Are You Making Design Crits Work For You? 🗣
Are you getting the feedback you need from a design crit? It's time to elevate your crit
By Furquan Ahmad · May 25, 2022Originally sent in my Ready Set Grow newsletter
Hi Reader,
Design crits are such a great place to get open and honest feedback on your designs. It should be a safe place to get useful feedback on designs to help you learn and develop as a designer.
Structure does help
Before you present at a design critique, it is your duty to turn up prepared. This can be a Figma file with clear documentation setting the context of the problem you’re trying to solve.
Most importantly tell everyone what you’re looking for feedback on and what you’re NOT looking for feedback on.
Spend 15-20 minutes before the crit sitting down and getting your Figma file together.
Maximise your slot
Time is scarce. To make the most of the time you’ve got, it’s essential you spend the start of your slot getting the framing right.
It doesn’t just benefit all the participants in the room, it’s going to get you higher quality feedback.
Different Formats
Subject to how many attendees and personality types there are in the room.
Smaller crits are more intimate and encourage more open feedback.
If there are 10, 15 smart designers in the room, all with amazing views, find a format that allows them to express their views so you can get more diverse perspectives on the feedback you’re seeking.
You really don’t want the person with the loudest voice in the room to be giving all the feedback for 20 minutes straight.
Check out silent design critiques, round table discussions, not using a popcorn freestyle discussion unless you’re really short on time.
Capturing Feedback
The hardest bit of a crit can also be, when you receive an overwhelming amount of feedback, you need to have a plan on how you’re going to document all of this.
Like all feedback you have a choice to filter through what you consider valuable or not.
Deep Dive Into My UX Portfolio Case Study - F150s + Mustangs
In this video I dive into a case study from my product design portfolio presentation that got me a job at Meta.
I dive into a mobility project I led at Ford and talk about autonomous vehicles, the new electric F150 and Tesla.
The Easiest Ways To Create A UX Design Portfolio!
In this video we explore the simplest ways to create a UX design portfolio in 2022.
We explore a range of solutions that all require no coding, to allow you to focus on creating the content on your portfolio. The stuff that really matters.
Free Design Whiteboard Challenge Workshop
As a newsletter subscriber I want to offer you the opportunity to trial out and take part in my virtual design whiteboard challenge workshop for free.
The workshop will be run by me as a practice lab. There’s going to be a limited number of spots and availability so be sure to register as soon as possible.
