Book Notes—Discussing Design

notes.md

Discussing Design: Improving Communication and Collaboration Through Critique (Adam Connor; Aaron Irizarry)

Download from the authors: http://www.discussingdesign.com/downloads/Critique_CheatSheet.pdf

Randy's Opinion

Overall: 👍 Thoughts: Worth skimming the notes here. The book had a lot of extra "padding" that could've been edited out.

Notes

• It is you who are obligated to set up your audience to provide you the critique that you want and need through a structured request. It is you who needs to provide people a proper context—the scope and goals for the critique—to set the proper expectations and to frame the critique that allow you to explore possible improvements.
• “Make it pop some more.” “I don’t really like it... I am not sure why, but this isn’t it... I’ll know it when I see it.” “What the hell is this?” “Can you make it look like Apple?” “You should move that text to the top of the page and make all of the buttons icons.”
• Critique is supposed to be helpful.
• Critique isn’t a ‘design’ skill, it’s a life skill.”
• As people talk about what they think should or should not be a part of the design, it’s not uncommon for individuals to become emotional. For some, this can be difficult to control, which can lead to people getting defensive, tempers flaring, yelling, berating, and lines being crossed.
• The issue with feedback lies in how nonspecific it is. Feedback itself is nothing more than a reaction or response.
• Feedback is an important part of the design process, but the term itself and the way we often ask for it is very broad and can produce conversations that aren’t useful. We can improve these conversations by understanding what feedback is and how we use it.
• There are three forms of feedback, all of which vary in their degree of usefulness to us in the design process.
• reaction-based feedback tends to be emotional or visceral.
• There is another kind of reaction-based feedback that is driven by the individual’s understanding of what they are expected to say, typically driven by a cultural understanding or what they think the presenter wants to hear.
• Direction-based feedback, as seen in Figure 1-4, typically begins with an instruction or suggestion.
• In many cases that’s also where it ends. In this form of feedback, the individual providing it is often looking for ways to bring the design more in line with their own expectations of what the solution should be.
• What We Really Need Is Critical Thinking Critical thinking is the process of taking a statement and determining if it is true or false.
• When looking for feedback on our designs, we should be working to understand whether we believe that what has been designed will work to achieve those objectives.
• Good critique is comprised of three key elements: It identifies a specific aspect of the idea or a decision in the design being analyzed. It relates that aspect or decision to an objective or best practice. It describes how and why the aspect or decision work to support or not support the objective or best practice.
• CENTRAL IDEA Feedback encompasses three forms: reaction, direction, and critique. Reaction and direction are limited in their ability to help us understand if the design choices we’ve made might work toward the product’s objectives. Critique, a form of analysis that uses critical thinking, is feedback that focuses on exactly that understanding.
• Critique Builds Shared Vocabularies
• This is a natural occurrence in social groupings—it’s part of a process called acculturation.
• One challenge project teams face in collaboration is the variety of language used by people in different roles. Members from IT, design, and business might all have different ways of referring to the same thing. By bringing your project team together to critique on a recurring basis, you provide a venue for this shared vocabulary to build up and take hold. As that vocabulary is being built, it’s happening across roles and silos, improving the ability of team members to communicate more efficiently with members of other roles.
• But here’s the thing: there isn’t anything wrong with combining elements from different ideas to make a new one. The weakness here is the reasons why the elements being combined are selected. Critique is what’s missing from the process.
• CENTRAL IDEA Because critique, when done well, focuses on analyzing design choices against a product’s objectives, it also provides teams with additional benefits, acting as a mechanism for building shared vocabulary, finding relevant consensus, and driving effective iteration.
• Critique is an act of reflection.
• critique is a life skill, not a design skill.
• The aspects of critical thinking and of focusing on what the originating person or group’s intentions were have gone out the window.
• Talking is something we take for granted, and so the details of how we do it are often glossed over. But there is that old cliché: the devil is in the details. Or, more accurately, it should be that the devil is in ignoring the details. The ways we talk to one another, initiate conversations, ask questions, and so on all effect how our conversations unfold.
• Critical thinking This is the examination of what you’re designing against the objectives for its creation. Delivery This is how you present your critical thinking to the others with whom you’re working.
• To ensure that our conversations with teammates are as useful as they can be, we need to think about how we apply critical thinking to the topics we discuss and how we share with others the insights we achieve as a result of that critical thinking.
