Design at Scale 2021-Sweating the Pixel: Scaling Quality Through Critique (Joseph Meersman)

—>  Thank you for having me here

 

—> When was reflecting on today’s theme, I feel increasing quality and consistency of outcomes in rapid growth environments can be done through quality design critiques in your organization
  • I have over twenty years of experience in design orgs, and my perspective on critiques is informed by that background

—> I will tell a quick story and then move to introduce drivers of critiques, the habits involved with effective critiques, and scenarios of pattens and anti-patterns based off my experience

 

—> I’ll also include two non-critique meetings and personal tips on handling design critiques

 

—> By sweating pixels, paying attention to details of interactions, we designers focus on quality as organizations scale
  • We’ll be sweating every pixel we put in our user’s hands

 

—> Back in 2017, I have story about a team I led
  • This was the Watson to Finance team at IBM
  • It had great people with fantastic skills, but team didn’t quite click and our design language was not enough to make it click

 

—> The team consisted of motivated and talented people, individually dedicated to craft, but it had people sweating their pixels in silos and personal barriers

 

—> These silos were broken down by critique and experimentation over time, and we ended working transparently together on our projects

 

—> This deck is a product of collaboration with people on this screen
  • Iterating on the model I was working on with the team

 

 

—> My definition of a critique is as follow: sharing work in progress with other designers  to get feedback from them

 

—> As designer you take big step back, and realize that crits are great for many things. They:
  • Sharpen skills
  • Elevate craft
  • Demonstrate your strengths
  • Help you advocate for your work
  • Show areas for Improvement
  • Fuel your growth as a professional
—> But why should you care?

—> Across the design team there are logical groupings for critiques

 

—> There are those working on pixels and delivering work  (Designers, Senior Designers)
  • They learn by act of rehearsing and presenting their own work and seeing how people defend their design decisions
—> There are those who guide the work and managing the popes (Principal Designers)
  • Benefit from watching and providing feedback and looking at hard/soft skills balance with crits at hand
—> There are those in leadership (the Head of Design)
  • They can support and encourage critiques and foster environment for them to take place
  • Important for leadership to identify potential for individual team members
  • Look for opportunities to build the team through crits

 

—> Balance of operational design team requires both the habits of the team and habits of good critiques

 

—> No formula exists, but a few initial conditions
  • Fostering environment for great critiques
  • Starts with Mindset, or changes in behavior over time

 

—> These behavioral habits are shown to create safe space for others
  • Humble: Recognizing modesty as virtue
  • Actively Listening: Process what’s heard
  • Gratitude: Thank others for input. Own and admit your blindspots, rather than defending oversights. See something, say something

 

—> Practice consist of repetition with a focus on learning

 

—> Three lenses to reference
  • Giving Feedback
  • Receiving Inputs
  • Observing the giving/receiving of input

—> Will have three mini scenarios that reflect real-life experiences he encountered
  • I encourage you to learn from my mistakes

 

—> First Scenario: The iteration loop
  • Many options to solve for providing value to end user
  • Many ways to balance content and visual copy

 

—> And it feels as if you’re not sure where to go with iteration

 

—> For context, imagine if three days before client meeting, and there’s an ad-hoc critique
  • More divergence in process than is typical

 

—> The scenario consists of a designer receiving, senior giving, another designer observing
  • All hop on to a Zoom Call
—> The designer says they are too close to the problem, and unsure of where to go next in their design, as they have so many versions of the design they feel lost

 

—> Senior designer says, yes, you’re struggling to bring the A game for this client, and can feel it in the work

 

—> Other designer says the first designer should do things entirely differently

 

—> What are the patterns/anti-patterns?
  • First designer looking to receive feedback didn’t set the context for the problem they were solving, but just vented instead
    • Failed to take opportunity to clarify the ask
  • Senior designer has responsibility to be constructive and helping others grow
    • Their over-empathizing made the situation worse
  • Third designer, really didn’t actively listen to the concerns of the first designer
    • They assumed that their approach was the right one

—> This critique was an ad-hoc one

 

—> It works as guard is down when talking peer to peer
  • It’s time sensitive
  • Provided direction and key input beforehand
  • Even if you are the only designer in your team you no longer feel like you are solo actor doing the work

—> Scenario 2 involves a refinement compass, as every project heads toward landing with details that can make/break design
  • Details for when you hit it out of the park are not clear
—>The scenario in this context is a weekly critique at an agency

 

—> As an aside, an informal regular, weekly critique and getting input with other from various levels of experience, is a sign of a healthy organization

 

—> In this scenario, the senior designer is looking for feedback:
  • Say they could use someone else’s eyes on their projects
—> The associate creative director says she can’t pick a favorite

 

—> The observing designer points out senior designer’s work remind her of award

 

—> Senior designer didn’t share early in their process, and now is their risk of process choices being locked in
  • Didn’t ask for specific feedback, such as typography,  color palette , evoking the brand, etc.
  • Shared too late
—> ACD was not objective and providing feedback based on senior designer
  • No actionable input
  • Indirect feedack
—> Designer observing
  • Not really paying attention to work, or contributing positively

—> Attributes of this informal type of critique are as follows:
  • It’s as-needed
  • It requires facilitation host
  • Need artifacts like data-density and whitespace
    • Treat things like prototype and evolve over time

—> Tense moments over org and in design team and leadership oversight

 

—> The final scenario is a formal critique is a big bet that’s high stakes, involving something like a product release

 

—> In this scenario, the designer:
  • Says they have been waiting for a while to get the presentation done
—>The  team lead
  • Says everything is off, and that things need to be radically overhauled
—> The design director
  • Is disappointed that we are running tense, and that there is anxiety
—> The learning is that:
  • The designer could have practiced active listening and have been respectful of others
  • The design team lead did not calculate their feedback at all.
  • The observing designer focused on people, not the actual work

 

—> Formal critiques are set by leadership, focused on work in progress and take in account use cases, constraints, and challenges

 

—> Significant advantage by providing a direct line of sight for the work, and can recognize broader applications

 

—> Now we need to talk about important meetings that are not critiques, in that they are not focused on craft and iteration of individual designer’s work

 

—> Critiques prepare use for design share and playback
  • Can be formal and involve cross-team participation
  • Equivalent to final project presentation
  • Focused on the outcome and not much iteration (used for flow and practice not peer to peer feedback)
—> Practice to defend work and process

 

—> See how people approach creative problems solving, and prepare for it

 

 

—> Type of meeting where you meet with stakeholders and pitching a story to these stakeholders and a multi-disciplinary line of sight

 

—> DIY  is when you start a critique yourself, and keeping what we’ve discussed in mind

 

—> We are not advocating for singular approach, but for principles and conditions that can be leveraged

 

—> The teams will set the tone and cadence for critiques

 

—> Be thoughtful with feedback, with care and acknowledge what is good/bad and actionable

 

—> Thank people for feedback given, and own things that happen

 

—> Have intellectual curiosity and focus on the process

 

—> Everything we’ve stepped through we can bring to critiques from all domains

 

—> Don’t mix and match critiques run, just pick one

 

—> Get started with the critiques and get in motion

 

—> Find someone who is more a conductor than a referee
  • Focus on researchers and workshops
  • Be inclusive and invite people to the party
—> Share work in progress artifacts to act on

 

—> Remember that critiques are something designers are uniquely entitled to
  • Sweat the pixels and improve your craft
—> Thank you for your time!

 

Q&A

 

1. Do you have tips on asynchronous critiques?

 

—> In globally distributed teams, they are a necessity

 

—> Be tool agnostic, and see what works
  • My best advice is  to try something, and iterate until you find what works