I may not have gone to school for design, but I still had my fair share of college critiques. I remember one class in which we had a semester to completely design a book, from the book jacket to the interior pages. Each week, my classmates and I tacked our work to the wall and stood in a circle around the designs. Our professor then led us in a conversation, asking what worked, what didn’t work, and why.
In my first professional design job, I learned from my manager that all designers participated in a weekly critique led by the Director of User Experience. The meeting took place directly after lunch and could last from three to four hours. At first, the idea of such a meeting was incredibly daunting. I held off for my first few weeks as I familiarized myself with the company and the product, but I couldn’t hide forever.
Turned out, I had absolutely nothing to worry about. In fact, I looked forward to critiques every week and espoused their virtues to anyone who would listen. I’ve since moved on and worked at a variety of companies, but I haven’t found another team open to the idea of a weekly design critique. This has been really surprising to me—there are so many tangible and intangible benefits to internal critiques that I just had to share a few.
1. collaborate and communicate
Meeting weekly with the entire design team and stakeholders fostered a truly collaborative environment. As a junior designer, I took notes on how my senior teammates presented their ideas and communicated with their stakeholders.
Everyone was open to new ideas and I never felt like my suggestions were any less valuable than those from more senior teammates. And because I had time set aside to get to know my fellow designers, I felt more comfortable approaching them outside the meeting and asking questions I might otherwise feel too embarrassed to ask.
2. defend your designs
During our critiques, each person was asked to come prepared with at least one project they were currently working on or had just finished. We were each given a time slot to present our projects, answer clarifying questions, and ask questions of our own.
At first, I aimed to incorporate all the feedback I received, but that led to producing more work than necessary (when I had five landing page concepts to appease five different people, I knew I had a problem). I realized that I needed to find my own voice and defend the design choices I made. This didn’t necessarily mean that I was always right—far from it—but if there was an explanation behind my choice of one icon over another, I learned to confidently explain my logic.
3. practice presenting
I certainly struggle with presenting my designs, as I know many others do. I get stressed out, nervous, and anxious—especially when pitching something to a CEO I’ve never met before. However, anytime I get nervous before a presentation, I remind myself that I used to present to C-suite executives regularly during those critiques.
Sure, it always felt more informal, as stakeholders would drop by for a few minutes here or there to see what the teams were working on. And after the first hour and a half of the meeting, it was too hard to get worked up over what basically amounted to a short explanation of the project I’d been working on.
I believe this is similar to exposure therapy; by continually presenting unfinished projects to stakeholders, I was able to practice my presentation skills without fear of failure. Now, I feel more confident during presentations and grateful for all the practice I received.
4. foster iterative design
Critiques are not for the faint of heart. Our meeting mantra—which I’m sure most designers are intimately familiar with—was “kill your darlings.” It’s hard to get attached to a particular design when a group of designers continually choruses to kill it.
The great thing about this mantra was that it forced us to focus on which elements benefited our users. While we were discouraged from letting our personal preferences get in the way of our decision-making, we were encouraged to constantly return to the user’s needs (usually by referring to our user personas).
This practice encouraged us to work in a quick, iterative fashion. When you put your personal feelings aside, it’s far easier to make changes and brainstorm new concepts.
5. embrace new tools and technologies
Because the long meeting allowed for such open communication, it became the best time for team members to introduce and ask questions about new tools. I learned about InVision through critiques as my coworkers played around with presenting their comps as clickable prototypes.
At one point, my manager and I adopted Antetype to create responsive prototypes and we demoed various landing pages for our team. After casually perusing Sketch, our team agreed it was the best emerging prototyping tool and one of my coworkers put together a week-long tutorial with a Sketch representative.
Without the benefit of weekly critiques, I find it’s much more difficult to keep up with the various new tools and trends on my own—and I don’t have anyone to turn to when I have questions. As technology rapidly progresses, it’s helpful to be able to split up tools among a group of people and meet to discuss the pros and cons of each. It’s also simply a fun team-building exercise.
So there you have it—five ways in which a recurring design critique can benefit your team (and company) by fostering communication, collaboration, and user-centered design thinking. Have you worked at a company that encouraged regular critiques? Did you find them helpful or hurtful? I’d love to hear about your experience!