anytime you share your work you should always be ready to receive feedback from team members feedback means asking for or receiving ideas about what is or isn't working good feedback helps to come up with new questions or ideas that you might not have thought about before this can help you find ways to improve your work earlier in the certificate program you learned about self-reflection it's important for ux designers to understand their personal values and any biases they might have because of the influence it can have on your designs in the same way it's a good idea to reflect on how much feedback you are giving and receiving at each stage of a project you might ask yourself am i comfortable sharing my opinions about another designer's project and am i checking in regularly with team members to get feedback on my designs if the answer is yes to both of these questions then you're off to a great start there's lots of advantages to asking for design feedback regularly first feedback helps you improve your designs and become a better designer your teammates can offer ideas or suggestions that you might not have considered before second feedback can build your confidence and skills getting continual feedback helps build your confidence because you'll recognize how you've improved over time and the more feedback you get the more you will improve your skills finally feedback helps broaden your perspective as a designer ideally you'll work with people with different sets of skills and backgrounds and they will be able to identify opportunities for you to improve your design that you may have missed receiving feedback from a diverse audience is the goal because our personal biases inform what we create new perspectives can help mitigate bias in your design and offer additional ways to solve for challenges it can also help you consider experiences unique to users other than those you initially imagined i like to think of feedback as a gift because it helps me think more deeply and broadly about my designs of course receiving feedback about your work can be difficult at times but it's a critical part of the design iteration process keep in mind you won't always be the one receiving feedback sometimes you give the feedback and giving feedback can also be difficult let me share a few tips on how to give great feedback as a ux designer first when giving feedback it should be adjusted for each situation think about the role of the person you're giving feedback to whether they're an engineer project manager or fellow designer you should also think about the experience level of the person you're giving feedback to whether they're a fellow newbie like you or more senior second you should have a reason to support your feedback for example if you give feedback about a specific part of a project that you feel isn't working you should be ready to explain why you think it isn't working broad feedback such as i don't like the color you chose is not helpful on the other hand if you share i don't like the color you chose because it's not accessible then you're explaining your reasoning and providing the designer an actionable improvement third you should describe problems with the design not offer solutions as a designer it may be tempting to provide advice on how you think the design should look or feel but put yourself in the other person's shoes would you want another designer telling you how to fix things or would you want an opportunity to take their feedback process it and come up with your own solutions to the problems these three suggestions are just the beginning you can learn many more tips for giving feedback in the course reading one more thing before you go off into the real world and have to give and receive feedback let me tell you a little bit about my own journey with feedback in my career the first time i received design critiques was an architecture school often i felt defensive and uncomfortable when i had to present my work to professors or peers i also felt frustrated when i'd incorporate their feedback only to have my decisions questioned again in the next round of feedback with practice time and reflection i started to value the critiques and understand that i didn't always have to follow all the feedback or advice most importantly i became more confident in my own design decisions in my current role as an interaction designer i asked for feedback early in the process and as often as possible feedback has helped me learn from colleagues and improve my work over time i hope feedback will do the same for you as you might have noticed in the world of ux design we give a lot of feedback coming up we'll discuss a method of giving feedback frequently used in ux design called design critiques last time we explored how feedback offers fresh perspectives that can help you improve your designs now let's discuss a common type of feedback activity for ux designers it's called a design critique session a design critique session is a planned period of time where ux designers present their work to team members and listen to feedback design critiques are also a great opportunity for you to practice giving feedback to other team members these sessions are a chance for many people to come together to exchange ideas and make a collective choice on a design direction in person or remotely when you hear the phrase design critique session you might picture yourself showing up in front of a group of people and waiting to receive comments about your performance you might even imagine defending yourself from an army of team members fortunately that's not the case if design critique sessions are planned with clear objectives and good preparation they can be very useful plus they can even improve the ways you and your team work together in the future so what does a crit session look like in the real world let's start with the participants in a design critique participants can play one of three main roles facilitator presenter or a viewer first there's the facilitator their job is to run the crit session and guide the process they might also monitor the time and make sure that the objectives are being followed on top of that they'll make sure that everyone's voice is included and that there's enough time for all ideas to be shared keep in mind not every design critique needs to be run by a facilitator the second role is the presenter this is the designer who is sharing their work with others in the session if you're the presenter you need to prepare beforehand be actively engaged and be ready to ask questions for clarification after feedback is given the final role is the reviewer or critic the reviewer gives feedback about the design and offers clear actions to take there is usually more than one reviewer in a design critique at some point in your ux design career you'll have an opportunity to be in each of these roles that's why it's important to know how all three of the roles work together during a design critique one more thing there might sometimes be a fourth role a note taker this person can capture all the ideas and feedback from the reviewers so that the presenter can stay fully present and focused so how do these roles work together