17 Design Feedback Techniques

17 Design Feedback Techniques that influence others and win meetings. Two decades of creative decision making at ZURB have taught us a lot. Use these ideas.??

1. Stop the yammering—A lack of clear direction can stymie a design critique and waste the team's time. Solution: Outline to the team the types of feedback that are being sought in a critique.
2. Quit inviting everyone to the meeting, especially at the wrong time, which happens all the time—More than a handful of people results in feedback from those that have no stake in the project. Solution: Target specific people on a team that can provide valuable insight.
3. Win over the devil's advocate with an orgy of evidence—They challenge assumptions, seeking better answers, argue for data, and are difficult to work with Solution: Provide supporting evidence for design decisions, either through experience, case studies, or data.
4. Don't treat creative work as abstract art—It's hard to give feedback on something folks don't understand. Solution: Be problem-oriented in presentations, know the benefits of what's been done, and understand how the work meets both business and user goals.
5. Tangents are good, except when they're not—Design thinking is great when exploring all the options, but it can lead to muddled feedback when a team is closing down problems. Solution: Keep in mind what stage of the process the team is in, especially if stuff has to get done.
6. Don't screw yourself with useless questions—Broad questions, such as "what are your thoughts," can inspire random, unimportant feedback. Solution: Be specific with questions, like when working on a mobile layout- ask if the interaction decisions make sense in that context.
7. Give your creative ego a break—Projects don't move forward by ignoring feedback. Thinking becomes myopic in when creatives can't see the movie they are inside. Solution: Develop creative conversations rather than making a feedback session a passive-aggressive exercise.
8. Slack gets the feedback going, but won't finish it—Creative feedback can quickly get lost in an ongoing back-and-forth between people. Solution: Force people to articulate feedback directly on the work to boil it down to what's necessary. Context is everything.
9. It's not what creative work says, it's how it's presented—Uncertainty in a creative presentation will cause the team to lose confidence in what was accomplished. Solution: Present work with confidence to solicit the right kinds of feedback. Explain the choices & decisions.
10. Even Babe Ruth struck out—Babe Ruth had a batting average of .342 with 714 home runs, which meant he missed most of the time. Creative decisions are no different. Solution: Iteration is about working through many wrong answers. Move past bad ideas and on to winning ones.
11. Creatives rarely have the right answers—It's not an insult, it's part of the job. Don't sabotage a project by trying to make all the decisions. Solution: Know who to pull into the feedback loop based on experience, strengths, and interests. It will yield better feedback.
12. Creatives shouldn't be pushovers—Problem solvers work through solutions for the business and customers. Solution: Don't just accept a list of feedback. Ask questions, seek answers. Ask "why" five times to get to the root of a problem, rather than treat the symptom.
13. Creative work is like theater—Team members have given up their time to give feedback. Don't waste it. A team can lose faith if they feel they are being ignored. Solution: Reflect back concepts and ideas from others by picking out key points. Broadcast them confidently.
14. Memory is a harsh mistress—Negative reactions can drown out critical feedback and make remembering every piece of feedback hard. Solution: Take notes and jot down the feedback. Channel the nervous energy into something productive that shows investment in what people share.
15. Creative assumptions are a double whammy—Everyone makes assumptions. But assumptions in creative work can result in crappy products that do more harm than good. Solution: Don't assume anything during a feedback session. If something is unclear, ask for clarification.
16. Creative feedback isn't a chore chart—A laundry list of suggestions and ideas can emerge after a feedback session. It shouldn't all be done. Solution: Synthesize feedback and prioritize goals. Figure out what's actionable, should be ignored, or can be addressed later.
17. Creatives shouldn't be introverts all the time—Creativity is a solo journey. Creative decisions, however, require collaboration in business. Solution: Seek out feedback and follow through on feedback from others. Iterate based on what you receive to show their impact.

Soliciting and giving creative feedback isn't as simple as walking into a meeting and asking for an opinion. Creative decision making requires a plan. Shout out to @ryanriddle for hashing out the ideas.

Bryan Zmijewski—On a journey to make creative decisions more effective, satisfying, and rewarding. Husband. Dad. Designer. Chief Instigator ZURB since 1998. Try https://helio.app

Follow him at @bryanzmijewski, or send him a note at [email protected]