How To Conduct “Engaging” Design Reviews
Tips to keep a fun workplace by poking at the design team and toying with their emotions.
Focus on the weak spots.
It’s ok to admit it–you’re a sharp shooter, a perfectionist; no little flaw goes unnoticed under your supervision. Design reviews are the ideal opportunity to demonstrate that hawk vision you possess. See a color you don’t like? Shout it! Did you spot a text that is a bit misaligned? Interrupt the presenter and let them know where they failed! Sure, it might crush the designer’s spirit a bit, and you might be creating a stressful environment, but this is the only way they’ll ever grow.
Some naysayers would suggest giving feedback using the “sandwich approach,” where you squeeze the negative comment between two positive responses. But who wants two slices of bread when they can have all meat? (You gotta watch those carbs). Honesty is the best policy.
PRO TIP: Use subjective absolutes like “Your fonts look ugly” or “I don’t like those colors” (even though the designer is using brand colors). Comments like these will keep them on their toes and scared of ever making mistakes again.
EVEN-MORE-PRO TIP: Ask the designer subtly loaded questions like “These wireframes are ok, but when can we see the higher fidelity?” (even though you know they’re presenting the final designs). These kinds of questions will make the designer doubt their performance, forcing them to think deeper.
Be spontaneous and go off-topic.
Getting bored of the presentation the designer is giving? No worries, just go on a tangent! There’s no better way to invest everyone’s time than by getting distracted with subjects that will inevitably create divisive opinions and endless rants. What is the problem the designer is trying to solve? Who cares! Oh, the presenter only wanted feedback around a particular topic? Not your problem! Start talking about the aesthetics and visuals even though the design fidelity is in early wireframes. The presenter may try and trick you by explaining the rationale behind their decisions and their priorities, but that’s just tedious! This is the time to show how current you are by asking questions about unrelated trending subjects–“Have you seen the rebranding of X product? Why aren’t we doing the same? What about Apple’s new shiny products? Can your stuff look more like Apple?” Better yet… start talking politics!
PRO TIP: Don’t assign a facilitator. They usually take notes, schedule times, and want the group to stay on the agenda. Boring!
Use the element of surprise.
There’s no better way to amaze your stakeholders than by presenting them a project they’re not aware of. If you’re the product manager, let the designer put the hard work into their iterations before consulting with the top dogs if they even think that’s a priority. Ambiguous projects with no clear requirements or goals will keep designers busy thinking they’re working on something big and meaningful.
PRO TIP: Wait as long as possible before conducting a design critique without informing anyone. This way the designer will have invested so much time and effort into their work that the day of the presentation will be surely soul crushing. Remember, failure is the best way of learning. They’ll thank you later.
Make it personal!
Make every bit of criticism about the designer and not the problem they’re trying to solve. Focus on their faults and evaluate them. Tear them down and be vague on your feedback. Be adversary and challenge them. Overwhelming judgment will help them understand that they’re in the big leagues now, it’s a harsh world they live in, and they better develop a tough skin sooner rather than later. And, let’s admit it, who doesn’t like a little bit of drama?
PRO TIP: Just imagine–What if design reviews were a reality TV show surrounded by cameras and your producers were asking for more conflict? You would give the audience what they want! More crisis = Better ratings.
Keep it fun by inviting lots of people.
Encourage people that don’t have anything to do with the project to join the Design Critique Party. The more random, the better. Sure, keeping a tight group of stakeholders in design reviews would make things more efficient, but that’s too old-school. A little bit of chaos guarantees an entertaining session. Who knows? You might even end up turning the design review into a pixel-pushing workshop where everyone collaborates and designs by committee.
Sharing is caring.
PRO TIP: Want to make things even more interesting? Invite the CEO or some other executive with no context and ask them to give their input. They’ll usually hijack the conversation, and everyone will be too scared to disagree with them. Bonus points if it’s one of the co-founders that has been absent from the company for years enjoying their early retirement.
Schedule design reviews at the end of the day
Only ten minutes to finish the day? That sounds like the perfect time to conduct a design review with the whole team. Tactics like these will help you see who’s a real team player, who has that YES attitude and embraces the startup culture. It’s your responsibility to take your team out of their comfort zone and into the war zone. Hold everyone hostage until every last project gets demolished!
PRO TIP: Start by reviewing the lowest priority projects first, and save the highest priority ones for last. You have to keep it lean.
Spout words that make you look smart
Being in the audience of a design review is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate that big brain of yours. Whenever you get a chance, blow everyone’s minds by asking random questions that appear deep. Here’s a list of phrases to get you started:
- “Have we thought about using machine learning to solve this?” Or any sentence with “AI” in the mix.
- “Is this innovative/disruptive enough?”
- I see an opportunity to add more micro interactions.
- So… how can we make this 5x?
- We have to focus on telling a story!
- Have you thought about making it a conversational experience? Or say anything with the word “bot” in it.
Conclusion and actual advice
It’s crazy that, while these situations sound like guidance coming from a sociopath, they do happen in the workplace. Group reviews usually involve people that know little about a problem and are tasked with tearing apart the work of someone who does. They can be soul-crushing even for the most experienced designer.
So, how do you conduct design critiques in a more efficient and friendly way? Well, it’s not exact science–you’ll want to try different approaches, but at least you can start by doing the complete opposite of the points listed above. Or, you can follow this simple list to get you started (caution: this part is not satire).
- Start by explaining the problem, goals, and priorities. Don’t show any design work until everyone understands these points. The presenter will be tempted to jump to that amazing prototype they spent hours working on before getting everyone on board. Don’t let them!
- Assign a moderator. This person should keep things moving, take notes of the feedback, and give the stink eye to those who go off-topic.
- The designer should specify the type of feedback they’re looking for and the kind of comments that aren’t useful at the moment. Hopefully, this helps to avoid spending hours debating on that perfect shade of blue.
- When the designer shows their work, they should explain their rationale behind it. How did they get to that solution? What other things did they explore? Why did they choose this idea over others?
- Encourage the audience to begin sharing the positive things they found. This is not meant to be used as a trick to cushion the blows later–honest praise and appreciation will help everyone know what the preferred direction is. If this review is a continuation of a previous one, then start talking about the improvements made.
- Ask questions instead of giving direct criticism. This will empower the designer to come up with the solution by themselves. For example, instead of saying “The header would look better if it was bolder” you can ask ”Have you tried using a different weight in the header?” Want to be more direct? Then ask ”Have you explored a heavier weight?” Smooth.
- In the end, the designer takes all the feedback and decides on which parts to apply for their next iteration and what comments to leave behind.
If you want to go deeper into the subject or if you want to try different methods, I recommend reading Facebook’s design critique process, taking a look at Dale Carnegie’s principles on how to provide feedback without giving offense and learn about Pixar’s approach of absolute candor and trust.
Hopefully, the nightmare scenarios displayed above will help you conduct better design reviews in the future. Write in the comments what approach works best for you or share any horror design review stories you might have.
The Design Team
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I’m Pablo Stanley. Among many things I work at a startup where we’re reimagining healthcare called Carbon Health and I teach courses on design,
Thanks to Courtney M. Sawyer, Frances Tung, Edgar Chaparro, Luisa Mancera, and Stephen McCurry for their help spotting all my grammar horrors.
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