Criticism and Self-analysis

I could hardly agree more with this post by Khoi Vinh, about the value of criticism.

And yet, those critiques are so important. The notion of speaking openly, honestly and objectively about work is inherent to learning how to be a better designer. That’s why every design school uses critiques as a core tool of teaching design. Critiques conducted amongst peers, people you know, people that you have to see again the next day in class, that you have to build relationships with. If you’re learning design, then you’re giving and receiving criticism regularly. If you’re not engaging in constructive criticism, then you just aren’t learning about design.

This has always been one of the reasons I think an art degree is perhaps the best education I could have gotten. I left school knowing how to present, give opinions without pissing everyone off (well, too much; I am still me) and mostly taking criticism as something valuable. No, actually seeking real opinions on my work, instead of vague platitudes.

And, incidentally, a lot of people I have worked with do not have this experience. Too many design schools especially are focused on a different critique method that doesn't really meet these goals. So I hope this is not something lost as they all modify their curriculum with continued digital-centric (and telepresent) changes.

Khoi continues to wish for a world where there are dedicated critics of interactive design (et. al.), which is of course pie in-the-sky. So what to do now? Use our communities to their fullest.

For a long while, we've talked internally about how projects go. Not formally enough usually, but when we get feedback from whatever route, we share it among the group and try to evaluate and solve the issue it raises. Really, when I think about it, being able to employ user testing the right way requires this same flexibility and willingness to learn by experimenting.

And for a year or so my feedback to conferences and a few others has been that I want fewer success stories, and more... well maybe not failures, but projects where things could be improved.

So, since no one else has offered, I'll go first. On April 21st at 3:50pm, I am going to present Mobile Website Redesign After-Action Report at Design for Mobile 2009. There's still time to sign up, and we've managed to get the virtual sessions working, so you don't even need to make travel arrangements anymore.

NDAs are in effect, so I can't (yet) explicitly say the client, but I'm going to talk a little about how I approached the design, how it came out, and what I didn't do as well.

Since it's not released, and we don't know how the customers like it, it focuses on client interaction and process mostly. But my experience indicates that this is key to getting your designs built and finding those happy customers. If you want to know more about those processes, I am (hopefully!) days from releasing my book on it Designing by Drawing: A practical guide to creating usable interactive design.

In both cases, I don't want to be the only one doing the talking. If you can't talk about your projects, at least join the discussions I've linked here. Come to the conference, buy the book, but either way add your own comments and opinions and experiences to the pages I shared, to your blogs, tweets and emails, and then bring it back to your own teams to improve everyone's work.