Discussing Design: Improving Communication and Collaboration through Critique

by Adam Connor

Participate. Critique the work alongside everyone else.

Collaboration: More Than Just “Working Together”

When we examine how people collaborate, we find that there are two primary mechanisms at work, coordination and consensus. Around each of these we sometimes see extreme versions of collaboration.

Coordination

Coordination is the act of aligning individual work efforts to produce outcomes that will eventually be assembled into or utilized

Collaboration at this extreme can be challenging to the integration of critique; if this is how the team members feel they should be collaborating, it’s likely they’re uncomfortable and/or inexperienced sharing their perspectives on the work of others or having others share perspectives on their own work.

Consensus

In these extremes, teams don’t do anything unless everyone (or nearly everyone) agrees that it’s the right thing to do.

Collaboration of this sort can be challenging for critique, because critique isn’t intended to get everyone to agree.

Meeting in the Middle The best approaches to collaboration, and by extension those that best support critique, are those that understand that throughout a project, there is a shifting balance between the two mechanisms of coordination and consensus.

For critique to take place, a process must allow for iteration. This is essential, and it’s why iteration is such an important aspect of organizational culture.

Iteration and critique go hand in hand. Critique is a linchpin for iteration.

Team members need to value continuous improvement over “right-the-first-time,” and they need to be working in a process and culture that accommodates and reinforces that value.

Politics and social taboos influence how we communicate with one another and can create barriers to critique.

Different perspectives among team members aren’t a bad thing.

But, there needs to be some level setting, a foundation that comprises common goals and a shared understanding.

A great tool for keeping the foundation in front of the team throughout the project is a Mini Creative Brief.

Mini Creative Brief would include the following: A brief summary of the problem statement or purpose of the product The key users (personas) of the solution The main scenarios in which the solution will be used

The business goals that have been established for the product The design principles to be followed

Respect and trust are tantamount to good critique.

Critique is about understanding and improvement, not judgment.

Critique should be a safe, collaborative environment, in which teams can discuss their designs among themselves, with clients, and with others within their organizations.

Set expectations up front. Let people know that they are expected to be honest and share their perspectives.

reaching out to those who you know will be participating to gauge their previous critique experiences

Often, people think they’re talking about the same thing only to find out later they had completely different interpretations.

Standalone critiques Meetings or discussions held for the sole purposed of critiquing

Collaborative activities Events in which multiple people work together simultaneously to solve a specific challenge

Design reviews A common event in organizations’ project a...

When introducing critique or working on improving an organization’s skills with it, it’s good to keep the number of people involved to fewer at first, maybe just pairs.

As people grow more comfortable, you can introduce increasingly larger groups.

Listening plays a huge role in critique, for both recipients and those giving the feedback.

To make sure our feedback discussions stay focused on pertinent, useful feedback, we need to ensure that we’ve actually listened to and understood what has been said before we say something in response.

Regardless of how and when you incorporate critique, be intentional. Think about who should be included. Keep groups small when first introducing critique. And always, listen and think before you speak.

When Should You Critique?

We need to be able to clearly communicate the idea to others. We need to have the time to process the feedback we receive from the critique and use it to iterate on our idea.

The gist is that at this early stage, we still need to develop our thoughts around the solution a bit more. If we tried to share them with others so that we could get their critique, we’d likely confuse the heck out of them because the idea itself isn’t clear enough even to ourselves at this point.

To be able to critique, we first need to have enough of our own clarity around the idea so that we can clearly communicate it to others.

Figure 4-3. Plotting the point at which critique’s effectiveness begins to diminish during the “life” of a design”

the best time to critique a solution is after it is 20 percent baked but before it’s 80 percent baked.

“What should we be critiquing? Sketches? Wireframes? Visual Design Comps? Prototypes?” The answer is, yes, all those and more.

Central Idea Standalone critiques, whether they’re formal meetings or casual discussions, are a great way to incorporate critique because of the flexibility they offer around when and how teams can use them.

Critical thinking is the nemesis of creative or generative thinking.

In the first phase, utilize divergent thinking activities with which you can generate a large number of possible solutions without concern about their validity or quality. In the second phase, plan for convergent activities that push participants to examine the proposed ideas, looking for ways to categorize, consolidate, and eliminate ideas. Incorporate critique as part of the second phase to ensure that ideas are being kept or eliminated based on their strengths with respect to the product’s objectives. Central Idea Critique provides a powerful mechanism to help teams make choices that are focused on product objectives during collaborative activities such as brainstorms.

Figure 4-5. The basic structure of a “brainstorm” workshop using divergent and convergent activities with critique as a transitional mechanism between them

The order of activities within one phase, called a charrette, of a studio is always sketch > present > critique.

Participants should be equipped with the problem statement for the product they’ll be designing. They should also be given the product’s business goals, scenarios, personas, and any other previously agreed-upon artifacts

Charrette 1 Participants are given eight minutes to sketch as many concepts as they can come up with using the 6-up paper.

Charrette 2 Participants take the feedback they heard during their critiques as well as the ideas and feedback that they heard their teammates present and receive and revisit their sketches.

The participants now have eight minutes to iterate on their previous sketches and come up with a singular concept, again using 6-up paper.

When the eight minutes are up, the team tapes their sketches to the wall and again presents their concepts and receives critique.