Before talking about HOW, let’s ask WHY do we have feedback sessions. Do you want to have feedback sessions genuinely?
Why
Design is a team sport as we believe in achieving more with teamwork, so is the design feedback session.
We call the session “feedback” instead of “critique” because it is not about criticism, but advice. As a feedback receiver, you want to do it because others have expertise and knowledge that you find valuable, so you look for advice on how to further improve. As a feedback giver, you are motivated to do it because you are co-creating a product as a team, or you believe “we rise by lifting others”.
Design feedback as an essential role in the design process can happen every day.
How
Feedback is a tricky thing. It shares the nature of communication. The quality of feedback depends on the giver, the receiver, the medium, and the in-between protocol. There is certain magical chemistry in it that makes feedback sometimes tough.
No matter who initiates, how long or where it happens, feedback session is never about what’s SAID, but what’s HEARD, UNDERSTOOD and ACTED UPON.
Key ideas for giving feedbacks are
- Feedback is a balance of heart and mind.
- Feedback is more about asking questions than providing solutions.
- “Help me help you”
Feedback is a balance of heart and mind.
Heart refers to the feeling, the emotion.
I read from an article: Only when the receiver feels genuinely valued by the giver, the receiver feels secure in the relationship and is willing to listen, instead of being self-protective, defending.
Or simply, it is a matter of trust. Trust needs time to build. Having more casual chats, organizing team building activities are ways to build rapport and lay a good foundation for collaboration.
The right mindsets for both sides to start the feedback sessions are:
- Really care about each other
- Giver: We can be straightforward and open. But please also consider people’s feelings. We are humans.
- Receiver: Feedback is a gift
2. Feedback on the design
- Giver: Avoid “I think…”, better from the perspective of users, business or technology. Avoid “You need…”, better “what needs…”, making it less pointing to people.
- Receiver: We are talking about design solutions, not the designer. Don’t get personal
Feedback is more about asking questions than providing solutions.
While HEART is about feeling, MIND is about content. Be specific and direct, with clarity, future-focused, actionable.
But please don’t tell people what to do.
(The actions are better coming from the receivers.)
Why? As team member or even team lead:
- You know less context and thoughts than the people doing the work. Respect others.
- Your opinion is just an opinion. Creative work is innately subjective. No one’s perspective is a universal truth. You can suggest ideas and provide references. You can say “I could be wrong, but it seems like… What do you think?”
- Give people responsibilities and freedom to design an experience, to make their own decisions. Prescribing exact solutions is disempowering, not good for their creativity, innovation, and confidence. No one should wait for answers and be a pixel pusher robot.
- Give team space to experiment, fail and learn.
- So in general, avoid being the hovering Art Director. To suggest answers is likely to be interpreted as directives.
The suggested way is to ask questions, like the Socratic method.
Ask questions to remind people of the bigger picture, goals, the user-centered approach. So they are back on track.
Questions can be: what triggers your users to start? Can I see the user journey and user research summary? What problem does this workflow solve and how do they currently solve it?
“Help me help you”
Giving feedback is definitely a learning experience for the givers. How to understand each other’s perspective, how to think out loud, and use different ways like metaphor, finding visual support to explain the thoughts in a clear and convincing way. The feedback givers have lessons to learn.
One of the best ways to learn is by asking the receiver “Help me help you”. What is clear, what makes people feel awkward or bad…
Other reminders when giving feedback
- Make sure you have the time for feedback. Sit down, give full attention and understand before saying anything. If you don’t have the time, schedule another time or ask if possible to try to shorten the session. Don’t sit there and distracted by other tasks, and want to rush.
- Understand the problem and goal first
- Remember we have to launch a product, there are deadlines to meet! Don’t overload,that’s discouraging. Establish priorities based on the goals and timeline, give feedback on those essential parts.
Reminders when receiving feedback
- Be proactive to ask for feedback. Don’t wait. When you feel you need support, ask around, teammates or in a large group.
