Making design critique a part of the process
Critiquing a design does not mean judging it. Design critique is usually manifested in a group with a goal to improve the design and make sure the design meets it’s objective. In this process there are two facets to critique, a presenter who presents the design and critiques who gives inputs about the design. It is quite helpful if the critiques are for a variety of background and at times its benefitical to get critiques from people who are not directly involved in the project to get unbiased opinion. A design critique should be conducted at various stages of iteration and sooner this process starts the better it is to incorporate the feedbacks.
As a designer, we always work in team which consists of various roles which are involved in taking an idea from design stage to a final product. Design critique builds the cooperation and collaboration in the team as each member will be involved in improving the design at different stages of design. This help the designers get feedbacks from a developer about the technical fesability issues a design can have or the technical team can be prepared for the challenge they will be facing while working on a design. This process will not only improve the design but will also build trust and interaction amongst the team.
How to give a critique
A critique should be constructive and unbiased. Critiquing a design is not just meeting in a conference room and start pointing at the negatives of design. A person critiquing should primarily have an understanding about the business and the type of users that design will be catering. It is pointless if there is a lot of ego involved in the discussion, in such cases the main goal of design critique is lost and it becomes more of an agrument to win. Design critique is about giving opinions, hence statements like “I really like ….” Or “I didn’t like the ….” makes no sense. A critique should be updated about the current trends and style to give suggestions about evolving to a better design. It is important to observe while critiquing, a discussion about design components cannot happen if the critiques are not conscious about the styles.
How to take a critique
The first rule for a presenter is not to pitch or market the design this can make the critique cognitive biased. Second, the most important part is to ‘Listen’ and let the discussion flow easily, defending your design will kill the conversation and will take the discussion nowhere. Third, the feedbacks should not be taken personally. A designer should understand that they have gathered to critique the design not themselves. During the start of the session, they should explain the objective, personas, user flow, pain points, and task flow in brief to give an idea about journey of a design. When countering to a critique it should be more of storytelling of the though process rather than fighting to prove a point correct. As a presenter one should always be concise and brief, the group might loose interest if it is streched too long. Make sure to take enough notes to improvise the design and be prepared for the next round of critique with an improved design.
The challenging part is implementing these feedbacks into the design. There will be situations where a designer will get contradictory comments on the same feature, hence taking a call on what fits the objective of the design is essential. If the critique is conducted at a later stage it becomes difficult to incorporate the critiques, hence design critique should be conducted at an early stage and regularly so all the members are on the page and are updated about the progress. Design critique is not just about negatives the design might have, it is also about discussing the positives a design has. This will make the discussion healthy. Evaluating our work is essential to grow as designers, but evaluation can mislead us and thus conducting critique sessions will take our designs to new heights and we will grow as a team. Critique is a skill, you only get better with practice.
Critique is Critical thinking.