How to Communicate Design
Facilitating design conversations that are actually valuable and result in meaningful feedback
As a designer of web products, I’ve found that effectively communicating my designs to colleagues is critical in order to receive valuable feedback. Yet, it is one of the most challenging aspects that comes with the role.
As a non-native English speaker, I sometimes find it difficult to express myself, which requires me to carefully structure my design conversations. In this article, we are going to explore some tactics that will help elevate the way design is communicated in order to ensure thoughtful feedback from various perspectives.
Why is feedback important in Product Design?
Gathering feedback during the design process is extremely important because it ensures that the design is coherent for multiple individuals. As part of the process, it is important to understand that the feedback you collect will be drawn from a range of people who have divergent skill-sets and experiences.
In order to maximize the effectiveness of design conversations, it is crucial to prepare discussions that better suit the audience that you will be talking to. You will have time afterwards to assemble all the feedback into ideas that will ultimately influence your design.
When the task of collecting feedback from various sources is effectively done, the resulting product has a better chance of being delightful, meaningful and actionable for a variety of people. This is critical to designing products that a wide audience can relate to and end up loving.
How to tackle design conversations
In order to get meaningful feedback, we need to be able to communicate designs through structured discussions. Taking time to properly set up your design conversations can save you from hours of ineffective, superficial and subjective feedback.
Let’s explore a few ways to level-up our communication strategies as designers.
Be mindful of who you are talking to
The role of the person you’re requesting feedback from often necessitates changes in how you frame the discussion around design work. Understanding their expertise and experience can help guide you in terms of what details you should provide and the type of feedback you should be focusing on.
Make sure that your colleagues know why you came to them in the first place.
“Hello sales guy, I need to know if you can log events with this design that I’ve been working on.”
“Oh hey engineer, I need to know how feasible this is to implement.”
“What’s up Marketing, I want to discuss how this design plays against our competitors.”
Plenty of different considerations are taken into designs and each one of those can be evaluated individually. People won’t distinguish those considerations from one another and will struggle to provide meaningful feedback unless you instruct them to focus on specific aspects. Structuring your conversations will help guide your colleagues to provide more useful feedback and will help get you past superficial statements like “it looks great” or “I like your colors”.
Frame the goals of the discussion
“I think that button should be a little darker?”
“Err yeah, you are right, I haven’t done visual design just yet. Let me adjust it… err better? Anyway, what do you think about the workflow?”
If you don’t begin a design conversation by outlining the type of feedback that you want to get out of the discussion, others will bring up anything that comes to mind — whether or not it’s relevant to where you are in your process.
-“Please disregard the colors and that side panel. What I want you to focus on is how we can better optimize for getting users from point A to point B”
Communicating the type of feedback that you are hoping to get out of the discussion will help to keep it focused. Creating an agenda or listing specific aspects that you want to discuss can help set a focused tone for the rest of the conversation.
Notwithstanding, don’t be afraid to leave some room for deviation. Allowing the discussion to go a little outside of the bounds can be productive. It can help cover things that you didn’t consider before. Just be a good judge and use the established boundaries to focus people back to the main topic if your discussion deviates too far.
Take the time to communicate the project background and tell your design process story
If you rush to ask for feedback you will get rushed answers. For example, you decided to set your laptop next to Dave: -“Hey man, what do you think about this?”, “Err yeah, it’s looking great. Keep it up!”. Not a really productive conversation, right?
Avoid the element of surprise by setting time aside to provide a comprehensive rundown of your design. Your design is a lot more than something to quickly look at in order to provide first impressions. It solves a problem and you want to align your peer’s mindset to that problem, so they can provide actionable feedback that focuses on solutions.
How much background should you provide?
The type of feedback that you are looking for and the level of background the person has when coming to the conversation will dictate the type of information that you need to provide in order to drive a fruitful discussion.
If the person you are soliciting feedback from is not part of your team or came into the process at the mid-point, you might want to invest some time explaining more background information. If they are working with you, you still need to make sure that they have the necessary details to drive an informed discussion. People have their own work priorities in mind and brushing-up on the underlying info goes a long way.
Some things to present that influenced your design are: business goals, specific problems that you are solving, limitations you’ve had to overcome, and anything else that you deem relevant. Making sure that the other side is aware of these aspects will help you avoid spending significant time discussing inputs to your work and, instead, focus the conversation on where you are in the process.
Lastly, tie your process back to the project background. It will show your peer that you have taken the time to think about the problem you were solving. If others feel that you truly understand the challenges, they will see past superficial details and focus on finding solutions to solve the critical problems.
Give people time to think
In an ideal world, you should send your designs and discussion goals to your peer(s) prior to any of your design discussions. That will give them time to think about the problem at hand and come prepared. However, this isn’t always feasible. Sometimes things just move too fast and not everyone has the time or desire to review things on their own.
Providing a thoughtful and focused introduction to your design leveraging the strategies explored above will give them some time to organize their thoughts and focus their attention to more specific and deeper problems.
Keep in mind that this doesn’t only apply to introducing your designs. Allow your peer to consider and answer in their own time when providing any type of feedback. Avoid the urge to fill every pause in your conversation. This will give people the opportunity to provide more thoughtful feedback.
Listen carefully
Lastly, the success of your discussion depends on your ability to effectively listen to what others have to say.
People generally don’t want to make you feel bad and this can result in missed feedback opportunities. If you feel that people are holding back on their comments, make sure to make them comfortable about criticizing your work. Reassure them that you are looking to improve your design and that constructive negative feedback is important to do so.
More importantly, lower your guard. Don’t take offense to anything that is said, even if it comes across as harsh. Take time to listen what people have to say and always respond with a thoughtful and positive attitude. Be aware that they are taking time to help make your project successful and you probably want them to do it again in the future. The more you can make them feel like an important contributor to the success of your work, the more likely you are to receive useful feedback.
Wrapping up
Clear communication is a crucial aspect of successful product design. Structuring your conversations before showing off your designs can optimize the quality and relevance of the feedback that you receive. Lastly, maintaining a positive attitude towards constructive criticism is important and will allow you to seize more opportunities for improvement.
