Often when talking about the role of “positive feedback” in critique, we see
discussions center on the importance of discussing strengths as a mechanism
for making critical feedback easier the receiver to take. There is a common
structure often discussed called the “OREO” or “sandwich” method in which
you begin by offering a positive piece of feedback, followed by a negative
one, followed by another positive one. It’s a fairly useful technique, which
we’ll talk more about in Chapter 5, and there have been studies showing its
effectiveness.
But there are other reasons for making sure that critiques include discussion on
what aspects of the design are working toward objectives and why/how.
Part of the creative process involves the decomposition and abstraction of
ideas and then recombining them in different ways or with ideas from
somewhere else. It’s a common way in which we take a familiar concept
where there is room for improvement or added value and innovate. When we
talk about aspects of a product or design that are working, there is the potential
for the creators to examine those areas and abstract concepts or elements from
them that could be used to strengthen other areas of the design that might not
be working as well.
Additionally, with the understanding that the creator(s) will iterate upon their
design after a critique, how much would it suck if at the next critique you
noticed that an aspect of the design that seemed great previously had now been
changed and wasn’t quite as effective, all because it hadn’t been talked about
and so the team didn’t see a reason not to change it.
Think about perspective. From whose “angle” are you analyzing the
design?
In the previous section we talked about preferential critique, or feedback that’s
based on personal preferences rather than being tied to objectives for what
we’re creating. When we’re analyzing a product, it can be easy to forget that
we most likely aren’t representative of the product’s target audience. Even if
we are a potential user, we know far more about it than the average user.
As you analyze a design it’s important for you to try to balance your expertise
with the user’s perspective. It can be a difficult balance to strike, but by simply
asking yourself “how am I looking at this” when you examine an aspect of the
design and making compare your perspective to what you think the user’s
might be, you’ve got a good start. From there you may find that one is clearly
more appropriate than the other, (ie your visceral hatred of the shade of green
being used probably doesn’t matter) or perhaps it might be best to bring both
up in the discussion. For example:
“From the user’s perspective, I think all of the steps in this flow make sense
and are understandable and useable. But from an interaction design