• summary of the chapter
• Wrapping Up
• Receiving critique with the appropriate intent is about wanting to understand whether the elements of the design will work toward the established
• Receiving critique with the appropriate intent is about wanting to understand whether the elements of the design will work toward the established objectives for the product.
• Giving critique with the appropriate intent is about wanting to help the designer understand the effect that elements of the design will have on the product’s ability to achieve its objectives.
• Lead with questions Get more information to base your feedback on and show an interest in their thinking.
• Best Practices for Giving Critique
• Asking every question beginning with “Why...” can feel abrasive or like an attack. Use lighter, more inviting phrasing such as, “Tell me more about...”
• Don’t assume Find out the thinking or constraints behind choices.
• Additionally, with the understanding that the designer(s) will iterate upon his design after a critique, how bad would it be if at the next critique you noticed that an aspect of the design that seemed great previously had now been changed and wasn’t quite as effective. And this happened because it hadn’t been talked about, so the team didn’t see a reason not to change it.
• To prevent those misunderstandings and poorly timed comments, I always ask two simple questions before telling anyone what I think. They might seem obvious, but by asking them I respect choices that have been made so far, and I open the conversation to reach its full potential. Where are you in your process?
• What can I help you with the most?
• CENTRAL IDEA Giving good critique is a skill that begins with the right intentions. Help the recipient understand how effective the design is by making sure that you’re avoiding selfish, untimely, incomplete, or preferential feedback and by following best practices.
• What is the objective of the design?
• What elements of the design are related to the objective?
• Are those elements effective in achieving the objective?
• Why or why not?
• CENTRAL IDEA Forming critique is a simple four-step process. What are the design’s objectives? What are the elements of the design related to those objectives? Are those elements effective? Why or why not?
• If we ask for feedback or critique, we need to be ready to listen to whatever we receive in response. Asking for critique at a time when we don’t really want it or can’t do something with it leads to unproductive discussions.
• CENTRAL IDEA Ask for feedback, and when you do, be ready to listen and act on what you learn.Your Note on Page 56 | Location 851 | Added on Monday, December 4, 2017 10:55:55 PM
• Remember the purpose Critique is about understanding and improvement, not judgment. There is no such thing as a perfect solution. There is always room for improvement. A goal of a critique is to help identify where those opportunities are. The conversations we have during critique act as road-signs along the evolution of our ideas and designs, helping us to understand which paths might take us closer to our end goals. Critique isn’t about pass or fail, approval or rejection. It is a reflection used to inform a next step.
• If you discover during a critique that different perspectives about objectives exist within the team, the best course of action is to point it out explicitly.
• CENTRAL IDEA Critique isn’t about judgment. It’s about analyzing the design so that you can improve it. Participate in that analysis. Listen to the feedback you collect from others and relate it to the objectives of the product you’re designing.Your Note on Page 61 | Location 928 | Added on Monday, December 4, 2017 11:02:48 PM
• summary section good note fodder
• Wrapping Up
• But as Aaron and I have worked with teams to help them strengthen their communication skills, we’ve observed that two of the most important characteristics of team cultures that indicate whether and where critique will be effective are collaboration and iteration.
• When we examine how people collaborate, we find that there are two primary mechanisms at work, coordination and consensus.
• Coordination is the act of aligning individual work efforts to produce outcomes that will eventually be assembled into or utilized in the formation of an end product.
• On perhaps the other end of the spectrum, we can find collaboration that is contingent entirely on consensus. In these extremes, teams don’t do anything unless everyone (or nearly everyone) agrees that it’s the right thing to do.
• CENTRAL IDEA The cultures that are most conducive to good critique value collaboration and iteration. They understand that for teams to make good decisions together, critical thinking is necessary, and that to accommodate critique and continuous improvement, iteration must be supported.
• Politics, territorialism, and influence based upon position and organizational hierarchy can have a huge impact on critique and communication as a whole.
• Bringing about change in politically charged and territorial cultures like this can be difficult, but it can be done. Observation is our ally. Notice who the positive contributors are and establish relationships with them.
• When the focus is on the product and its objectives, and not on individual agendas, it becomes easier to cultivate a healthy environment for critique.
• When working to change culture, whether it’s to make it more conducive to critique or to achieve any kind of shift, it’s important to know that there aren’t big, quick solutions.
• There are four common and widely used tools: personas, scenarios, goals and principles, that when put together, create a solid foundation. These tools help us guide our conversations a provide points of reference to keep everyone on the same page throughout the process.