in a quit session there's not one right way and a design critique session can follow lots of different structures to give you an idea here is one structure that a design critique session might follow first the facilitator provides an overview of the design critique session and defines the objectives the objectives tell the participants the goals of the design critique ideally objectives are specific and time-bound for example the objective of a design critique session might be to get initial feedback on the mock-ups for the booking process in our dog walker app next the presenter shares their design work as they present their designs reviewers begin to jot down their feedback in the form of questions ideas likes or challenges after that the facilitator lets the reviewers take turns explaining their feedback at this time the presenter can ask clarifying questions and thoughtfully respond to the feedback finally the facilitator wraps up the crit session part of the wrap-up includes the facilitator asking any questions tied to the objectives that may not have already been covered alright now you know the different roles you might have in a critique session and how a design critique session should be structured up next we'll discuss making the most of a critique session when you are presenting your own designs a design critique session can't happen without a presenter to share their work in this video we'll focus on making the most of a crit session when you're the presenter as the presenter preparation is key you're responsible for creating a brief presentation to share with everyone who's attending the quit session the most important part of this presentation is the design itself when you prepare your presentation for the design critique session you should be ready to discuss the thinking behind any of your design decisions it can be helpful to focus on these five questions who are you designing for what problem are you trying to solve how are your designs solving or not solving these problems where in the design process are you and what aspects of your designs are you seeking feedback on thinking critically about these questions will help you remember the most important aspects of your design to focus on when presenting these questions will also help the reviewers stay focused on the areas that you need feedback on one more thing you need to keep in mind as you prepare to present you need to provide reviewers with enough information to give feedback on you also need to keep in mind how long the session will be and if the reviewers will have enough time to understand your designs if you have a complex prototype you may want to send it to reviewers in advance of the session okay so you're fully prepared for the presentation now it's time for the crit session itself let's explore a few best practices for presenters during a crit session first take in the feedback and decide if you want to ask for clarification or respond you'll also have time after the session to think about how and when to take action based on the feedback you received second it's important to focus on active listening it's not easy to hear comments about things that we're not doing right you might even become defensive or want to give an explanation instead you should focus on listening and asking questions to help better understand the reviewer's point of view finally you should be ready to take action on the feedback after the session in most design critique sessions there can be multiple reviewers and multiple parts of your design that they're critiquing so be prepared to receive lots of comments after you have a chance to think about all of the feedback you've received you can decide if your design will stay the course or change direction think of your work as a boat and you're the captain in a design critique session the feedback helps you understand if the boat's moving in the right direction or if you need to change direction in small or big ways as a new designer critique sessions helped me identify different perspectives to consider design problems from they also helped me learn new skills and develop my own critical eye for design regular feedback is a key part of every designer's process feedback has helped me improve my work as well as my personal skills okay you now understand how a design critique session works and the role the presenter plays let's keep learning about critique sessions we're moments away from checking out an example of a crit session in action a standard design critique session is at least 30 minutes and the designer usually spends 5 to 10 of those minutes presenting but keep in mind the session length will depend on the amount of feedback requested and the number of reviewers involved we don't have time to share a full crit session with you so the upcoming video is just a snapshot of what usually happens in the mock crit session i'll play the role of the presenter sharing some of the mock-ups for the dog walker app with two colleagues who are the reviewers there will also be a facilitator guiding the flow of the interaction while you've been working on your mock-ups throughout this course so have i the mock-ups i'll present in the design critique session are my current iteration of the dog walker app as the presenter i'll ask for feedback on two parts of this design the scheduling flow and the call to action buttons remember call to action buttons are elements in a design that tell the user to take action in the dog walker app the call to action buttons are labeled things like book appointment and next you'll have a chance to watch how the flow of ideas and communication happens as i present my work and receive feedback as you watch take note of how i as the presenter respond to the feedback i'm receiving ask yourself is the presenter actively listening is the presenter taking notes what types of follow-up questions is the presenter asking you should also focus on the way that reviewers share their feedback and opinions ask yourself do the reviewers share the reasoning behind their feedback do the reviewers focus on problems with the design instead of offering solutions do the reviewers connect their feedback to the objectives of the design critique session with these questions in mind let's join the crit session hi everyone thanks for joining the design critique today i'm michael and today kunal is presenting his designs for the dog walker app and he has some questions about the core flow for the reviewers please feel free to take notes while canal is presenting and please save your questions until the end of the presentation go ahead canal thanks michael i'd like to present the current state to you all and get your feedback especially about the call to action buttons and scheduling flow so let's start going through the scheduling flow here on the home screen the main call to action is to book an appointment i thought about placing it inside the hero but i like the idea of having the button divide that space from the nearby dog blockers tapping the button opens up the scheduling club and to make it clear to users that there's a sequence of steps to go through i've added a stepper or progress tracker with three icons