Effective design reviews: how to give & receive meaningful design feedback

AGENDA:
5:30 Drinks and Apps
6:00 Presentation Starts

Effective design reviews: how to give and receive meaningful, actionable design feedback

We all know the design review routine: The design team walks through the design, carefully explaining it screen by screen. They point out that it is early in the process, so they are more interested in the big picture issues than low-level details. Along the way, fellow team members nitpick at the design, focusing on minor details while completely missing any critical usability problems. At some point, someone volunteers to redesign a feature whose problems aren’t yet even fully understood. The boss, a “visual thinker”, points out that she really can’t stand that shade of blue, and that her mom could never use this UI, even though it is targeted at trained specialists. The consensus feedback of “looks great”, while encouraging to hear, is probably quite literal because the mockup does in fact look great visually.

What we don’t all know is that the traditional design review process, while popular, is mostly a waste of time. The designers, who know the design better than anyone, start by explaining how it works—undermining the team’s ability to find usability problems from a fresh perspective. The feedback is often focused on the wrong level of detail. Participants engage in redesign and start debates over details that hardly matter yet. The boss feels obligated to mess with the design to feel like she is doing her job properly. And the mockups are beautiful, which makes them look professional but often results in an emotional, visual reaction—undermining the team’s ability to give the harsh, critical feedback on the important design issues that we so desperately need.

In this talk, Everett with explain:
· Why traditional design reviews are often ineffective.
· How to give and receive effective feedback on a peer level.
· How to turn feedback based on personal opinion into something that is objective (and what it means when you can’t).
· How to handle vague, confusing feedback.
· How to shut down defending, redesigning, and debating.
· Why scenario-based reviews result in better feedback (and fewer battles over personal opinion) than feature or screen-based reviews.
· Why design review rules are a good idea (along with a sample set).
· Why positive feedback is important for effective reviews.
· How to manage up, so that your manager helps improve design review effectiveness.

The talk ends with a group review of a sample design, where Everett will enforce the design rules and facilitate excellent feedback.

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Everett McKay (@UXDesignEdge (https://twitter.com/UXDesignEdge)) is Principal of UX Design Edge and has been teaching UX design to software professionals since 2003. He has delivered UX design workshops to an international audience that includes Europe (UK, Poland, Greece, Turkey), Asia (India, China), South America (Argentina), and Africa (South Africa). Everett is author of UI is Communication: How to design intuitive, user-centered user interfaces by focusing on effective communication, published by Morgan Kaufmann. While at Microsoft, he was responsible for writing and evangelizing the Windows 7 User Experience Guidelines.

SPECIAL DISCOUNT for Everette's UX Design Essentials class:

While in Chicago, Everett is holding his UX Design Essentials class. The focus is on practical tools and techniques to help you and your team to make design decisions more quickly and confidently, while minimizing the need for user research and testing. He is offering 33% off to UXPA and IxDA members. For more information and to register, check https://uxde-chicago2.eventbrite.com/?discount=UXPACHICAGO15

Cheers,
Nicole