Better Design Feedback

Looking outside of your company, the first group that I would turn to would be friends and family.

Oftentimes, you just need someone to bounce ideas off.

It could be that you have some rough sketches or wire frames that you want to run somebody through. You may have a clickable prototype or some high fidelity Figma designs.

Regardless friends and family can be a great source of design feedback.

Whatever you do, just make sure you take notes and share them with your team.

In my experience, leveraging friends and family can bring about a diverse set of opinions and this can be helpful in narrowing in on the best design for a particular problem.

Usability testing is one of my favorite ways to gather design feedback.

Usability testing consists of coming up with a series of tasks. Then running multiple people through the same series of tasks to see how well they perform.

Usability testing is most valuable when you have a clickable prototype or working code that you can run someone through.

I’ve also found it handy to do multiple rounds of usability testing on the same set of tasks. With each progressive round, you’re making new observations and you’re making updates to your designs before retesting.

Platforms like userbrain.com make usability testing really easy. UserBrain makes it easy to use your own testers or to use their pool of testers. I tend to prefer platforms like UserBrain over, enterprise platforms because pricing. It’s going to be much more flexible. For instance, you can, pay a la carte for each individual test instead of having to commit to a yearly contract.

Watching people use your product and attempt to follow the tasks that you outlined can be very valuable, but also very frustrating! You may find yourself yelling at the screen, “The button right there! Just click the button!”.

But then when you watch multiple people not see the button, you realize the problem is not with the user. The problem is likely with your design.

Social media can be another good option for getting feedback.

You have to be a little careful with social media because different people have different motivations and incentives.

That said, if you have a following on Twitter or LinkedIn, you should absolutely leverage it.

You’ll probably find most success by keeping your polls or questions. Simple.

Also it’s best. If you keep everything on the platform versus trying to get somebody to click away, to preview something.

If needed, you can use a screenshot, a GIF, or a short video.

A bad use of social media would be trying to get detailed feedback on complex flows. It’s just unlikely to happen and it’s too easy to just scroll right past to the next post.

An example of a good approach might be to share a screenshot. And then to ask for feedback on a specific piece of microcopy. It can be helpful if you provide like an A, B, and C option. This way people can quickly scan, everything and. Within 30 seconds, be able to provide an answer. Especially if all that’s required of them is to simply reply with a, B or C.

Attending in-person meetups or conferences where your customers will be in attendance can be a great way to solicit feedback and get to clarity.

And you don’t have to have a booth in order to get feedback from customers. You just have to be willing to put yourself out there and say hi to people. I know that, especially post COVID, that might sound difficult. But it works. And here’s how I would approach it:

First go to the hallway. This is going to sound counterintuitive because you paid to come to a conference to listen to people, but the hallway is actually the place that you will learn the most.

Next, just introduce yourself to somebody who you have not chatted with. It could be as simple as, “Hi, I’m Dave”.

If they respond and they’re nice and they seem receptive to chatting, just start having a conversation. If they seem like they’re in a hurry or don’t want to chat or just aren’t open to it. That’s okay. You can just end it there.

And if they seem nice, you might. Just ask, “Hey, do you have three minutes that I could show you something really quick and, get your feedback on?”

In my experience, this works most of the time. Most people are going to be willing to give you three minutes of their time.

Just have whatever it is that you want to show them ready to go. It could be on your laptop or it could be sketches, or whatever. Pull it out and, just have them walk through it.

It’s best if you can give them the control so that they can click through themselves. It’s also important to keep to your word. If you said three minutes, keep it to three minutes. And then once they’re all done and they’re on their way, then just record your observations, and then rinse and repeat.

So this approach takes two people. And it generally works better in big cities.

First, buy a number of Starbucks $20 gift cards. Then you want to buy a poster board and a Sharpie. And write on the poster board, “Test my app for five minutes and get a free Starbucks $20 gift card”.

Then just walk out on the street and hold up the sign. You’re going to have plenty of people who will walk right past you. That’s okay! Sure enough, some people will stop and they will be interested.

When someone stops, just give them a quick 20 second recap of what you’re trying to do. Say you have some sketches or a prototype on your phone and what you’d like for them to do is to walk through it with you. And you’re going to record them over their shoulder with somebody else’s phone. It should take about five minutes and when they’re done, they get a free $20 gift card.

Now I’ve seen this work with sketches on paper. I’ve seen it work with a laptop. I’ve seen it work on an iPhone or an iPad. You can use whatever you want. The next step would be for them to hold the prototype and begin to click through. If it’s paper, you’ll just change the page as they click. If it’s a prototype, then they will just click through the prototype.

