How to Give, and Accept, Design Critique
Constructive criticism is a critical part of successful design.
Whether you’re designing with a team or working on your own, there should be a place for constructive criticism in your workflow. It creates trust, facilitates learning, and most importantly, leads to a higher quality final product. Giving criticism can be fun — even refreshing. You stand around a table inspecting a colleagues work; hopefully complimenting the strengths, and willingly dolling out advice as you recognize potential areas for improvement.
But receiving criticism can be far less fun. You’re apt to linger on the weaknesses that others find and to downplay your own strengths. It’s a challenging process filled with tough emotions that, left unchecked, can hinder your motivation to improve in the future. But it doesn’t have to be that way. And fortunately, you get to decide how you receive criticism.
In this article, we’ll look at how to give constructive criticism to fellow designers in a way that builds confidence and trust. After that, we’ll shift to how to receive criticism and incorporate it into a better version of yourself.
How to give constructive criticism.
The ability to give constructive criticism is a critical skill necessary for effective teamwork and leadership. If you can take this process and implement it into your design career, you will produce higher-quality work and set yourself up for leadership positions in the future.
Interestingly, most people believe that managers tend to be too harsh with their feedback toward employees, If you’ve had a poor work experience, you know what it’s like to be the target of unbridled, inconsiderate criticism. Unfortunately, there are too many managers who treat their employees improperly. Interestingly, however, there are just as many managers who find it difficult to communicate effectively about the issues they perceive. They’ve been trained to build up and encourage their employees and, as a result, they do not know how to approach conflict effectively.
One of the most important components of constructive criticism is direct, honest communication. If there is a significant problem with a colleague’s work and you have been asked to review it, then you need to speak to that problem.
In order to solve problems, you must address them directly.
I’ll note that it is important to offer praise where praise is due. But do not offer contrived praise in an attempt to cushion your negative feedback. This can be viewed as a backhanded compliment once you move on to addressing the issue at hand.
Now, please note that I’m not advocating for a Gordon Ramsey approach to criticism. If a new designer uses Papyruson an event flyer, there are definitely issues to address. But that does not mean that you should hold a piece of bread to each side of their head and call them an idiot sandwich. The trust part of this equation comes from your ability to address issues tactfully.
As an example, consider that you’re building out a website for a corporate re-brand with a design team. You’ve moved past the concept phases with the client, and the team is working from well-defined branding and design guidelines for the site. If you’ve been part of this process, you know full well that a large website build requires tons of product, information, policy, campaign landing pages, and miscellaneous this-and-thats that have to be monotonously re-created with the new branding guidelines and assets. It’s a team effort, and it requires regular reviews to ensure quality and consistency.
As you get together with your team, you recognize that one designer in particular seems to be cutting corners. He’s working on form submission confirmations, campaign landing pages, and other seemingly small design-changes, and it looks like he’s trying to hold on to the old designs as much as possible while slapping the new branding and typography on. It’s sub-par work from someone who is still new, but has proven themselves once or twice before and should be capable of delivering high-quality work.
Time for a direct conversation.
I’m going to demonstrate the conversation two times. First, with destructive criticism. Then, with constructive.
Destructive:
Manager:”Brian, this is the same form but with a new typeface. Are you even interested in this project?”
Brian:“Actually, no it’s not. I switched to slightly rounded corners on the text areas and the stroke is a bit thinner as well, with aligns with the minimal aesthetic.”
Manager: “Ok, great. Two little changes. But it’s the same form with the same dimensions in the same place. The client has had 4% conversion into email on this page, and I don’t think rounded corners are going to be our magical solution.”
So on and so forth.
