Real critique has become a lost skill among collaborative teams today. Critique is intended to help teams strengthen their designs, products, and services, rather than be used to assert authority or push agendas under the guise of “feedback.” In this practical guide, authors Adam Connor and Aaron Irizarry teach you techniques, tools, and a framework for helping members of your design team give and receive critique.
Using firsthand stories and lessons from prominent figures in the design community, this book examines the good, the bad, and the ugly of feedback. You’ll come away with tips, actionable insights, activities, and a cheat sheet for practicing critique as a part of your collaborative process.
This book covers:
- Best practices (and anti-patterns) for giving and receiving critique.
- Cultural aspects that influence your ability to critique constructively.
- When, how much, and how often to use critique in the creative process.
- Facilitation techniques for making critiques timely and more effective.
- Strategies for dealing with difficult people and challenging situations.
What people are saying:
Adam and Aaron are creating a great dialogue around the importance of critique and how to do it well. I haven’t seen anyone else really bring this topic to the forefront. I’d be recommending their book to all my clients. ~ Jared Spool – Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering
“Adam and Aaron have been inspiring a lot of user experience practitioners to focus on the skill of critique and how to use this really important tool to have constructive and effective design conversations. I was really fortunate to attend their outstanding workshop on critique recently. The tips, techniques and exercises they shared were extremely relevant and practical for both design and non-design practitioners. I have personally been able to leverage many of the valuable insights and takeaways they shared with my team at Disney to structure formal design critique sessions and it has helped to make our design process even more effective. As user experience practitioners work in environments that are increasingly focused on design thinking, it is even more important to have techniques like critique to facilitate collaboration and empathy across roles and disciplines. It is fantastic that Adam and Aaron are leading the thinking on, and teaching this much needed topic to practitioners and organizations.” ~ Priyanka Kakar – User Experience Director at The Walt Disney Company