, I know it’s because she cares and not because I’m the worst designer she’s ever met. At least, that’s what I tell myself at night.

TLDR

Don’t jump at the chance to point out problems you see in a design. Take a moment to reflect the work and appreciate the good decisions that were made.