It’s only a few lines, but the scenario gives us enough information to work with. The manager is communicating in such as a way that Brian immediately has to go on the defensive to participate in the conversation. Even if Brian is in the wrong here, there’s no room for him to communicate his process so far, and the manager hasn’t taken any steps to learn more about the problem. If Brian is timid, he’ll probably begin to shut down at this point and just take the beating. If he’s less than timid, this could turn into a testy situation. Good for no-one, and it wastes a lot of time. Let’s look at constructive criticism:
Constructive:
Manager:“Brian, this looks to me like it’s the same form, but with a new typeface. Can you explain to me why you haven’t made any major design changes to this page?”
Brian:“Actually, there are a couple other small design changes, but I’ve effectively left the page the same because it’s a low-traffic page and I had to spend more time than I expected on one of our major landing pages.”
Manager: “Ok, that makes sense. Let’s move on to your landing page. But we are going to have to revisit this because the client has seen a low conversion rate on this page and it is going to be an important part of a future campaign.”
The transformation there is significant. In both cases, the manager was direct about the problem. In the second conversation, however, the manager digs deeper by asking a question. Rather than accusing Brian of being uninterested in the project, he asks him what led to the concept they’re looking at. When you give criticism, ask questions and allow others to walk you through their thoughts. This shows that you trust your team-mates and that you’re willing to learn from them.
The goal here is to implement two distinct characteristics into your constructive criticism:
First, you’re direct. You do not tip-toe around problems, and you address the issues that are negatively impacting the performance of your team. You give praise where praise is due, you offer constructive criticism and the opportunity for your team member to say their part when you find an issue.
Secondly, you’re cooperative. Regardless of whether you’re an entry-level designer or a senior art director, you cannot do it all by yourself. By being cooperative, you facilitate communication that solves problems and you invite your teammates to learn from mistakes and provide better solutions.
Without constructive criticism, projects will not become better. If the team had not met for a review, or if the manager preferred to avoid conflict, Brian’s under-performing landing page would have gone on to negatively affect a future campaign, costing the client money and perhaps, costing the design team a valuable client.
Let’s shift our focus now to how to receive criticism:
How to receive, and learn from, criticism as a designer:
There are few gifts greater than a well-constructed critique of your design work. When this is done well, you will understand what your strengths are, where your weaknesses lie, and exactly where you need to begin to make the changes that will take your work from good to great. In my opinion, no work will be great unless it first goes through this process. You must revise, refine, and re-submit throughout your career.
My guess is that the great leaders you’ll come across from time to time will have the skills necessary to help you learn from their input and to advance your design skills under their wing. For that reason, I’m not going to detail how to accept and implement positive criticism, because your managers and peers who do this well will give you what you need.
Instead, what do you do with really crappy input from your team or your clients? For example, a client sees your work and says that he ultimately likes it, but that it just feels like it’s lacking something, or like it doesn’t pop… Or, on the other hand, your manager tells you that it sucks, that you failed on the color, layout, and typography, and that you better fix it, then walks out.
Those situations are much more difficult to navigate, and rightly so. Here are three steps you can take to learn from and implement crappy criticism.
Be patient:
First and foremost, be patient. If your manager or a client is treating you unprofessionally, there may very likely be something else that is bothering them. On a bad day, it’s natural to exaggerate small problems beyond their scope. This is your opportunity to listen to the critic and to seek more in-depth understanding of the feedback you’re receiving. Remember to stay on topic and to discuss the project itself, and nothing else. If the person you’re speaking with wants to bring up other issues, it’s clear that something else is causing this problem.
Patiently, but firmly, focus the conversation on the project that you’re discussing and show that you value your critic’s input. You’ll do this by asking questions and noting the answers.
Ask questions:
Usually, when you’re dealing with ambiguous or unprofessional criticism, the initial focus is on large-scale issues. If the client likes it overall but doesn’t feel like it “pops,” there is very likely a specific problem that he or she is failing to communicate, but will share with you if you facilitate conversation. Likewise, if someone is angry with your work, they’re probably not focused on a single minor detail, but the project on the whole.
