Discussing Design

Chapter 4. Making Critique a Part of Your Process

Creating Opportunities for Critique

Critique is an analysis tool that we use for the purposes of evolving and improving something. At any point during our projects—when we’re looking to take what we have created so far and analyze it in order to make it better by revising choices we might have made—we have an opportunity for critique.

As Aaron and I have worked with organizations to see how they are or aren’t using critique, we’ve found three common points in processes during which feedback is often collected. These points offer some interesting opportunities and considerations for critique.

Standalone critiques

Meetings or discussions held for the sole purposed of critiquing something

Collaborative activities

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

Design reviews

A common event in organizations’ project and design processes

Things to Keep in Mind

We’ll discuss each of the above forms in more depth later in this chapter, but before we do, it’s important to call out some considerations that you should keep in mind as any team works to incorporate critique into their process or improve upon the way you might already be using critique.

Start Small

The number of people involved has a direct effect on how much effort it takes to manage a conversation, both from a facilitation standpoint as well as an individual participant’s ability to follow along.

When introducing critique or working on improving ...