5 Mindset Tools to Give a Good Design Critique

5 Mindset Tools to Give a Good Design Critique

Video Transcript

Hi everyone. My name is Megan Day. I'm an industrial designer and design educator, and today I'd like to talk to you about giving a good critique. Let's get into it.

Intro

I'd like to start with talking about what a critique is, then get into what I think makes for a good critique, then talk about how to actually do that. Critique is inconveniently similar to criticism. In English, the word criticism has distinctly negative connotations. Criticism is about making negative observations. A critique, though, does not have this negative connotation. A critique is simply a neutral word that is about evaluation. It comes from the Greek criticos; to evaluate or judge, or to be able to judge, to be discerning. When we use the word critique, we're not talking about, How well can we point out everything that's wrong? We're talking about a fair and accurate evaluation of both the positive and the negative that we see before us.
I think this is really important to outline because an unhealthy critique can easily fall into, Who can notice the most problems? Which is not what a critique is about of course, it's about helping the designer create a better project.

This video is particularly geared toward design students as opposed to design professionals. While I think there are a lot of ways in which the approach and the mindset overlap between the two, I think there are things about student critiques that are quite distinct.

3 Characteristics of a Good Critique

So what characterizes a great critique? In my mind there are three key things. The first one is that a good critique is thoughtful, and I mean this in a number of ways. A good critique is offering utility to the recipient, is working from that place of genuine assistance. I think this idea of thoughtfulness also involves diplomacy. A critique is not personal, it's about the project, considering the timeline and not making unrealistic suggestions given the timeline, for example. 

Number two: a good critique is specific. Specificity is powerful for at least two big reasons. One, it ensures that whatever your feedback is, it's being translated accurately. When you anchor your feedback in a piece of evidence within the object or the experience or whatever it is that's being assessed, this is a way of reinforcing the abstract statement of the feedback and ensuring that what you have said has been heard accurately. I do think there's something interesting about mishearing and misinterpreting feedback and then having that lead to very interesting insights, but that would be an unintended benefit of the critique as opposed to whatever the intended benefit was. When you give a specific example, it helps to reduce any confusion or likelihood of misinterpretation. Specificity is also wonderful because it is more likely to lead to an actionable insight that is to give the designer an idea of what could actually happen in response to your observation. Not saying, I really like this form. But saying, I really like the style lines on the front of the form. Even better, I really like the style lines on the front of the form. I think that they create an effective movement and make the object feel very sleek. That is giving so much more information, and this is the power of specificity. Specificity forces you to be more accurate in your statements and therefore creates a more high quality feedback.

Number three: great critiques are solutions-oriented. This comes back a little bit to this positive negative issue of criticism versus critique. A great critique is pointing out positive elements as well as negative elements but when it’s pointing out negative elements or elements that the viewer finds weak in the composition, it’s also offering an idea, a possible solution, a possible path forward to resolve the issue that's being seen. This is where really wonderful conversations can arise. Someone notices something that they don't think is working in the design and they offer an alternative approach, this is a great moment to spark a group-wide discussion about what other alternatives to resolve that issue might be. A great critique really does have that communal energy.

Okay, so that's what a good critique looks like: it's thoughtful, it's specific, and it's solutions-oriented. But how can you do that?

5 Mindset Tools for Giving a Good Critique

The first mindset tool I find really helpful and honestly keep in mind with every critique I ever participate in, whether I'm a giver or receiver, is this idea of being in the helicopter versus being in the woods. It's based on the idea of the forest for the trees. We have this saying, you can't see the forest for the trees. That means you're so in the weeds with the specifics and the details that you can't see the bigger picture of what you're working on. And this is such an easy place to get to, especially in a long-term or a really demanding project. I like this idea of thinking about the kinds of observations that we can make in the woods, which are typically more immediate, tactile responses to the object itself. And there are responses that we can make from the helicopter that's flying above the woods, that has the bird's eye view, that can see the bigger picture. These are comments that have to do with the theme of the problem, how well suited is it to its target audience, perhaps are there holes in the logical development of the objects. Remembering that I have the opportunity to make observations at both of these levels is really useful because I think it's very easy for critiques to focus on the object and to forget to pull back and ask these bigger why questions. Not only, Is it solving the problem? But, Does anybody need this problem to be solved? Does this feel like a worthy problem? Does this solution feel derivative?

