Feedback is food for growth

Getting feedback on your design solution is a crucial aspect of a UX designer's work. Wether you collect input from your design team, from stakeholders or clients - you have probably found yourself in feedback sessions many times.

Feedback is important for us to grow and stay creative. But not every feedback session is productive or provides a useful outcome.

Here are some tips on how to make the most out of your sessions:

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Tips for synchronous feedback

I find collecting feedback on design is in general best done in a live sessions (remote or in person). It gives you the opportunity to lead the session and provide the relevant context. Which is key for a good session.

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State the purpose of the feedback session

Let your audience know what you want to accomplish in this session (e.g.,"I have 2 variations for a solution. At the end of the session, I would like to achieve an alignment on the preferred option."). Be clear about what you want the team to focus on and what NOT to focus on.

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Share the background story

Introduce your design solution with a brief description of the problem (e.g., "We know that our users are dropping off at the last step in our checkout flow.").

Include any key research findings that guided your design solution (e.g.," From interviews we learned that a key barrier for users is missing detailed information about shipping costs and length.")

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Set some ground rules

Be clear on how you want to collect feedback and set some rules at the beginning:

• Should they provide feedback at the end or during your walkthrough?
• Should they provide feedback openly or collect it silently first?

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Focus on your user's transformation

When you show your design solution, don't just explain what people see on a screen - but put it in context. Share the story of how your user is currently struggling and why your solution is making your user's life better.

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Tips for asynchronous feedback

If the team is too distributed, timelines don't overlap or you're working with tight timelines, you might not always get an opportunity for live feedback.

Our design tools allow us to collect asynchronous feedback easily (like the comment feature in Figma) - but that's not always very helpful and can suffer form misunderstandings. Some tips on how to navigate these situations better:

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Set up a process

Before using asynchronous feedback, bring your team together to align on the process.

• Explain what to give feedback on in your design (if you share wireframes, let them know that they don't need to comment on visual aspects like colour, font size and detailed copy).
• Do a walkthrough of the tool, so everyone understands the tool you use, how to navigate and how to add comments.
• Set a cadence or timeline for feedback, e.g. you'll share your design every Tuesday and need feedback within 24 hours.

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Record a video walkthrough

In order to collect useful feedback, record a quick video walkthrough of your design solution using tools like Loom to provide helpful background information.

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Track feedback

You can end up with different types of feedback:

• feedback on smaller items you can quickly act upon and "resolve"
• feedback on more complex aspects that might require a shift in the design or user flow
• feedback on items that are outside of your scope and responsibility, but relevant to another team member

I find it helpful to set up a system to track feedback. This could include tracking feedback items in a task management tool (like Jira to add responsibilities) and documenting bigger decisions to avoid scope creep or back and forth.

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More feedback tips for UX Design

If you want to get more tips, check out my latest podcast episode on YouTube or Spotify.

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Questions or thoughts?

Do you have any ideas and tips that helped you to get better feedback?

Reply to this email, I am curious to hear your thoughts.

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Happy growing,

Frauke
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