• Personas and scenarios provide the “setting” for the analysis? How are we going to look at the design? Through whose eyes? With what behaviors or expectations? In what contexts?
• If personas and scenarios are the starting point, goals and principles are the finish line. Goals and principles describe where you’re trying to go with the design; they outline the future you’re trying to create and ways in which you want to create it.
• A great tool for keeping the foundation in front of the team throughout the project is a Mini Creative Brief. Maybe you haven’t experienced this, but almost every creative brief we have come across is the opposite of “brief.” As such, it’s pretty quickly discarded, because referring to it is painful.
• You can read more about the Mini Creative Brief on the UIE blog at http://www.uie.com/articles/short_form_creative_brief/.
• CENTRAL IDEA Keeping critiques focused on what matters for the product means having a mutually understood set of objectives. By working to uncover what these are and referencing them regularly throughout a project we not only have better critiques, but we begin to change the culture and dynamics of a team to better support critique.
• Critique is about understanding and improvement, not judgment.
• We may need to approach those who might be difficult or tend to dominate discussions in a one-on-one setting and share our ideas for how critique should work. Setting expectations up front is helpful in avoiding conflict during the critique session.
• Going it alone is not easy, so find advocates and allies.
• CENTRAL IDEA An individual’s own history, culture, and capabilities influence her ability to critique effectively with others and her attitudes toward it. If you truly value critique and collaboration, you should take measures to work with individuals, identify and address communication gaps, and ensure that they feel safe in sharing their work and perspectives.
• One tactic to help get your team comfortable and adjusted to how critique differs from other feedback is to critique competitor’s designs; this is not only helpful with respect to competitive analysis, but it also provides a forum in which the team can practice the critique process.
• CENTRAL IDEA Critique is a skill. It must be practiced. Don’t expect it to be perfect the first time you try it. Find as many opportunities as you can to do it, and over time, things will get better as you go.
• CENTRAL IDEA While remote and telecommuting arrangements pose challenges to collaboration and critique, remember that collaboration is a mindset, not a result of co-location. If team members value collaboration, with tools like video chat and screen sharing, remote collaboration and critique sessions can be just as effective as they are in person.
• CENTRAL IDEA 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.
• Another common question that Aaron and I hear is, “What should we be critiquing? Sketches? Wireframes? Visual Design Comps? Prototypes?” The answer is, yes, all those and more.
• What changes when critiquing different artifacts or design elements are the objectives against which you’re analyzing. The objectives for the product will carry through in critiques of any and all aspects of the design, but some will be more pertinent at times, depending on what you’re analyzing.
• Building Better Brainstorms Let’s think about the objectives of the average brainstorm. Of course, the primary objective is to come up with lots of ideas—as many as possible. But more often than not, we also have the objective of figuring out which one of the ideas the team should pursue. And if we’re doing things right that idea should be the one the team feels most works toward the goals we’re trying to achieve.
• To generate lots of ideas, we need to utilize activities that minimize or remove the opportunity for critical thinking and give individual participants an opportunity to form their own perspective. These kinds of activities are called divergent thinking activities. These are activities that push participants to consider lots of possibilities without consideration of their validity.
• Facilitation is often seen as a tool for getting meetings or projects that have gotten out of hand back on track. But in reality, it has a much wider application. Facilitation is the conscious, balanced management of conversations toward a conclusion.
• Figure 5-1. The four questions that comprise the basic critique framework
• CENTRAL IDEA Facilitation is an invaluable skill when it comes to gathering useful critique. Strong facilitation keeps critique conversations focused and productive.
• There are four key rules that we need to keep in mind. Paying attention to these rules will help to ensure that our discussion remains focused, efficient, and effective.
• Everyone Is Equal
• More attention should not be paid to those of a higher position just because of that position.
• Even though it’s true that in many organizations a director, executive, or other leader’s decisions will take priority over the thoughts of others, we want to keep that separate, and hopefully after a critique.
• Everyone Is a Critic
• Avoid Problem Solving
• If someone has jumped to a solution without describing the issue in the design that she’s trying to solve, ask questions that work toward identifying what that issue is and how
• If someone has jumped to a solution without describing the issue in the design that she’s trying to solve, ask questions that work toward identifying what that issue is and how it relates to the objectives of the design.
• Don’t Rush to Make Decisions on the Changes to Be Made
• The “I Like...” or “I Don’t Like...” Rule
• in our experience telling people that they can’t use these phrases hampers the flow of a critique discussion.
