Level up design maturity with effective design reviews (2 of 3)
Part 2:
When to review? Who should part of that process?
Do’s & Dont’s
👉🏼 Read part 1 story here if you haven’t already
When to review? Who’s involved?
The type of review depends on the maturity and the size of the product company. Mature companies often have a solid review systems already in place.
This framework would be better suited for start-up or scale-up squads. This could be useful for design leaders or design ops to set up a review structure.
I’ve implemented this framework with my teams which are new to the product process, and it’s been working really well.
So you may ask, WHY only involve C-level stakeholders to one or two review sessions?
That’s plenty, isn’t it? Essentially the mid-fi 75% point is the key stage for design review. At this point we’ve trialled many options, tested with users and can answer questions regarding risk, feasibility and hypothesis outcomes.
If you’ve just started the role, yes, it makes sense to share more frequently to gauge how the team prefers to work, but one or two reviews down, you should be given the space to navigate the process yourself. The goal for the review point is to inform C-level leaders at the key stages to ensure they are aligned. Between low-fi to mid-fi is the time designers are in a state of flow, refining and solving the problems. Involving stakeholders in the weeds of detail designing is not “collaborating”, but double handling, and rather unproductive.
Everyone gets excited to see the final mock-up so I’d share it at the 95% hi-fi stage while run another internal usability test.
Designers should, and are expected to, reach out to PMs, engineers and relevant stakeholders when they get stuck. At the end of the day, design teams are responsible and should be trusted as the experts in their field of designing.
To put it bluntly, if senior stakeholders in your company need to be involved in the weeds of design, are they micro-managing? Where’s the trust?
Dos & Don’ts
Advocate these key points to build a culture where reviews are events to look forward to :
- Everyone is working towards the SAME GOAL. We need to solve the problem for the user, not for the stakeholders nor for the CEO.
- We MUST work towards making Design Review an empowering exercise. Empowering does not mean “toxic positivity”. If something doesn’t work, support your reasoning with data and insights to help designers understand what can be improved.
- PMs should ensure these sessions are well organised, well timed and well monitored. If these review sessions produce blame, directional feedback, or are conducted in a disorganised manner, they will create an unpleasant culture which may result in designers closing upand avoiding sharing their work early.
- Be empathetic: Stakeholders — please try to understand junior designers’ mental challenges when presenting their work to stakeholders. We want to make sure they have the space to learn. Nothing is a mistake — it’s only opportunity to improve.
- Learning to provide critical feedback will encourage designers to share early and share often in a truly collaborative way.
- We trust designers to take in the feedback and action on selective direction that would drive towards a finer experience for the outcome/goal.
- Reviews and iterations are not something to fear. We must remove the fear factors. Every design is an experiment and an opportunity to refine and finesse. It’s about moving the needle bit by bit.
Do’s during design reviews (happens at the end of solution design before high fidility)
Who and their responsibilities:
- Designers: Present solutions > Answer questions
- Facilitator & Moderator: Planning > Take notes and feedback > Moderate time and discussions
- Stakeholders (Reviewers): Listen > Take notes > Question > Provide critical feedback
Yes, fresh designers need to become better at receiving feedback — as they gain more experience under their belt, they should become better at handling this. The key is to learn that critique excercises are there to make your designs better.
To all stakeholders — design review sessions are not your opportunity to tear design apart and leave it in a shambles; they are for lifting the design to the next level, to help designers see the blind spots and to understand your users’ behaviours better.
This brings my next point…The art of feedback
