The power of design critique sessions

What’s Design Critique?

It’s the process of giving feedback, improving and bringing expert insight into interfaces, prototypes, brands, services, user journeys, or even technical difficulties in implementing a design. It’s usually run by a group of 3 to 7 people and can involve designers, developers, marketing analysts, or businesses.

“You could focus purely on branding elements, ease of use concepts, or even engineering feasibility, it’s up to whoever leads. The important thing is someone does lead the discussion, define what questions should be discussed, and facilitate the conversation.” Scott Berkun

What’s not Design Critique?

We’re not trying to restrict a Design Critique scope, but after running a few sessions and focusing on more productive discussions, we’ve learned that it’s important to distinguish it from other practices.

It’s not a brainstorming session

Unlike a Brainstorming session, which purpose is to diverge and open the scope for new ideas, a Design Critique is focused on evaluating and converging under the perspective of the design that has already been brought, directing specific paths and changes.

“Instead of hoping informal discussions will resolve hard issues, it’s worth setting up a specific critique to drive a design-forward.”
Scott Berkun

It’s not usability testing‍

A usability test evaluates a product or service by testing it with actual customers. Users complete (or try to) tasks while observers record, listen, and learn about interface or flow issues. Design Critique, on the other hand, helps the project lead anticipate problems and stress solutions before reaching the end-user.

So, Design Critique doesn’t take over a usability test. They’re complementary techniques to improve product quality.

It’s not user research

If you need ethnographic or behavioural research about your user, there are other methodologies that ensure accuracy and avoid bias. Design critique isn’t the best one for that.

Why should I run a Design Critique session?

The culture of providing and receiving feedback, when framed and handled in the right way, enhances the team in different aspects:

Empower collaboration

Developers code better if they understand the project in depth. Marketers improve acquisition channels when they understand the product value proposition and connect with the product from getting to go. A Data Scientist could provide insights that would be overlooked by other team members. All of that to say that professionals from different backgrounds contribute to a better product from end to end.

“Multiple designers who work on different parts of a big project can pick up possible inconsistencies across the overall user experience when they all participate in early critiques of each other’s draft designs.” Sarah Gibbons

Likewise, gathering designers with different skills, whether they focus on branding, service design, information architecture, or even Industrial design, ties up learnings and experiences that would hardly connect in any other case.

Increase accuracy

The product development process isn’t fail-proof, as it’s impossible to cover 100% of errors and bugs in the process, but having different perspectives—or acting on different phases of the project—increases the chance of success.

Questioning, therefore, the technical feasibility, product and design decisions before launch reduce the waste of time and money.

Build team confidence

In the long term, getting the team involved in Design Critique helps to lower anxieties, ensures buy-in—once everyone follows the process of product development and iteration—and builds confidence and consensus.