How We Run Design Critique Sessions
At BlaBlaCar, we’re obsessed about improving the way we deliver a better experience to our members. Everything we do goes under the microscope, with two simple questions in mind: What are we trying to achieve? Is there a better way to achieve that goal?
Let me take an example: design critique.
Our design critique pillars
Recently, we totally changed our design critique sessions. After carefully analyzing what was wrong with our previous format, we established the following pillars for our design critique sessions:
- It’s called Things That Rock
- It happens every week
- Everyone shows something
- No preparation needed
- 10 minutes per person
- Critique comes in the form of questions
- The session ends by a vote
Let’s go over each point in more details.
It’s called Things That Rock
The whole purpose of design critique is to improve our design. But a session called “design critique” doesn’t set a bar. It’s a neutral description of an activity. We understand the power of words and labels, so we thought it would help to us to be a more explicit about our own expectations.
When you come to this session, you know that you’re going to be evaluated against a clear criteria: Does your work rock?
Interestingly, while we know that it remains a subjective criteria, we believe that it’s helpful to have that bar in mind when working, because we have a pretty good idea of what the others will qualify as something that rocks.
It happens every week
In terms of team organization, the concept of cadence is regularly underestimated. Being able to anticipate and internalize when the design critique session is going to happen reinforces the overall agile rhythm we all follow.
On Tuesdays, at 2pm, it’s Things That Rock time. No exceptions. All the UX designers show up. It’s a pretty powerful mechanism, especially when combined with the following pillar.
Everyone shows something
To define the agenda of a design critique session, there’s generally two approaches:
Who wants to show something on Tuesday?
or
You’re showing something on Tuesday.
We chose a third approach, which kind of eliminates any efforts required to determine what will be the agenda:
Everyone shows something.
Which means that, every week, every UX designer has to share what he’s working on. It’s a tough rule. Because we all know that no designer produces great work every week. Sharing things that DON’T rock, when you’re already aware of it, is a painful moment.
That’s exactly why we don’t give room for “I don’t have anything to share this week” excuses. When you’re in the pit, your energy should be spent on listening to the feedback from friendly yet honest peers, not on trying to dodge bullets.
No preparation needed
Sometimes, anticipating critique can make a designer beef his work with artificial props: a nice story, a good image, a surprising metaphor. While those tools can be effective in other circumstances, we consider them to be a distraction during our design critique sessions.
What we want to look at is the actual work. And the actual work is easy to find: on the designer’s desk, virtual or not. Most of the time, the designer presenting is going to open a Sketch file or a InVision prototype, and talk over it. It’s not always perfect, and that’s OK. We’re all designers, we know how a design process can be messy, so that’s not what we look for. What we pay attention to are things like:
Is there a solid rationale behind that choice?
Is there a simpler way to achieve this?
Is this approach consistent with other areas of our product?
Is the decision criteria used the right one?
Is this addressing the initial problem?
10 minutes per person
When it’s your turn, you get 5 minutes to share your work, and 5 minutes to listen to feedback. 10 minutes, and we move on to the next person.
Sounds like a very short amount of time? Indeed. It feels the same when you’re the one presenting. You would like more time to explain the context, and to highlight a nice detail, and to justify a work-in-progress exploration, and to talk about what’s coming next.
But the truth is that all these additional pieces of information will not trigger better feedback. Which is why we time-box it to 5 minutes. 5 minutes is plenty enough to show something that deserves 5 minutes of feedback. If you need more time, it’s probably because you haven’t decided what is important and what is not. This time constraint is forcing you to pay attention to that. We believe it’s a good thing.
Critique comes in the form of questions
Once a designer has presented his work, we don’t jump on him with feedback. We just ask questions — I’ve posted specific examples here.
Why questions?
Because (good) questions aren’t easy to come up with — it forces everyone around the room to bring their best game.
Because questions are easier to digest, when statements can be hard to swallow.
Because questions open up the conversation, instead of closing it.
Because questions are places in your mind where answers fit.
The session ends by a vote
Last pillar, maybe the most unusual one for a design critique session: at the end of each one, we vote for the thing that rocked the most.
That’s right. We take two post-its, and we write down two names. Then we fold them, throw them into a hat, and we discover who the winner is.
It could look like a competitive ingredient, but it’s merely a reality check. Coming back to the first pillar, we aim to do Things That Rock. The final vote is just a way to clarify where the bar is. It does happen that a designer presents something great, and doesn’t win. It just means that another designer set the bar higher. And the vote makes it impossible to ignore.
Like everything we do, those pillars are not set in stone. They’re helping us right now, and they might change over time. Feel free to comment on them, or to share how you’re handling design critique on your side.
To add a human touch, here’s how folks on the team feel about this format:
When it’s our turn to critique other designers’ work, we become better at identifying what good design is and force ourselves to give constructive and relevant feedback. — Julien Pelletier
Every Tuesday, everybody has to ask himself: is this the right answer to my UX problem? — Charles-Henry Vespierre
Your work will be viewed by thousands of people, so not showing it to your team would be a huge mistake to start with. Those sessions help us embrace criticism. — Nicolas Duval
I hate this review. It’s not fair. I lost on a coin toss. — Etienne Servant
The progress between each session is impressive. Everything is improving: the quality of the questions, of the presentations, of the design. The final vote becomes very very delicate! — Julien Chenat
It’s useful to step back and focus less on details. At each session, you learn that you can do better. — Martin Boisramé
