My Fourth Week @ Lambda School
Tags: UX, Lambda School, Interaction Design, Wireframe

Design Communications

The topic for this day was in a way unrelated to the previous days as it didn’t deal with the user-facing side of design but the internal one. The two main topics were design presentations, and giving and receiving feedback. These two topics are related to each other as usually what follows a design presentation is feedback on the design.

Design presentation was an interesting topic and I learned a few things that can affect the presentation outside of the presenting part. Things like setting up the room, and how to use your voice as an aid to help tell the story among others. Another take away is that you shouldn’t memorize what you will be saying but rather be immersed enough in the topic and have a strong outline so that it sounds fresh instead of canned and monotone which makes for a boring presentation.

The topics of presentation and feedback were linked by design critique. A design critique is when you and your fellow designers and managers get together to review designs. Design critiques tend to be informal and looser but not too loose. And while the previous is true you still have to present your work. Once the presentation part is done the audience then delivers their feedback. The methods for their delivery can vary by companies but the most common one is vocal, i.e they tell you. In some cases, it can be Post-it notes which I like ’cause you don’t have to write them down. The important part is that you’re not there to defend your decisions but to listen and gather possible solutions. You don’t have to agree with the feedback but don’t get in a discussion with the person just say thank you and continue gathering feedback. I’ve seen this happen and it’s not a good look for a designer.

The first part of the feedback process is to receive it, which we covered, the second is to dish it out. For these they have some frameworks in order to help you give good feedback. You don’t want to tell someone “hey, this doesn’t work” and leave it there. You also don’t want to tell some “hey, this sucks!”. The first one doesn’t solve anything and the second one is just mean, doesn’t solve anything, and makes the person less likely to have a conversation.

Introverted designer giving their feedback.

I was taught to use the A.S.K. framework, or system, whatever you want to call it. This means that feedback should be Actionable, Specific, and Kind. By actionable they mean that whatever you say the person should be able to act on it, and this might mean providing a possible solution. You can phrase it in a “this it’s what I would do /would’ve done” kind of way. Specific, this goes to what was used in the previous paragraph as an example. Refrain from saying things like “this doesn’t work for me”. We have to try to identify the element(s) that the designer should fix and then, insert the actionable part that they can use to fix it. Lastly, be kind which it’s obvious but in case it isn’t — treat others how you would like to be treated.

Project for the day

Create a presentation of the previous day’s project and then give the presentation to your peers, who in turn will give you feedback.