across the top of the screen also i wanted large rounded call to action buttons on every page of the app i tried to keep that style consistent for all the buttons okay back to the scheduling flow the first step is to set up the appointment details there's a number of things to input here like the date time and duration as well as selecting which dogs are being locked for the ui design i chose a carousel menu that the user can scroll through to decide the date time and length of the walk for their dog i've also had an option to make this a recurring appointment but i'm still working through designing the screens for that step you can probably tell that i chose the same rounded buttons with the same orange color to book appointments advanced to the next screen while booking and finally to book the appointment i also made the choice to have the date dog walker and confirm icons in the same color too as each one of these steps is completed that icon turns to orange in a circle these are the steps of the user journey within the app so far thank you thank you canal for presenting your designs chaby and salvador do you guys have any questions thank you my first thought is that i like the flow of the pages and i noticed that there's an option for choosing recurring sessions but in the second panel are we using language that appeals to the most users how about something like which dog is being walked instead of who is going for a walk i agree and what if the user has more than one dog but those dogs have separate walking schedules i know that my dog ranger is not very social so i would like to have him go for a walk alone instead of with other dogs is this a feature that we can build into the app it seems like at this point the app only serves one type of user thank you those are great questions and suggestions i'll explore some different copy options and check with the team about requesting locks for solo docs but like you said i'm not sure the app supports that feature right now oh and one more thing i noticed the scheduling step lists multiple dogs and some of the language seems to imply this too for example the homepage uses the phrase we can take them for a walk so i'm wondering how a single dog view could be incorporated into the app design i'm also wondering if we will actually need the list of doc names to select from for users who only have a single dog that's a great question salvador i'll go back to the mock-up later and find out if i can make any changes to the interface to support users with one dog that seems like a pretty common situation for a lot of our potential users great thank you canal for presenting those points we've heard a lot about the scheduling flow so let's move on to the call to action buttons or maybe do you have some questions for the reviewers canal thanks uh no i don't have any questions for now so as i explained earlier we decided to go with the color orange for the call to action buttons i'd like to get your impression about the overall button styles i like the choice of the rounded buttons but what was your reasoning behind the decision to use orange for the call to action buttons and does this shade of orange affect the accessibility for the user there's also a whole lot of orange on some of the pages so i'm also wondering since orange is a color for the main call to action buttons should we simplify the date dog walker and confirmation icons across the top of the pages maybe you could change the color of those to gray or something more neutral instead of orange good questions i chose a medium shade of orange based on the color guide set up in the design system in terms of accessibility i will have to investigate the color contrast i'll be sure to make any necessary changes to the color palette to make it accessible for all users thank you canal any other questions before we go on i have one more question um the placement and width for the main call to action buttons seem to change on the pages throughout the scheduling flow does changing the position and size of the buttons create distractions for the user we scale the buttons to emphasize them and then we change the size of the buttons on each panel to be in proportion with the other buttons on the page so these changes shouldn't interrupt the flow okay thanks for that canal would either of you like to add anything else before we continue i like the choice of white for the text and a call to action buttons but maybe you should consider you just watched part of a design critique session what did you think i hope you're able to learn how ux designers like me present work and receive feedback you also got a chance to observe how reviewers provide feedback in this critique session format in this video we'll discuss what happens after a design critique session if you are the presenter like i was it's time to process all the feedback from reviewers the goal is to decide which suggestions to incorporate or not and work on generating action items start by reviewing the notes that you or a notetaker took during the critique session as you review the notes it's also helpful to take some time to really think about the feedback you received ask yourself how can i synthesize the feedback from the design critique session then what feedback do i want to take action on to improve my designs or the user experience so let's evaluate the feedback i received and identify some actions i might want to take to improve my work as we go along i might also think of some follow-up questions for the reviewers to clarify the feedback they provided i'm going to pull up the designs i presented to shabi and salvador on the schedule a dog walker user flow i'm also going to review my notes to remind myself of the feedback they provided one thing to keep in mind since there were only two reviewers in this critique session there's less synthesis that i need to do remember when you synthesized participant feedback from the usability study in an earlier course with jason in the same way if you have multiple reviewers in a large design critique session you will probably need to synthesize the feedback and identify themes in this case since i only have two reviewers i'll get started with the first note i took oh yes i remember this one shabby recommended changing the wording of the question the user is asked when choosing which dog will be walked this feedback from shabi wasn't supported by any specific design principles shabi also didn't explain how changing this question would impact the user experience or the functionality of the app with this in mind i'm going to interpret this piece of feedback as a suggestion that's nice to have but not something i must fix so for this piece of feedback i'm going to say there's no action needed now let's move on to the next piece of feedback in my notes this one's from salvador about the same part of the design salvador shared a useful perspective about users who have dogs with different walking schedules or need to go for a walk alone to figure out if i should implement the suggestion i'll need to talk to the product manager and my teammate in operations there are insights about whether or not this option is practical will help guide any