The framework you need to run a successful Design Critique Session

Running a design feedback session can be tricky. If not done right, it can easily end up with a lot of voices not being heard and designers feeling attacked. But as an important part of any product development, we need to master this process so we get constructive feedback and clear action points to follow up with.

Because I've been to many Design Critique sessions that led to nowhere but getting people feeling frustrated or demotivated, I decided to research the topic (quick shout out to Sean Harris for this article here), and what I came up was this framework that I believe will help you to run a more successful feedback critique session.

Use this 3-step framework if you want to:

• Keep the session on time and straight to the point
• Make sure everyone's voice is heard
• Have a clear view of actionable points after the session is over
• Support remote participation

Hours needed: 1.5 hours
People involved: 5–7 people

#1 Set up expectations — 15min

For me, this is hands down the most important phase of the design critique. If these points are not clear to everyone, chances are very likely that you'll have some misunderstanding during the session. To avoid that, follow the structure:

1. Agenda Overview — 5m

2. Understand the Problem — 10m

• The main audience
• Customer problem being solved
• The value of design to the user
• The business value
• The success KPIs

2.1 Roadmap Overview

• The stage on the process timeline you’re in

2.3 Feedback Type

• Type 1 — Getting ideas
  Expect to get ideas on a conceptual work;
• Type 2 — Detailed feedback
  You want to get detailed feedback on the product experience as a whole: from screen flows to content strategy and interaction patterns;
• Type 3 — Quick feedback
  You want to get quick specific feedback (i.e visual design, copy, interactions)

#2 Start the design review- 1h15

1. Conduct the Design Critique — 15m

• Feedback Matrix Use the feedback matrix for this. This diagram will hold the feedback post-its from your team.

2. Feedback Review — 30m

• The presenter will conduct a brief review of the design while each participant is silently writing their feedback on post-its.
• Post-its should include the participant initials, the type of feedback from the matrix i.e. Ideas, Likes, Questions and Challenges.
• After the review is complete the participants place their post-its on the wall in each Matrix category.

3. Clustering & next steps — 30m

• The facilitator quickly starts reviewing each post-it calling on the author to speak to the feedback for a quick 1–2m max.
• The facilitator clusters quickly in real-time during the review.

#3 Design Critique follow up

Follow up with the participants about any design iterations or product output from the critique. This can be easily done by sharing documentation, user findings or links to experimentations, on a group chat or e-mail with the critique participants. It’s important for people to feel like they contributed to the project and their time is appreciated.

…

Don't forget

What you’ll need to conduct the workshop:

Location
Find a comfortable meeting room with an open wall or whiteboard. For remote sessions, you can use the online canvas model on a combination of screen sharing and collaboration tools like Figma.

Participants
Invite the people who have an impact on the type of feedback you're looking for. For example, if you're looking for specific Type 3 feedback, you can invite designers or creatives from other departments within your org. But if you're looking for a more deep level Type 2 feedback, you might want to consider inviting designers and stakeholders from your track, who have decision making authority.

Supplies:

• A stack of post-its in 4 different colors for each participant
• Sharpies
• A room with one whiteboard (or any surface where you can stick the post-its on, so everyone can see it)

Download my Feedback Matrix on Figma

I use blue for likes, yellow for ideas, red for questions and green for challenges. I use this file for online collaboration and I hope it works for you!

Figma File:

https://www.figma.com/file/Usmwak5OwmsfD99EPurgHP/Free-Feedback-Matrix?node-id=0%3A1

Download Instructions:

1. Sign in or sign up

2. Click the Duplicate to Your Drafts to copy the file

Download my Design Critique Template on Google Slides

I use present this deck during my critique sessions as we go through the topics. I hope it works for you too, let me know!

Slide Deck:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1o5e02kxcn2bV5pI1dhuNLaehRSJSeX1KfT-0a6Lm74I/edit?usp=sharing

Download Instructions:

1. Click on File > Make a Copy

Have you used this framework? Did you find it useful? Feel free to drop any comments below, I’d love to know how useful this was for you and your team.

Thanks for reading!