It is your responsibility to determine which components of your work failed to meet expectations and to correct them. It is not your responsibilityto read minds, decide that you should start with a blank slate when you still don’t know what the problem is, take a beating during every review (if this happens, it may be time for a new job), or agree that you’re an idiot sandwich when Gordon Ramsay put a slice of bread on each side of your head.
You are a professional designer. You’re prone to mistakes like the rest of us, but you are willing to learn and correct your errors to produce a quality product. So, begin with large-scale questions and work your way down. If you have the original design brief on hand, start there:
Client: “Dude. This isn’t going to work. We’re trying to advertise a freaking music fest here, not just a Paramore concert on Saturday.”
You: “Ok, so when we did the design brief, I noted that this is a concert poster for an alternative music fest. Paramore will be headlining on Saturday evening, and others will play on the MainStage throughout the day. Do you believe that I’ve missed the mark on the design aesthetic for the fest, or are you having trouble seeing the intended message through all of the information here?”
Client: “No, it’s not that you missed the mark. I feel like this is just a poster for Paramore, and the other bands are an afterthought. I’ve already gotten so much crap from them over the last 6 weeks and I know they’re going to be calling me and asking if they’re going to be advertised at all if they see this.”
You: “Ok I totally understand that. So your smaller bands are feeling like they may not see a good turnout because of their low ad exposure and you’d like to help them out with this design. Do you have any ideas for what you’d like to see here, or would you prefer that I take this back and work on placement and sizing before our next meeting?”
By working from the brief down to the specific issues, you invite the client or your manager to have direct input on the issues that they feel are important. This conversation goes progressively from macro issues to micro issues and could get as detailed as the actual size of each band on the poster. Be careful to maintain boundaries here and to keep creative control for the project, but also make a point to seek more detailed input so that you can address the issues that matter, rather than just shooting in the dark.
Communicate ideas:
Finally, there may be times when your client or manager just feels out of the loop on the project. They might objectively like the design, but they’ve been left out of the concept work or otherwise significant decisions, and they want to feel as if they played a role in the project. Perhaps without even realizing it, they’re suggesting unnecessary changes just to put their mark on the team project.
This is devastating to effective teamwork and will always reduce the quality of your project. The bright side, however, is that it’s almost always avoidable.
If you can, before you begin working on a project, spend some time with the team that will review and ultimately approve the final project. Ask them to share their ideas, and make sure you’re taking notes. Repeat those ideas back to them and demonstrate that you understand what your team members and clients expect from the project.
If you weren’t able to do this in the beginning and now you’re struggling for control of the project as you receive pointless criticism from people who want a say in the final outcome, shift your focus away from your design work for the next few minutes of the meeting. Instead of allowing everyone to give their input, ask politely if you can share your ideas for the project and then get collective feedback on the knowledge you’re working from.
Here’s your moment to shine.
If you’ve been taking notes, as I mentioned, you have everything you need to become a team superstar. Skim those notes quickly and choose one or two ideas from each of the problem-causing team-members that line up with your own thoughts in some way. If someone suggested that the font pairing might not be the best, you might say “Mia, you’re totally right about being careful to find the right font pairing for this design. I actually have some concepts with different pairings, so I’ll be happy to get those to you to discuss how I arrived at where we’re at now.” Or, “Tim, I love your point about the margins. Do you still have the specs for finishing on hand here? I’ll take another look, and we can make sure that we’re well within our safety.”
You’re not promising to make any changes at all, but you are letting your team-mates know that their input is vital to the success of the project (even if you know the finishing specs like the back of your hand and not a single element is off the grid). The point here is to communicate your ideas and to let your team members and clients in on the decision-making process that has led to the work you’re reviewing. Most likely, Tim and Mia will be satisfied when you double check that the margins are good and share your typeface concepts.
In most cases, teams will come together, build each other up, and produce work that is better than the individual can on her own. But there will be times when it’s up to you to take ambiguous or unprofessional criticism and turn it into valuable input. If you can build relationships while doing this, you’re on the fast-track to success. At a minimum, use these tips to maintain your own sanity as you do what you love.
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