Breaking Bread and Sharing Ideas
How to give and receive design feedback.
Once a month, the OpenIDEO Atlanta Chapter gathers around a dinner table to meet new people, discuss a design topic, and share ideas around opportunities to make an impact in Atlanta.
We gathered with a couple of local designers around a long table and as others arrived we settled into the sounds of low chatter, music, and cold drinks. The place: Varuni Napoli. The topic of the night — How to give and receive feedback. How is feedback different when you’re working in different spaces — with a client, in school, with other designers, or other people in your team? Here are a couple of ideas from our experiences on how to give feedback:
The Critique Sandwich
Start with the good, mention the bad, and end with something good. The idea of the critique sandwich is to highlight the good parts of a design first. Then move on to what’s not really working and top it off with some things that could be improved on.
The Quadrants
Positive and helpful, negative and helpful, positive and not helpful and negative and not helpful. Ranked from best to worst these are the quadrants where your critiques should fall. You want to stay in the top helpful areas as much as possible and as far away from from the not helpful bottom left.
Frame your feedback in a question
This one is especially useful when working with clients who aren’t sure what they’re looking for. Framing your feedback in a question allows you to give them a better idea of your design and also helps you to understand them.
After we shared ideas on how to give feedback we then got to thinking. How do we receive feedback?
Know what you want feedback on and be specific
“So what do you want feedback on?”
“I don’t know…anything”
If your feedback session begins this way, chances are it’s going to be very scattered, long drawn, focused on details that don’t matter, and you’ll be left with more questions than answers. It’s always great to pick a couple of specific areas that you want feedback on. Need a little help with this? Try pointing out the areas that you struggled the most with.
Put a bit of distance between yourself and your design
Design can be a very personal process but when critiques are given it’s important to not take them personally. Putting some space between yourself and your designs can help you see things objectively and allow you to receive feedback more openly.
Speak their language
Whether you’re speaking to other designers, developers, product owners, business stakeholders, or clients. Knowing how they communicate is key to receiving their feedback.
Ask questions and try to see things from their perspective
Turns out this one works well on both ends. Things can get lost in communication especially when the intent isn’t obvious. Asking questions allows you to see how the outcome of a design matches the intent. It also helps to clarify if what you designed is coming across as intended.
Feedback is great when it’s openly given and received but what about when your feedback isn’t recognized or when you receive conflicting or not very helpful feedback?
Call on a higher power…seriously
This question came up as the conversation moved to working in groups at school. There is a difference between feedback among peers and between someone with more experience.
Seek other sources
Look for other sources of information when you are getting conflicting feedback. If there are too many ideas in one area seeking a different source can provide a better comparison point to your design.
As the night winded down and the last pizza slice was gone. We laughed at the dramatic opera music that played in between our conversations and it felt great to be in the company of local designers. So, have you tried any of methods? What has worked for you in your feedback sessions?
If you’re in Atlanta, why not join us for the next community dinner? Also, follow us on instagram, like us on facebook, and join our meetup!
Join us at our next Meetup! https://www.meetup.com/OpenIDEOAtlantaChapter/events/259269822/
