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Design critique 1:08

A 68-second explainer of Design critique, narrated over the same demo you can try yourself.

The Design critique explainer. Prefer to do it yourself? Try the interactive demo.

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What this video covers

A design critique is a structured session where a design is examined against its goals and the needs of its users, to surface strengths and problems and improve it. The key word is structured: a good critique is about whether the design solves the problem, grounded in objectives and evidence - not a round of personal opinions about what people happen to like.

"I just don't like it" gives the designer nothing to act on - and stings. "This doesn't meet the goal of X, because users might Y" gives them something to fix - and it's about the work, not them. That's the whole difference between a critique that helps and one that demoralises: tie feedback to goals, users and evidence, not taste. Done well, critique makes the design better; done badly, it just makes people defensive.

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