Before we get into all of the many ways that you can solicit feedback. Let’s first talk about your gut.

I’m a firm believer that your gut really matters.

Probably more so than our industry likes to admit.

But what is your gut? It’s a combination of the experience and insights you’ve picked up over the years, combined with intuition.

If there was a spectrum with gut driven on one side and data-driven on the other and a line right down the middle, my guess is that the best designers tend to lean towards the gut driven side of things.

But you can’t be 100% gut driven.

The shorthand I often use for this is “gut driven, but data informed”.

I’ve worked with many junior and senior designers over the years and I’ll share a common pattern that I’ve seen over and over.

Junior designers by necessity tend to be very open to feedback.

As the designer progresses in skill and experience, there’s often a phase where they assume they don’t need any feedback. They assume that as a designer, they’ll know what’s best and their gut is all they need.

This is obviously a trap!

Unfortunately, some designers get stuck in this state forever.

Most designers eventually recognize that their ego and pride is getting in the way and eventually course-correct.

There’s a symbiosis here.

Without your gut, there would be no designs to solicit feedback.

And without feedback, you’ll never consistently take designs from bad, to good, to great.