Awesome topic!
This is so relevant to the work I'm doing now, and I'm happy to see
others bringing this up for discussion. My input is in the context of
a bunch of people bringing their work into a room, presenting it, then
the whole room critiquing each idea. Not really a stakeholder review
of a prototype, participatory design session, JAD session, etc.
Here are the ground rules that have allowed my design team to run
successful critique sessions with developers (yes! eek! those evil
developers who most of us seem to think should just wait on the other
side of the wall for our design specs to come flying over and then
implement our grand visions with no questions asked!) yes, I know I'm
exaggerating. It's Friday :-) Really though - letting the developers
we work with participate in concept ideation sketches and go through
critique has been a huge win for our organization in lots of different
ways. There are lots of interesting relationships between this
approach and the things we heard our thought leaders speak about at
interaction08. Or if you didn't attend, the things our thought leaders
spoke about at interaction08. :-)
A colleague of mine and I have been conducting "design studios" with
teams of engineers over the past year. It has been a huge success for
reasons I won't drone on about right now because it's a bit off topic.
But here are the ground rules we establish with our teams:
1. Criticism is a gift that you need to learn how to embrace and be
thankful for. Letting your work be critiqued, critiquing your own
work, and critiquing the work of others builds your design chops and
communication skills in many different ways. The critique process is
key for any designer, no matter what the discipline - graphic design,
interaction design, industrial design, architecture, etc.
2. Critique the design, not the designer. It's not a personal attack.
Be professional.
3. Others finding flaws in your work is a good thing, it doesn't mean
you did a bad job, it just means the critique process is working.
Again, don't take it personally, learn to use it to make your future
design efforts all the better. Spotting flaws early on (especially if
you're in the sketch phase, before any code is present) is priceless
for any project.
4. There's some good in every design. One germ of goodness in a
"horrid" design can turn into a huge, positive idea.
That's pretty much it. Lots more to say, but it all stems from those
core principles.
Thanks for a fun topic,
Jeff
On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 7:05 PM, Chauncey Wilson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi Lisa,
>
> Very good question. Some thoughts.
>
> 1. What is the goal of the critique? Are you using it to teach
> people about design (I've always felt that user interface inspections
> are a way to do some indirect training)? Are you using it to examine
> competing designs? Are you using to examine specific objects or the
> overall flow?
> 2. In inspections (the term I'm more familiar with), there should be
> an explicit way to record/track/address issues that are tangential to
> the primary purpose with a clear rule about how tangential rules are
> dealt with.
> 3. Strong comments are welcome ("there is a serious gap here that
> needs some major attention") but offensive comments are not ("this
> just sucks").
> 4. Chose people who you respect and who don't always agree with you.
> Have reasonable diversity.
> 5. Be explicit about what kind of feedback you want. If you are
> doing this early in design, you may not want feedback that objects in
> a flow are a bit out of alignment.
> 6. Prepare some background information about who will be using the
> design and make that explicit. You may get feedback that you are
> missing a particular category of person.
> 7. Provide (brief) rationale for your comments. Like Jeff Howard,
> saying that you like or dislike something is not useful. Does the
> design violate a human factors principle, an aesthetic principle, or a
> interaction principle. There is research around that validates the
> importance of even a few words of rationale when doing inspections or
> critiques.
> 8. The members of the audience should be told to keep their comments
> brief and not tell war stories which waste time and often do not add
> much (if it is a really good story, tell it later).
> 9. If there is a global problem (one that occurs in multiple places)
> consider a guideline about how to address that. The same problem or
> flaw might be manifested in a slightly different way so you might
> bring that up but if the design flaw is the same on multiple
> artifacts, then you might just note that this is a global problem and
> not bring it up.
> 10. Note conflicts -- one person states that something is a delightful
> elements because.... while someone else feels that it is a major
> flaw because.... Ask a question if you get serious diametrically
> opposed feedback. You might find that there is a bimodal distribution
> that would yield different feedback.
> 11. Some articles I've read state that the designer who is being
> critiqued should run the session; others recommend a facilitator. good
> arguments for both.
>
> Good topic to discuss at The Asgard next week.
>
> Chauncey
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 4:42 PM, Lisa deBettencourt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> > To distract you all a moment from the current frenzy of posts, I am looking
> > for your input on a very specific topic: the Critique.
> >
> > The Critique is an art in and of itself. It is an opportunity for designers
> > to get feedback on their work, to illicit suggestions and to uncover areas
> > that need refinement or alternatives. However, not all of those who attend
> > critiques - or who are considered designers (IxD, UI, UE, UX, whatever) -
> > these days have had formal art or design training, and who therefore have
> > not been taught the fine art of how to effectively critique or how to be
> > critiqued. Currently, I have a working set of guidelines that I go by from
> > my education and experience, but I'm looking to hear from you all and learn
> > from your experiences running successful critiques.
> >
> > If you wouldn't mind, during a critique of a designer's work, what are your
> > tips/guidelines/rules (do's and don'ts) for:
> >
> >
> > The audience members:
> >
> >
> > The designer:
> >
> >
> >
> > (I considered seeding these to give them a start, but changed my mind to
> > leave it open and see what I got back instead.)
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Lisa
> > ________________________________________________________________
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