Episode 4

Hello and welcome to Design Leadership Insights, a podcast where I share the real stories, strategies, and lessons learned from building and leading design teams. I'm Paul and I've spent the last 15 plus years navigating the complex world of design leadership.

I want you to imagine this scene, it's Thursday afternoon and your team's design critique is about to begin. A designer is up first to present their work. You can practically see their anxiety as they pull up their files. The room is quiet, awkward, even. No one wants to go first. In these sessions, the designer starts talking through their work nervously when suddenly a senior designer interrupts with that color, doesn't work at all, and another chimes in with the layout feels off.

20 painful minutes later, the presenter leaves with vague conflicting feedback and no clear path forward. Sound familiar. This scenario plays out in design teams everywhere, and it's costing us more than just uncomfortable meetings. It's stifling creativity, damaging team dynamics, and ultimately hurting our products.

In all my years leading design teams, I've discovered that the difference between a good design team and an exceptional one often comes down to how they handle feedback. When I first became a design manager at Expedia. I inherited a team that dreaded critique sessions. These meetings have become a minefield where designers felt they had to defend their work rather than improve it.

When design critiques go wrong, the impact reaches far beyond that uncomfortable hour. In a meeting room, designers leave feeling deflated rather than inspired. They focus on defending their decisions instead of exploring better solutions. And perhaps most concerning, they start designing for the critique rather than for the user playing it safe To avoid criticism at a global logistics company, I saw firsthand how unstructured critiques created cascading problems without a framework.

Feedback sessions devolved into personal opinions without context. Action items remained unclear and ultimately the quality of our design work suffered. But I also discovered something transformative when structured thoughtfully. Critique Sessions become powerful engines of innovation and professional growth.

They build stronger designers and ultimately deliver better products.

The four part framework, through extensive experimentation and refinement, I developed a four part framework that consistently delivers valuable feedback while strengthening team dynamics. The first component is what I call the 24 hour context chair, 24 hours before each critique session. The presenting designer shares with the team, the project background and objectives, the current stage in the design process, specific areas where feedback is needed, and any relevant constraints or requirements.

Let me share a quick story about why this matters. One of our senior designers was working on a complex shipping dashboard. Before implementing the 24 hour rule, they would get feedback like there's too much information or the color scheme feels off. After instituting the context share, reviewers came prepared with thoughtful insights, specifically addressing the navigation challenges because they understood the designer was creating for advanced users who needed quick access to detailed information.

The second component is the 15 minute solution story. The designer presents for exactly 15 minutes covering the problem space, end user needs, key design decisions and their rationale, current challenges, and open questions, and proposed next steps. This forces presenters to be concise and focused while ensuring adequate time for meaningful discussion.

I remember when we first implemented this at our company, presentations that used to meander for 30 plus minutes were suddenly crisp and focused. One designer who tended to get lost in detailed explanations of their process found that the time constraint actually helped them articulate their most important design decisions more clearly.

The third component involves structured feedback rounds. We use a modified I like I Wish. What If format. I like highlights specific elements that work well and why I wish addresses, areas for improvement framed constructively. What if offers exploratory suggestions that open new possibilities. This structure ensures feedback is balanced and constructive while encouraging creative thinking.

It prevents sessions from becoming complaint sessions or diving too deep into implementation details before the core concepts are solid. The final component focuses on documented action items. Before concluding, we summarize key takeaways, assign specific action items with owners, set clear next steps and timelines, and schedule any needed follow-up discussions.

This transforms feedback into actionable progress. Ensuring the critique leads to tangible improvements. One of the most powerful techniques we've implemented is framing comments as questions rather than statements. This simple shift removes personal bias and opens genuine dialogue. For example, instead of saying the navigation should be simplified, we ask, what opportunities do you see to simplify the navigation?

This invites the designer to share their thinking and often leads to more innovative solutions than if we had simply told them what to do. Questions create space for exploration and understanding. How did you arrive at this solution? What other approaches did you consider? How might this work for specific user scenario?

I witnessed this transformation firsthand during a particularly challenging project redesigning our logistics tracking interface. One of our designers had spent weeks on a solution that several senior team members had concerns about. In the old days, the feedback would've been blunt and directive.

Instead, our lead designer asked, what led you to this particular approach to data visualization? The designer's explanation revealed user research insights. None of us had considered. Ultimately led to a hybrid solution that was stronger than either the original design or what the critics had in mind.

In our increasingly distributed world, where we have teams across three continents, managing online critique sessions requires intentional structure to ensure everyone has a voice. We leverage the raise hand feature in our virtual meetings to create a structured queue for feedback. During presentations, it allows designers to identify natural breaking points to address questions in feedback rounds.

It creates a clear order for participation. We follow a one question per turn rule when called upon a team member asks their single question and then lowers their hand. This creates space for others to contribute before they raise their hand again for another question. As the leader, I'll maintain a careful balance between structure and spontaneity.

Everyone stays muted until explicitly invited to speak. I call on participants by name. Please go ahead with your question if no hands are raised, I'll model the process by asking a thoughtful question to get the ball rolling. This structured approach has proven especially valuable when managing large team meetings with multiple stakeholders, navigating cross-cultural contexts with different turn-taking norms and creating space for junior team members who might otherwise hesitate to speak up.

Supporting quieter voices. While some designers eagerly share their work, others might hold back. I've learned to have one-on-one conversations with less frequent presenters to understand their unique situation. By learning about their specific barriers to sharing, whether related to confidence, introversion, or project timing, I can better support their growth and encourage them to present.

I remember working with a brilliant designer who rarely volunteered to share their work in a private conversation. I discovered they were concerned about their English fluency as a non-native speaker. We created a structure where they could share more visual presentations with less verbal explanation required.

Gradually building their confidence. Within three months, they became one of our most insightful presenters, eventually leading critique sessions themselves. So what can you take away from all this to improve your own design critiques? First, create a structured framework that works for your team. Whether you adopt a 24 hour context share and 50 minute presentation format, or develop your own approach, having a consistent structure creates psychological safety and better outcomes.

Second, transform statements into questions. This simple shift in how feedback is delivered can dramatically change the dynamic of your critiques from judgment to exploration. Third, be intentional about managing participation, especially in remote environments. Use tools like the raise hand feature and one question per term rule to ensure all voices are heard.

Fourth, have private conversations with team members who participate less frequently. Understanding their specific barriers allows you to create conditions where everyone can contribute. Finally, remember that the goal of critique is not judgment, but collective growth. Great critique sessions aren't about proving who's right.

They're about discovering how to make the design better. A well-structured critique framework builds a stronger teams, develops better designers, and creates a culture of continuous improvement. When done right, critique becomes less about defending work and more about discovering opportunities to create better experiences for our users.

In our next episode, we'll explore how to reimagine complex product offerings through user-centered design. I'll share the story of how my team at Expedia transformed a confusing flight booking experience into an intuitive interface that increased conversions by 35% and boosted ancillary sales by 20%.