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On the surface, I’m asking for guidance as to what a team member needs to hear during a design review. This question comes up almost exclusively when looking at another team member’s work and I’m responsible for giving feedback, providing critique, or setting drection. Under the surface, I’m acknowledging that different stages of the design process call for different kinds of feedback. In my experience this permeates from the process to the designer themselves, such that they’re primed and ready for some kinds of feedback and not others.
This isn’t to say that you should cater only to their whim: If something needs to be said, say it. On the other hand, people share work to facilitate a conversation, and they may need particular outcomes to keep the process moving. For example, if you show someone a piece of writing and they give you feedback on spelling and grammar, but not substance, you might not be sure how to make your argument more strongly.
Ultimately, this question is a signal to both presenter and feedback provider that there should be concrete aspects of the work to take further.
I ask designers this question about the screens they design. I ask researchers this about their plans and scripts and reports. I ask writers this about copy they’ve prepared. I’ll ask folks who are still new to user experience and folks with more experience than I have. “Who” is not a question of discipline or seniority. It is instead a question of how they take feedback.
The worst possible response is “anything.” I mean, I know I can give feedback on anything, but what I’m interested in is what’s most helpful now.
This question is almost always attached to someone presenting work to me. The issue is when to ask this relative to a person’s presentation. I might ask before they’ve presented any work to help me understand what to look for. I might ask following a presentation to understand how to narrow down the assorted thoughts that occurred during the presentation.
Sometimes I have confidence that during the presentation the presenter will tell me what I should look out for, even if they haven’t included it in their preamble. I assume that in the course of the presentation it will become clear what they need feedback on, and so I hold off asking at the outset. If it doesn’t I’ll ask this question before anything else comes out of my mouth.
Sometimes I go into a presentation knowing that someone is just brain-dumping on me, without a clear agenda about what they want to get out of the conversation. In that case, I’ll ask at the beginning, generally as they’re switching from setting context to displaying work. This helps me focus on what to look for, but also serv
Since I’m providing feedback, I frame my comments as directly as possible. Feedback as questions (e.g. “Did you consider…?”) feels wishy-washy. Ultimately, you want to have confidence in the feedback that you give while at the same time giving the person permission to disregard the feedback as needed. So, after all the comments, the next question is “Did you get what you need?” Every piece of work is an excuse to have a conversation, and every conversation is a vehicle for moving the work forward. Therefore, if I’m asked for feedback, I want to know that they’ve gotten sufficient fuel to keep things moving.
Would you be open to feedback?
Is there something in particular you need feedback on?