Critical Hit! The importance of critique and how to effectively integrate it into your practice.

1. Thanks to Sheridan for having us.
It’s great to see the future of interaction design looking so bright.
Design is a really fast moving discipline, having a solid process in order to work
effectively ensure you’re keeping up with what people and the market want from your
designs.
We’re here to talk about an important part of that design process, and that’s jet
fighting.

2. Right now you might be thinking “who is this guy?” I thought we were talking critique.
Well, we are, bear with me. This guy is John Boyd,
Father of the f16 - design and evaluation
wrote book on dogfighting - 30 second boyd

3. As a fighter pilot, his “design problem” was how to move faster than his opponent, and
gain a competitive advantage in a fast paced, ever evolving battlefield.
His “design problem” in the f16 project to understand strengths and weaknesses in
the designs as quickly as possible, to ensure an dominant product that was on time
and on budget. Sound familiar?
Ultimately, in each domain, he needed to understand the problem and make quick,
correct decisions in a high pressure situation.

4. He did that through the framework he called the OODA loop
OODA is an acronym for observe, orient, decide, and act. A simplified version
of the framework:
observe the current problem space
orient understand the problem through the lens of your skills, culture, previous
experiences,
decide - make a hypothesis about the right course of action
act - apply your decision, watch the outcome and then… repeat
This broke down decision making into a system. those who can move through
this cycle faster than an opponent will have a strong strategic advantage by
adapting to or, more importantly, creating change faster than a rival can
comprehend.

5. So how does this relate to critique and why is it important?
Well, this framework holds true whether you’re trying to outpace another pilot in a
dogfight,
or beat another firm to market with a better product. And conceptually, it shares some
similarities to critique.

6. After all, what is design but having to understand the problem, make a quick, correct decision
in a high pressure environment? Critique provides us, through the applied knowledge of our
team and our problem space, a means to do just that.
Interaction and product design is kinda like a battlefield, with each new idea revealed, copied,
countered and improved so quickly, it can make your head spin. This effectively creates small
“product dogfights” in the larger market. Look at Meerkat and Periscope for one recent
example for how quickly a product battle can ebb and flow. Tightly integrating critique into your
process can help your team survive on that battlefield.

7. So now that we see why it’s important to critique our work, and that it can help us
react to the needs and changes of our projects, when should we critique?

8. Early and often as possible!
The earlier and more often you can show your work, the more opportunities you have
to improve your ideas. This repetition and iteration form the backbone of the creative
process, giving you a chance to observe, orient, decide and act through critique and
feedback.

9. While they are similar, there are important distinctions between critique and feedback
that we should all keep in mind.
Overall, it’s important to balance and integrate both critique and feedback at different
times through the design process

10. Focused critique should be team based.
The team has historical project knowledge, use it to frame your problem, and help
make decisions
Data/learnings focused -

11. Can be inside, but also outside of the team
Quick and dirty, nascent ideas, quick concept/usability tests in office, bouncing ideas
off of other designers
Gut reactions. “I’m not sure this works. I just don’t like how it feels.” Try to probe to the
root cause.
There is also feedback from the people who use your product, which is a different, yet
equally important type of input into your designs. Next year, if we’re invited back, we’ll
be happy to talk about the value of user testing and how to integrate it into your
process, but for now let’s consider the use of that data closer to critique than
feedback :)

12. There are many opportunities to integrate critique and feedback into the design
process as you move from the nascent ideas to your initial direction, through to your
final product
Early on, understanding the people and problem is most important, and that’s best
done through the lens of your team with critique.
As you move through the process, feedback gains more importance, as you’ve
solidified your design direction and want to round down the sharper edges of your
experience.
Bringing it back to the OODA loop, The earlier and more often you can show your
work, the more opportunities you have to improve your ideas. This repetition and
iteration form the backbone of the creative process.

13. In general crit > feedback. There’s generally more structure and data to help you
make your decisions, and that’s really important, not only in business, but also in our
context at HHF, where an interface can make a life or death difference.
Ultimately, you and your team should use yr gut, and don’t throw out a good idea
regardless of where it came from.

14. So you’re hopefully you’re all in on critique at this point, and are maybe wondering the
best way to effectively use it in your practice
http://scottberkun.com/essays/23-how-to-run-a-design-critique/
Oreilly - Discussing design

15. Presenting effectively is the foundation of effective critique
- design should be purposeful, and you should have a rationale for all of your
design choices.
- design principles can help to frame the concepts for your audience (depending
on how well those are crafted :) )
- rationalize the changes that you did or did not make from previous critiques
To help keep the conversation focused, smaller groups of up to 5-7 is ideal

16. Tips on the facilitation of critique:
● provide context for the problem: what are you trying to solve for whom, and
why?
● questions not declarations. not “I don’t like that shade of blue”, rather “how you
considered how our colour blind users will be able perceive that shade of
blue? Could it pose problems?”
● room preparation, welcome safe environment (yes, and!),
● Encouraging the space to be a technology free zone will help to facilitate
active participation and puts some responsibility of the success of the critique
into the hands of the participants.
● Print and put designs on walls, get people up and moving. proven benefits to
moving physically while in a group dynamic.

17. And those 5-7 people we mentioned? Include participants from inside but also outside
your immediate design team
stakeholders, non-designers, if they are involved with the project, include them to a
maximum of 5-7 people, and rotate through if necessary.
When bringing in stakeholders, knowing how to effectively communicate the structure
and benefits of the critique process can help make these sessions successful and on
track. Keeping it to 5-7 people makes the feedback and the sessions managable.

18. So here’s a representation of an “average” interaction design project, if there is such a
thing!
Also known as: Discovery, Design, Deploy, or perhaps Observe, Orient, Decision,
Action, (this process comes in different shapes and sizes)
where does critique fit in for a Interaction design project?

19. The answer is all of the phases!
Critique and user testing are quite conceptually similar to the OODA loop in a design setting.
They are a tool that helps us understand and reorient ourselves to a design problem, address
it, and understand how well it solves that problem, only to continue to iterate.
The more chances we have to include it in our projects, the better! Eventually your team can
build up an implicit understanding of the right approach to design problems in the context of
your project, speeding up the process even further.

20. So now you’re on board, right? Flash forward a few months, and you’ve got your first
job in that hot new startup, or perhaps even Healthcare Human Factors?
Anyways, you want to sell your boss on an effective critique process. So what are the
benefits of this approach?

21. Quicker reaction
quick reaction lets team meet challenges in project or market at faster pace (OODA)
by instituting process in more places, wherever reasonably possible, you have more
opportunities to react
also lets you make smarter decisions, with diverse viewpoints from different aspects
of your team focused on the problem.

22. Competitive Advantage
This ultimately positions your team to create an opportunity in marketplace by
identifying problems, opportunities faster than competitors.
The continual iteration and honing of your craft will let also position you to
create world class work that stands out from the field.

23. So if you don’t want your project to realize it’s failed potential

24. Take Boyd’s thinking to heart. We only scratched the surface of how this concept could be
applied… user testing, analytics, ongoing shadowing and user research, etc.
Think about how you can apply the OODA loop of critique in your projects, and consider how
you can improve not only your designs, but your process.
Before we end, I’d just like to take a moment to thank Matthew Milan of Normative Design,
who first introduced me to Boyd and the application of his thinking in a design context. Thanks
Matthew for being such a great mentor, thanks to Sheridan for having us, and congratulations
to the class of 2015!