Why is it that we created a whole blog dedicated to the topic of critique? People ask us this all the time. I’m not kidding when I say that at least 2 people audibly laughed at me when I told them the idea. On the surface critique seems like a pretty straight forward thing. But [...]
Upcoming Critique Workshops and Presentations
The new year is in full swing and dates for workshops and presentations are coming together nicely. if you want to learn more about communicating design effectively with your teams and stakeholders be sure to check out these upcoming events. If you are at one of these events and dont make it out to one [...]
A Path Back to Critique: What to do when the client sends you their own design instead of feedback on yours.
Most of us have been in situations where, instead of getting what we’d consider to be useful feedback on our designs, we get a list of changes to make to it. And often this list doesn’t include a clear indication of why the changes should be made. Beyond that some of the changes might be [...]
Design Reviews vs. Design Critique
In the time that Aaron and I have been sharing our thoughts on critique, we’ve had a lot of opportunities to speak with designers, developers, project managers, etc. about their organizations and how they’ve incorporated critique (or haven’t) as a part of their process. In those conversations, the topic of Design Reviews often comes up. [...]
Avoid Problem Solving For Better Critiques
People have a tendency to jump to a solution before they fully articulate the problem that they’ve found. Design Researchers see this all the time in usability studies, interviews, etc. Participants frequently make statements that begin with phrases along the lines of “It should do…”, “I wish it did…” or “What they should have done [...]
A Bit About This Site
Getting feedback from clients, teammates, stakeholders and others on a design can be terrifying and excruciating. Most of us have had the experience of seeing our designs berated and torn apart, or sitting through painful meetings listening to people react to our designs only to leave with nothing of use in making decisions on what should be kept and or iterated upon.
The goal of this site is to provide insights and resources for improving the conversations we have around design... (continue reading)
Upcoming Events
We’re in the process of putting together our schedule for 2013. If you’re organizing a conference and would like to include our presentation or workshop in your lineup or are part of an organization interested in having us train your staff, let us know.