But before they start, you’re going to want to have your friend just hold their phone, in video mode, over their shoulder so that you can record it all and record all of their observations.

And once they’re done with the eight tasks or whatever it is that you wanted them to walk through. You give them their gift card and they’re on their way.

Then you just go back to holding up the sign until somebody else comes along. It can just be a fun way to get out of the office, go talk to people on the street, and get a diverse set of feedback.

Fear kills companies. Fear of failure. Fear of looking bad. Fear of making mistakes. Fear of being called out. Fear of not knowing where you stand. Each one of these is toxic.

As Ed Catmull said, “The antidote to fear is trust”. As you actively build trust within your company. Fear naturally subsides.

If you allow fear to take root in your company. The longterm effects can be devastating. It can affect your company’s culture. It can stifle innovation. It can hamper your team’s shipping velocity and it can water down the designs that you actually do ship.

Fear is corrosive. And you should always keep an eye out for it. And just do your best to weed it out wherever possible.

And the best way to do that is to build trust.

Good feedback focuses on the design.
Bad feedback focuses on the designer.

Good feedback helps the designer feel like they’ve had a light bulb moment.
Bad feedback makes the designer feel upset, anxious, or sad.

Good feedback comes from a place of generosity and kindness.
Bad feedback comes from a place of competition and pride.

Good feedback adheres to the type of feedback a designer is looking for.
Bad feedback tends to disregard it.

Good feedback is timely.
Bad feedback comes too late to be helpful.

Good feedback is contextual. Explaining the why behind your thoughts?
Bad feedback is, “Because I don’t like it”.

For managers and leaders. Good feedback communicates whether it’s a suggestion or a mandate.
Bad feedback leaves the designer guessing.

Finally, good feedback communicates prioritization. Is it high priority, medium priority, or low priority?
Bad feedback is just a big list of stuff, without any prioritization at all.

It’s critical that you establish a culture of candid feedback within your design org. This is the only way that creativity and innovation can thrive.

To do this. You must first foster trust. And one way to do that is to establish a culture that’s candid, but also kind.

To establish kindness. You need to establish a spirit of Goodwill and empathy. This means that designer’s ego and pride need to be checked at the door. And called out whenever you see them surface.

All feedback within your design team should be additive. The opposite of additive is competitive or combative feedback. You can tell the difference by the motives.

The goal of additive feedback should never be to show how smart you are, or to tear somebody down. The goal of added feedback should be, “how can we work together to make this design the best it can possibly be?”

Oftentimes kindness comes through in your tone. And the way that you phrase your feedback.

Kind feedback assumes positive intent. And gives the designer the benefit of the doubt.

If you’re ever unsure how to phrase feedback, a good fallback can be to just phrase it as a question. “Have you ever considered…”, or “Have you thought of…” Sharing feedback like this allows you to share your thoughts in the spirit of collaboration.

Without kindness, candidness cannot survive. And without candidness, no design team will ever reach their full potential.

Whenever you’re presenting a design for feedback, it’s helpful to assume that the people who are reading your post or listening to your presentation have zero context.

Rather than jumping straight into your designs, it can be helpful to set the stage.

You might start with the problem statement. What problem are you trying to solve? More often than not, this should help convey the why behind the project.

It can be helpful to recap the things that you’ve learned so far. Especially if you’re multiple rounds of feedback in.

And before you share designs, it can be helpful to share any constraints that you face.

Then you’ll share your design—could be sketches, wire frames, mockups, prototypes, or high fidelity designs.

 But before you wrap up your post, consider sharing some open questions, some things that you would like specific feedback around.

And lastly, be sure to outline the type of feedback that you’re looking for. Are you looking for feedback on anything? Just the layout. You looking for feedback on copy? On design aspects, like margin and padding.? Moving pixels this way in that? It can just be helpful to be clear about what level of feedback you’re looking for.

By adding context to your feedback requests, you will drastically increase your odds of soliciting helpful thoughts, questions, and feedback from others.

As a senior executive there are two primary areas where you can help your design org. The first is to understand and respect the processes that they’ve put in place. The second is to help make sure that the things that they are shipping are of the highest quality.

Now there are a couple of things to keep in mind when you’re sharing feedback with designers:

You play a bigger part than you think in helping your design leads establish a culture of trust.

 Conversely, your actions can lead to a culture of micromanagement. And a culture where fear of failure abounds and creativity is stifled.