The next [2nd] mindset tool I really love and use all the time is this idea of trading places. When you're giving a critique you trade places mentally with the person receiving the critique, and when you're receiving a critique you trade places mentally with the people giving the critique or the person giving the critique. It sort of has a different effect depending on whether you're in the giving or receiving position but, for me at least, when I'm in the position where I'm giving the critique—right, it's not my project and I'm being asked to give feedback—when I put myself in the shoes of the person who's receiving the critique, this helps me have empathy for the project, empathy empathy for the designer. It helps me really work hard to pay attention and be engaged in the critique because I care more about the outcome. Because if I imagine that it's my project, then I have a vested interest in making sure that this is a high utility critique that really gives a lot of actionable outcomes for the designer. And, on the other hand, if I'm the one receiving the critique, if it is my project, then it really helps me to distance myself from it. It helps me to pretend that it's not my project, to not take it so personally when there are weaknesses in the project, which of course there will be—every project can always be improved. Also it helps me to not get defensive, which I think is a danger zone that that recipients of critiques can enter.

The third mindset tool that I find really powerful is to ask questions. Critiques can easily fall into a statement/statement/statement format. This is often not conducive to a group conversation, and ideally that [a group conversation] is what happens naturally when everyone is participating with a generous spirit. Questions allow an opportunity to diplomatically phrase certain observations. Instead of pointing out something as a perceived weakness, instead of, I don't think the handle is working in this location. You might say, Could you tell me about why you chose this location for the handle? In many cases there are really solid reasons that the designer has, and there may be some kernel of really interesting data that's anchoring that decision that would be really useful to know going into this discussion of what other possible alternatives might be. Questions are also wonderful because they allow you as the giver of the feedback to express confusion anything that you feel you haven't understood about how the product works, how the interaction is supposed to go with the user, what it's for, who the target audience is: anything that wasn't clear. This is so useful for the designer. And even if even if it is technically clear somewhere in the background in the project, it's really wonderful for them to know that that's not coming through yet in whatever the storytelling has happened so far with the project. That often could indicate a hole somewhere, that is this actually has yet to be defined. 

I think this is where critiques really go to the next level, where you're not only responding to what is there but you're responding to what's not there. That takes an extra level of imagination and attention and thoughtfulness - to see what's missing. And really wonderful designers all do this, all the time. I think this is a mark of a really high level designer: seeing these opportunities that aren't present yet in the project.

The next [4th] tool that I like to think about is… in my mind I'm calling it the compliment sandwich, although I am not usually explicitly giving a compliment sandwich. Often we talk about this with employers. If you're going to give a piece of criticism to your employee, you give a compliment, then a piece of criticism, then another compliment. I don't do it exactly like this but it's a shorthand for the idea that when I'm giving feedback I want to give it in such a way that it's going to be able to be received. I might as well not give the feedback at all if all I do in giving it is alienate the person I'm giving it to and make them not want to listen to anything I have to say. In that scenario, I have failed. I have failed to provide a critique that had utility for the designer.

The last [5th] mindset tool that I like to use is this idea of next steps; not only responding to what's present but imagining what could happen next. Ideas for further research and exploration are wonderful here. I also think it's really useful when designers provide precedents to other designers. That is, maybe it's an academic paper or a news article or a movie or a documentary, or maybe it's a product precedent.

Okay those are my thoughts on what makes wonderful critique. If you found this video useful please give it a like and subscribe for more videos on how to succeed as a design student. Until next time.

N.B. Still working on the video quality, sorry for the focus issues!