What the F**eedback ?
Understanding Feedback, and sharing with you some amazing Gems (Books, articles on how to Give/ receive Feedback)
It’s been 5 years (More specifically June 2019) since I started designing my first landing pages using Adobe XD and building them with HTML and CSS, and here was my first time getting feedback on my UI designs, from someone that is not my mom or friends 😂.
Since then, I've received a lot of “Feedback” from Founders, Users, PMs, POs ,Engineers, and marketing people…
Sometimes that feedback was translated into Amazing ideas, product solutions, and new creative design explorations… but a lot of that feedback brought conflicts and heated arguments.
And I wouldn’t say I liked that feeling, in those situations, I was very defensive of my ideas, designs, beliefs about what is the right approach…
.
.
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Why did I hate it?
It mostly comes down to my wrong understanding of feedback, How I articulate my design decisions… also how people who gives feedback, company cultures, politics, and ego, play a big role in creating these conflicts.
So what can we do about this?
I’ll be talking about this in today’s issue, I hope some of these ideas, and references help you in your day-to-day.
On this Edition we will talk about :
What’s Feedback?
What’s Bad Feedback?
Why We Really Need Critical Thinking?
How can I Give/Receive Feedback?
What’s Feedback?
→ When a designer says:
I’d love to get your feedback on some designs I’ve been working on.
What we are looking for as designers is a form of analysis, that is based on the objectives and goals (User goals & Business goals).
🔴 Not this:
I don’t really like this layout I love minimalism and there are a lot of cards here, also the color here is a bit greenish my wife hates green so please change it.
✅ More like this:
Since the objective is for our users to go through this section more often because this section contains information we want the user to see and interact with, from a business perspective we need to push that way.
In other words, and here I’m quoting from the book Discussing Design:
💬
The issue with feedback lies in how nonspecific it is.
The feedback itself is nothing more than a reaction or response.
What’s Bad Feedback?
1 - Reaction-based feedback:
This usually happens fast and on instinct. This feedback is full of strong feelings. It comes from what someone hopes for, wants, or believes in. It's a first reaction.
“Ohh I love this great design”
“Meeh this one looks a bit happy, I need it to look sad”
⚠️ BUT
As designers, we should aim to understand this more because it’s not a great idea to try to sell something to end users who might cringe or grumble the second they see it.
Also check with your users, your users, and your users, because your stockholders are not looking at it the same way your potential users would.
2 - Direction-based feedback
This feedback often starts with a Suggestion/Direction and usually just stops there.
The giver wants to make the design match their ideas. You might hear them say things like
"If I were doing this...", "I would have...", or "I wish...", or “For me…“
Showing they're sharing what they would prefer.
🪂
Send me some of the weird stuff you heard on your designs, focus on the funny stuff hahahhah 😂
Takeaways from this
When someone tells you to change your design but doesn't say why, it's hard to know if your design is good, or the new change too.
Even if they approve your design after changes, it doesn't mean it's the best solution.
Understanding the reasons behind their suggestions helps, but it still may not prove your design solves the problem well.
Why We Really Need Critical Thinking?
If you are a product designer you probably heard of Crits or Critique sessions, they are usually meetings that take place once or more in a sprint in an agile environment,
Where a designer gets “Feedback” or more specifically Critique on their work
🔗 Check here how Figma does that.
This routine in product design is based on Critical thinking, which is comprised of 3 key elements :
✅ First, pinpoint a particular detail or choice in the design to focus on.
✅ Then, connect this detail or choice to a goal or a best practice.
✅ Explain the ways and reasons this detail or choice either meets or falls short of the goal or the best practice.
Takeaway here
🧠
“Feedback encompasses three forms: reaction, direction, and critique.
Reaction and direction are limited in their ability to help us understand if the design choices we’ve made might work toward the product’s objectives.
Critique, a form of analysis that uses critical thinking, is the feedback that focuses on exactly that understanding.”
__From the book Discussing Design
How can I Give/Receive Feedback?
Here I’ll be sharing with you some amazing Gems that I either read or currently reading.
BOOK: Articulating Design Decisions: Communicate with Stakeholders, Keep Your Sanity, and Deliver the Best User Experience
I think these chapters, and sections are really helpful in today’s topic :
Chapter 1: Great Designers are Great Communicators
→ Specific Section name: Being Articulate means successChapter 2: Stakeholders are people too
→ Sometimes we need to see others’ perspectives and use some of the empathy we always talk about in UX.Chapter 7: Choose a message
Our goal is to communicate that our designs solve the problem we are facing better than any alternative way, but we need tactics that will help us support our solutions…
here there are multiple ways to describe your design decisions: Business, Design, Research, Limitations.
ARTICLE: Julie Zhuo’s Article on Receiving Feedback
“Give as much attention to the positive points as you do to the problem areas. The recognition for things you’re doing well well are guideposts to where you can double down to have even greater impact.”
BOOK: Discussing Design
About Design Critique, Critical Thinking, the book teaches you techniques, tools, and a framework for helping members of your design, and product team give and receive critique.
BOOK: Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
In the middle of this design stuff, I think it all comes down to Communication/Framing,
a lot of conflicts come from :
1- Not seeing the shared goal
2- Not being able to identify valid differences in assumptions
3- Not communicating well enough to make 1 and 2 easy.
and this book does a great job of addressing this communication stuff.