• CENTRAL IDEA Having rules for critique helps to set expectations for others as to how the critique session should work. It also helps participants by providing guidelines and boundaries to the framework for sharing their insights and having productive conversations. The rules should be shared with others before the session; in fact, it’s a good idea to post them in the meeting room.
• Ensure That the Team Knows the Critique Session Format and the Plans for Facilitating It
• If possible, we suggest getting the designs that are going to be critiqued out to those participating in the meeting before the critique takes place. This gives participants the time to review the designs and think through their feedback and questions. Sending the designs out a couple of days in advance is often enough.
• What we’re trying to do is jump-start the critical thinking process prior to the beginning of the conversation itself.
• be sure to remind the team of the goals, principles, scenarios, and personas that apply to the aspects of the designs being reviewed. This will help provide the correct context for the participants to analyze the designs.
• Allowing for questions to be asked is a critical part of an effective presentation. When we try to explain every detail up front, it’s as if we’re trying to avoid the potential for questions. We bombard participants with so much that they can become overwhelmed.
• In these situations it’s often better to let discussion of the constraint arise through questions. Wait for someone to ask about why choices were made and, if relevant, explain the constraint(s), choosing your words thoughtfully so that it doesn’t sound as though you’re blaming the constraint for a decision you wish was otherwise.
• CENTRAL IDEA Proper preparation for a critique session can make a world of difference when it comes to getting the insights that will help improve what you are working on. Ensure that participants know what is being critiqued, how the sessions will be run, and what the goals of the session are.
• Another way to identify goals and scope is to do reverse planning. In this approach, we begin by identifying what actions you want to be able to take after the conversation.
• Active listening is when we reply to the feedback we’re given by repeating it back as we’ve understood it. The person who originally gave the feedback can then confirm whether our understanding matches the point he was trying to communicate.
• When using Round Robin, the person facilitating the critique goes around the room in a specific, repeatable order, calling on and collecting feedback from participants. This eliminates waiting to see who speaks first. It also reinforces that everyone should participate and gives participants some predictability as to when they’ll get the chance to share their feedback.
• Another structure to consider using is Quotas. With Quotas, the facilitator lets the team know that an objective of the critique is to collect a certain number of things that are working well and things that aren’t (often two that aren’t and one that is) from each participant.
• Notes are the simplest way to ensure that everything is captured. They provide documentation of the points and ideas raised during the discussion, and the designer and team can review them later as needed.
• By having one individual take notes publicly—in a manner where everyone in the discussion can see what is being captured—we can avoid these challenges. This way the team members can look at exactly what is being written and question or clarify it if it does not match their understanding.
• Whenever possible, critiques should include the designer and should be done via real-time conversation. If the designer is not present, other team members are forced to make assumptions about why the designer chose a certain line of thinking and made certain decisions. And using tools such as email inhibits a team’s ability for clear dialogue.
• When critique sessions are held and the designer isn’t present, it puts both the person giving critique and the person receiving critique at a disadvantage.
• When providing feedback under these circumstances it is best to note in your feedback the assumption that is being made so that the designer can first identify whether it matches with her actual objectives.
• To keep a critique on track and effective, we need to be able to react and respond to situations as they arise. Familiarize yourself with a variety of techniques and the situation they best fit so that you’re prepared to handle whatever comes up.
• After the discussion is finished, we need to have a plan for what we’ll do with what has been collected.
• Critique is an active, living dialogue that lasts the lifespan of a product.
• Remember that just because something is said in a critique does not mean that something will change in the design as a result of it.
• CENTRAL IDEA Critique is a living process that continues through the life of a product. Follow up after sessions with next steps, insights gathered during the session, and outstanding questions to keep momentum moving forward and the process alive.
• It should be noted that not every person providing less-than-useful feedback is doing so with underhanded, world-domination driven motives.
• CENTRAL IDEA There are going to be times when conversations and situations become challenging for a variety of reasons. Be prepared for them and don’t lose heart. Understanding the situation you’re in is the first step to forming a plan to work through these challenges.
• It might seem a bit like overkill, but prefacing critiques like this can be truly helpful when participants or exchanges become challenging. Specifying the rules, structure, and focus for the critique at the outset can act as a preventative measure by encouraging people to pay more attention to how they participate and contribute to the critique.
• CENTRAL IDEA Addressing difficulties that come up during the course of a conversation entails being able to identify issues and having tools to address them. Setting up conversations with shared references such as rules, objectives, focus, and so on provides a foundation for us to use throughout the critique.