- Ask feedback when you are ready. By “ready”, I mean you take some time to think about where you are, what feedback you are looking for and even prepare the material you want to show. Only after you are ready, you have better picture of who to ask and how long you need, 15 or 30 minutes , or one hour.
- If having less confidence and struggling with receiving feedback, it is better to hold a coaching session talking about how to respond to feedback. Some suggestions can be：
- Right mindset: To separate designers from design work
- Clear objectives: Keep in mind the design objectives. When designing, do the exercises to list out the design rationales based on the objectives. When having a feedback session, revisit the design objectives and original rationales.
- Double check: when receiving feedback, please try to ask clarifying questions to get to the core of the issue, so you better understand this feedback and able to more accurately iterate on feedback. Try to take notes on the action points, and double check with the giver before leaving to ensure the iteration directions.
What
We can divide feedback sessions into Internal vs External, Reinforcing vs Redirecting.
Internal vs External
Feedback may be received from
- Stakeholders
- Clients
- Other designers
- Project team
- Users
You expect different feedback from different groups, like you will not ask stakeholders of Grid or Radius. Depending on the different organizational structure you are in, how to divide internal and external can be quite different. But it is important to have two sets of process and setup.
Reinforcing vs Redirecting
- Reinforcing feedback: When facing time pressure, we sometimes forget to give each other applause. The positive feedback should not be ignored. They are so important to acknowledge and motivate people to keep up the good work and reinforce what we want to see more.
“What do we love about the result and the process of this design?”
- Redirecting feedback: Stop doing X and start doing Y. Let’s avoid calling this type “negative feedback”.
“What would we change about it?”
Reference example: Organize an internal feedback session
Design Lead is responsible to prepare, organize, facilitate and follow up the feedback session.
The suggested duration is under 1 hour.
Before:
Get prepared. It is crucial for a productive session and shows respect to participants’ time. Prepare the following content:
- Logistics
- When
- Where: find a room with enough seating and facility
- Who to invite: this is also a sensitive topic. If you are not sure, better talk in the team meeting and ask inputs from the team.
2. Project highlights
* Needed for non-project members
- Goals
- Background
- Timeline / Phases
3. Current design
- Design problem statement: users’ needs, tasks and flows.
*Be able to state the design problem clearly and confidently is important. Everyone needs to keep in mind. That helps stay in focus and prioritize.
- Constraints
- Current level of design fidelity & Prototype link (better with a complete user flow)
- Review/feedback goals
During (1h)
10’ Recap
Start the design review with a recap:
- Outline design goals
- Explain the problems that needed to be solved
- Describe the timeline and made milestones
- Explain what happens next
- Walk through the design and explain how it meets goals and solves problems
Even put the goals of project/design and review goals up on the wall, so everyone keeps in mind
20’ Think
Everyone reviews alone, writes down notes and afterwards puts on the wall.
*Facilitator can prepare a Feedback capture grid including four dimensions: Like, Don’t like (to improve), Questions, Ideas.
20’ Discuss
Each one decides the prioritized one and takes turns. Until only 10 minutes left before the meeting ends
10’ Wrap up
- Appreciate everyone’s contribution.
- Clarify next steps, eg. follow-up with someone on certain topics, share some references, explore certain directions
Tips for the facilitator:
- Don’t pitch the design or idea (we pitch to clients, no need to the team).
- Don’t let one feedback drag too long, eg. yon can define max. 5 minutes for each feedback. If all agree, simply move on; If disagree, write down for later voting or just everyone shares the reasons and let design lead make decisions.
- Listen closely, keep mind open, but make own decisions which to take, or if extra time to make exploration/tweaks or not. Not all feedback is good or needed to act on based on the project priorities.
After
Take time to think and explore. And be proactive to give your feedback giver feedback, as simple as a big thank you as the Reinforcing feedback.
This post is based on notes of a lot of reading and my personal experience. I wrote them down so I can refer to those tips every time I start a project or I have a bad feeling out of feedback sessions. I hope they are also helpful for you!