iterations of the design keep in mind this happens a lot during critique sessions you might get feedback that impacts more than just the design so the action item here is to email the product manager i work with in order to set up a meeting and determine if this is a change we want to implement on to the next one salvador asked what the experience would entail if the user has only one doc salvador's question is useful because it's user centered and aimed at creating options for a possible solution we expect the app to support users with one or more dogs so i probably need to create more screens to understand the user flow for single dog owners i'll take an action item to create more screens for the dog selection part of the user flow okay let's go on to the next point i recorded during the critique session salvador asked about the different sizes of the call to action buttons i'll use this as an opportunity to check the size specifications of my mockups in figma in this case there are two actions i need to take first i want to check all of my mockups to make sure the buttons are the same height and width and second i will review the placement of the buttons across all of the screens i've created on to the next piece of feedback shoppi had two comments to address this feedback i'll need to spend some time iterating on the icon design and the accompanying text labels that are shown across the top of the screen this is also a place where i have a follow-up question for shabi to clarify the feedback she provided i want to ask if she meant simplifying the colors of the icons or the text labels beneath the icons or both and the next piece of feedback i wrote down was from shabby 2. it was about the shade of orange i used in the call to action buttons she asked whether or not the color is accessible this is really important feedback i need to make sure that my designs work for all users with various abilities based on this feedback i need to check if the color contrast passes accessibility standards if the orange on the white background is not accessible i will need to change the color of the buttons and icons that i used throughout the booking flow for example i might need to change to a darker shade of orange alright those are all of the notes i captured from the design critique session these are just a few examples of the many types of interactions that can happen between reviewers and the designer who is presenting over time you'll gain more and more confidence with the process of receiving or giving feedback you'll also develop more strategies about how to take useful feedback and generate action items to keep improving your design coming up we'll cover some of the steps involved in integrating these action items into your mockups in figma earlier you checked out an example design critique session then we discussed some strategies about how to take feedback and use it to generate action items to improve your designs in this video i'll use the feedback from the design critique to make a few updates to my mockups as a reminder here are the five items i decided to take action on create more screens for the dog selection part of the user flow make sure the buttons are the same heights and widths review the placement of the buttons iterate on icon design across the top of the screen and check if the color contrast passes accessibility standards let's get started with the first action item which is creating more screens for the dog selection part of the user flow as you might remember salvador asked what the user experience would entail if the user has only one dog to address this i iterated on my designs right away i created alternative versions of a few screens that show the user flow for single dog owners let me show you one of them before on the book appointment screen there were three dog names listed and the user had to select at least one now my new additional screens like this one show only one dog name and it's automatically selected this will save the user time now onto the second action item make sure the buttons are the same heights and widths i did a detailed check of every button of the schedule a dog walker user flow in figma almost all of the buttons were the same heights and widths except for one so i made a quick adjustment the third action item was to review the placement of the buttons the good news is that all of my related buttons like the next button were already at the same x and y axis of the grid you might be wondering how i check this to check for placement in figma i can click on a button like the next button and check the right side panel to see where it's positioned on the screen the next button should have an x value of 16 and y value of 8 to indicate that the button is in the same place across screens the fourth action item was to iterate on the three icon designs across the top of the screen shabby suggested that i reviewed these icons because it looked a bit busy i did a few rounds of iteration on this part of my mock-up to figure out how to address this feedback keep in mind that some of the feedback you might receive can take time to implement in your designs but that's just part of the process in the earlier version of my design the three icons across the top of the screen were each surrounded by a circle and had accompanying text labels beneath them now the icons stand alone without circles and without accompanying text labels this new iteration of my design looks cleaner and less busy finally the fifth action item was to check the shade of orange that's used throughout my design to see if the color contrast passes accessibility standards webaim which stands for web accessibility in mind allows you to check the contrast between two colors and compare them against wikag or the web content accessibility guideline standards after checking the color contrast on webaim i decided to use a darker shade of orange for the color palette in my app this darker shade passes aaa accessibility so it's a more inclusive choice for app users the suggested hex value for the updated orange is d53e0b i'll make this change to the buttons in all screens of my mockup for example you can see the change in the color from a lighter shade of orange to a darker shade on the buttons here i'll also change the color to this darker shade of orange in my sticker sheet to save myself time in the future i'll update the color of the buttons icons the review stars and text here's a pro tip you don't need to change the color of each button individually if you hold and drag your cursor to select all of the buttons and icons in the sticker sheet you can simply change the color in the right side panel look for the header called selection colors and edit your style color okay we've made it through the five action items from the design critique session feedback and with that you've learned how to take feedback from a design critique session and use it to make practical changes to your designs and figma now it's your turn to iterate on your own mockups based on feedback congratulations on finishing this course from the google ux design certificate you can access the full experience 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