Implementing Design Critiques
Filling knowledge gaps and embracing collaboration.
After having issues with siloes, inconsistency, and communication gaps, I felt I needed a way to bring the design team together to make everyone feel included and on the same page. Even though I was nervous about adding a couple more meetings to everyone’s calendars, I scheduled a recurring show-and-tell to get everyone comfortable presenting and then added the design critiques with a meeting framework for us to follow.
Despite my worry about causing infighting, the gatherings and critiques brought more value than I could have predicted. The designers are now more knowledgeable about products across the company and feel more like a team, getting feedback from their design peers. More recently, I realized we can also bring guests in to see how design works, potentially elevating design maturity within the company.
As a director, team manager, and individual contributor, I was working across business units (verticals), speaking to everyone. Since I was already receiving so much information, I did not realize that the other designers, especially those dedicated to separate verticals, were feeling siloed, had gaps in communication, and felt that they had a lack of proper design feedback. I started getting clues about the issues below during our 1:1s when designers would ask how other teammates are doing, or inquire about the progress of projects they had not seen in a while.
Each designer felt like they were in siloes and separated from the rest of the group. Being a fully remote team for many years, does not help. One of the reasons the current support model had them dedicated to each vertical, or business unit. They were not feeling as part of an overall design team.
With as busy as things were, or are, we were not meeting enough to relay messages often enough. The lack of communication of design updates and changes were actually causing missed information that other designer could have used in their current projects. Including the next issue…
I was noticing inconsistency issues within the same products and same teams, despite having active design system. I believe this was stemming from both communication gaps from above, and possibly the lack of using other projects as reference.
Although designers were getting feedback, they felt like they were not getting the “right” feedback, that only designers can give. Designers can ask specific questions, and make suggestions that only designers, working in similar products can ask.
I needed a consistent and recurring way to keep the lines of communication open across team members. It needed to be c and r because, especially in a remote environment, I felt they could quickly get back to being in siloes. The only solution I could think of was internal design team “gatherings.”
I was nervous about fallback regarding adding more meetings, but I needed these to feel different. So I started with “Show n Tell” to ease into these with some thing fun. This also allowed me to set up a framework for us to follow for the critiques, so they felt like an open forum for good feedback.
In order to keep things fun and easy at first, I started hosting a monthly show n tell, where designers can show off their creative work, with no pressure. This was also an opportunity to bring the team closer together by learning about each other’s interests and history in design. There was also an opportunity for invited guests to do the same, learn about our team.
Once I had finished the framework, we started the critiques. I started them off once a week, and adjust from there. Designers would show current projects and get recurring feedback from peers. This feedback would also be on point because it was coming from designers. With these too, there was an opportunity to invite guests for transparency and for them to learn how the design team operates. This would also help increase design culture.
As a result of the two series of meetings a decent amount of positives started to show up. I noticed the designers starting to contact the group and each other more often, the questions were also getting better and more to the point as the designers learned more about each product.
Show n Tell helped designers understand each other’s design backgrounds and creative interests. Increased attrition by feeling part of a team, not alone.
The critiques are helping designers with becoming knowledgeable across platforms by seeing work across those products, and helping with suggestions about those products.
Design feedback from designers that can see UI and interaction details across those products then use those patterns in their projects. This also lead to higher quality solutions leading to higher quality products and better overall UX.
Once other staff started to attend, one could tell that people were learning from what they heard. These meetings served as transparency for leadership into design process, plus listening helped in both design maturity and advocacy, because they better understood how we do what we do.
"Chris Piedra initiated a Design Critique meeting series, during which team members show project designs. "These meetings not only allow peers to give feedback, but also bring the team together, fostering collaboration and consistency, raising the overall quality of work of both the individual designer and the product." The meetings have indeed helped with team bonding, and enabled lively discussion features and functionality that might be far removed from daily tasks--and those fresh perspectives have brought some of the most valuable input."