• Why can quiet people be difficult? Because sometimes they’re a ticking time bomb.
• Laddering, a technique commonly used in design research, uses the repeated asking of “Why?” in various forms to understand the cause or rationale behind a statement made by an interview participant.
• This is especially helpful when someone provides feedback that we sense may be related to her personal preference. By asking her “Why?” progressively, we’re likely to get one of two potential results: As we continue to ask questions about the feedback she has shared, we will uncover details about what she is trying to communicate in a way that ties back to the objectives of the product. Or... We may lead her to realize that her feedback is based more on her personal preference and motivations rather than the objectives of the product and therefore it should be left alone and the conversation can move on.
• The way you ask “Why?” is very important to the success of this technique.
• CENTRAL IDEA To deal with issues that can come up in a critique, you need to know what kinds of questions to ask as well as knowing when to ask them, even if that means doing it as part of a separate discussion.
• If we know that the individual whose work we need to analyze has trouble with receiving critique because they tend to get defensive or feel defeated, how do we go about making it easier for her? We don’t want to hold back our comments. We need to be truthful. But we also need to show tact to keep the momentum and collaborative spirit of the team going.
• With people who are particularly sensitive to feedback, it’s even more important to ensure that the conversation you have and the language you use center on the design and not the designer
• For as much anecdotal support as there is for the sandwich method, there is also a lot of criticism and skepticism as well as research that it doesn’t work, mostly because of how it’s often carried out. In many cases, the positive comments are superficial and or vague
• Additionally, because cognitively we expend more energy and attention processing negative situations than positive ones, initial positive comments are forgotten as soon as negative comments are brought in. And for some, the whole method can feel manipulative.
• Don’t worry about the “sandwich”. Be honest with the recipient. Balance the conversation.
• Separating yourself from your work can be difficult. You’ve put time and energy into what everyone else is now going to analyze with a critical eye. It’s intimidating. One thing that has helped Adam and me to create this separation is remembering that critique is a tool that can help us produce better work. The focus of the critique is the product, not the person who created the work.
• It’s inevitable that we’ll have a reaction, and the more passionate or pronounced the feedback is to which we’re reacting, the stronger our reaction is likely to be. What we need to do is give ourselves time to process the feedback and decide what we want to do with it.
• Even feedback that might seem initially destructive can have some legitimate analysis behind it.
• This doesn’t mean that you should always engage with someone who is tearing your work apart. You should think about the source itself. If this is someone with a history of being a problem and you can ignore her comments, you probably should.
• It’s natural to grow defensive when criticism is coming our way; we must resist that urge and focus on the best solution.
• Nonetheless, we need to remember that reactionary feedback can be positive, too, even neutral. In these cases, even though our own reactions to the feedback we’re receiving might not be so negative—it feels great when someone exclaims, “I love it” about something you’ve made—the feedback itself is still unhelpful in providing us with information to use in iterating on and improving our creation.
• Thus, we still need to do our due diligence to ask questions and push people to think critically about our design and their reaction. What do they love about it? Why? How does it apply to our goals, personas, scenarios, and principles?
• In your discussion ask about the differences you noticed between your design and her proposed changes and ask why he made or is recommending the change. Again, what problems is he trying to solve? What was it about your design that she doesn’t think is sufficient to solve that same problem? If the solutions she’s designed are problematic in some way to the design or product—perhaps because they go against best practices or research—ask her about it. Also, ask specifically about the things she isn’t recommending be changed or similarities between her design and yours. Why are they there? Did she keep them for the same reasons you made them?
• How about goals and design principles? (Are you all sick of us mentioning these yet?)
• CENTRAL IDEA When situations become challenging, try to steer the conversation back to the main concerns. Engage the person or participants with whom you are working by keeping the conversation centered on the product.
• We are providing you with a cheat sheet (http://www.discussingdesign.com/downloads/Critique_CheatSheet.pdf) to have handy that summarizes many of the helpful points in this book at a glance.
• Appendix A. The 10 Bad Habits That Hurt Critique
• Reacting
• Being Selfish
• Getting defensive
• Starting from Disparate Foundations
• Lacking Focus
• Focusing on What Isn’t Working
• Lack of Discussion
• Avoiding Participation
• Problem Solving
• Confusing Critique with Review
• Reviews are not critique. Design reviews are often scheduled to get some sort of approval to move forward or go live.