How to improve your design crits

Jan 15, 2024

4 key principles to ensure design crits are purposeful and impactful.

There are a few key principles that I've always followed to ensure design crits on my team were purposeful and impactful.

The four principles are:

Setting clear roles - so valuable in any workshop or exercise so everyone is clear on what they should be doing.
Setting goals (expectations) - setting guidelines for what you do/don't need feedback on helps keep things on track + eliminates circular discussions/derailing.
Clear agenda - having a clear agenda and format that can be consistently used over and over. This one is powerful and helps improve the culture of the design team.
Together alone - eliminate circular discussion, make it equitable & ⬆️ feedback quantity/quality.

We should always keep in mind, both design managers and ICs, Crits are key to improving our product—but they're just as much about building trust across teams working together in a digital creative space. It's something I've told all of my teams.

Meetings and workshops like this are very much about creating trust. Trust among the designers on the design team. Trust between the IC designers and their design manager. Trust between designers and product management. As well as with the engineering team.

Without trust, the collaboration will suffer, which impedes progress.

Jan 15, 2024

4 key principles to ensure design crits are purposeful and impactful.

There are a few key principles that I've always followed to ensure design crits on my team were purposeful and impactful.

The four principles are:

Setting clear roles - so valuable in any workshop or exercise so everyone is clear on what they should be doing.
Setting goals (expectations) - setting guidelines for what you do/don't need feedback on helps keep things on track + eliminates circular discussions/derailing.
Clear agenda - having a clear agenda and format that can be consistently used over and over. This one is powerful and helps improve the culture of the design team.
Together alone - eliminate circular discussion, make it equitable & ⬆️ feedback quantity/quality.

We should always keep in mind, both design managers and ICs, Crits are key to improving our product—but they're just as much about building trust across teams working together in a digital creative space. It's something I've told all of my teams.

Meetings and workshops like this are very much about creating trust. Trust among the designers on the design team. Trust between the IC designers and their design manager. Trust between designers and product management. As well as with the engineering team.

Without trust, the collaboration will suffer, which impedes progress.

Jan 15, 2024

4 key principles to ensure design crits are purposeful and impactful.

There are a few key principles that I've always followed to ensure design crits on my team were purposeful and impactful.

The four principles are:

Setting clear roles - so valuable in any workshop or exercise so everyone is clear on what they should be doing.
Setting goals (expectations) - setting guidelines for what you do/don't need feedback on helps keep things on track + eliminates circular discussions/derailing.
Clear agenda - having a clear agenda and format that can be consistently used over and over. This one is powerful and helps improve the culture of the design team.
Together alone - eliminate circular discussion, make it equitable & ⬆️ feedback quantity/quality.

We should always keep in mind, both design managers and ICs, Crits are key to improving our product—but they're just as much about building trust across teams working together in a digital creative space. It's something I've told all of my teams.

Meetings and workshops like this are very much about creating trust. Trust among the designers on the design team. Trust between the IC designers and their design manager. Trust between designers and product management. As well as with the engineering team.

Without trust, the collaboration will suffer, which impedes progress.

Jan 15, 2024

4 key principles to ensure design crits are purposeful and impactful.

There are a few key principles that I've always followed to ensure design crits on my team were purposeful and impactful.

The four principles are:

Setting clear roles - so valuable in any workshop or exercise so everyone is clear on what they should be doing.
Setting goals (expectations) - setting guidelines for what you do/don't need feedback on helps keep things on track + eliminates circular discussions/derailing.
Clear agenda - having a clear agenda and format that can be consistently used over and over. This one is powerful and helps improve the culture of the design team.
Together alone - eliminate circular discussion, make it equitable & ⬆️ feedback quantity/quality.

We should always keep in mind, both design managers and ICs, Crits are key to improving our product—but they're just as much about building trust across teams working together in a digital creative space. It's something I've told all of my teams.

Meetings and workshops like this are very much about creating trust. Trust among the designers on the design team. Trust between the IC designers and their design manager. Trust between designers and product management. As well as with the engineering team.

Without trust, the collaboration will suffer, which impedes progress.