23 Comments
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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

Make feedback meaningful by removing the meaningless.

Row heights, button widths, patterns, those should all be defined somewhere.

This makes your feedback about breaking new ground, and pioneering new things.

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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

No more doubt. No more confusion.

Invest in design systems.

Invest in playbooks.

Invest in guidelines.

Invest in pattern libraries.

And most of all, you will see that these things are really a sign of you investing in your people.

Which is what matters most.

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Rizwan's avatar

Love this. I want this on a t-shirt. These are important activities that may not get prioritized by the management but as designers they can make or break our efforts as well as building trust with our team.

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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

True, they can also clear up confusion.

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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

Design Reviews.

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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

Some things help you minimize the need for reviews. Which, honestly, should be the goal.

You definitely want to encourage feedback, when needed, but what other ways can you do this without putting people's work on display and potentially make them feel bad?

If you have a design system, use it. If you have a set of principals use them. If you have pattern libraries, use them. If you don't make them.

At this point, what do you need to review? Are you reviewing color choice? No, because there's a guide for that. Are you reviewing layout choices? No, because there's a guide for that.

This forces the team to push new boundaries and have meetings about things that are TRULY meaningful, because you are focusing on things that are new, rules that haven't been made, and hard problems-- which will engage your team more.

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Rizwan's avatar

So glad you shared this, it's gets to the heart of the question. Now I have have the urgency to invest the time into the design system/guidelines/principles even if they are not prioritized by others, so we don't get stuck in conversations or go on tangents during our conversations. Thanks!

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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

Biting off tiny chunks at a time is the key. Weekly, set a goal, and get one tiny piece done.

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Rizwan's avatar

Agree. I recently read about the 1% improvement concept in Atomic Habits and this is an opportunity to apply it.

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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

Correct! I treasure you and our friendship.

These things seem necessary but the are our compass when we are confused or lost.

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Rizwan's avatar

Wise words, brother! Thanks for all your help. 🙏

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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

If a session is required, it should only be positive. It should be about lifting up the designer and focusing on their skills and what they are competent at.

Think of it as a session for positivity and strength.

This is not some judgmental Gordon Ramsay cooking show.

Be kind. Be respectful.

The session needs to be structured with a topic, goal, and agenda.

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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

If a design review is a session to help you see gaps in your design and help you grow and learn as a designer, I would not call this a design review.

I would call this a development session.

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Rizwan's avatar

I never thought about it that way but that is a good point. Design reviews are easy to get wrong and can end up hurting more than they help. Asking for targeted feedback individually makes the conversation much easier and helpful.

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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

Right, we are here for a limited time on this earth. Our job should be to lift people up and have them grow.

Your team should be treated like esteemed colleagues, so how would you approach them then? I imagine much different. The focus will be shifted to asking questions and working towards understanding them better, as oppose to saying things like:

"That's too blue."

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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

Design reviews are interesting, because I see them required in some environments and as I progress as a designer I see them less needed. so maybe we need to define what a design review is first.

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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

Working During a Pandemic.

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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

If you are looking for ways to get good at working during a pandemic, or considering ways to improve work now-- be cautious.

No one feels normal right now. The idea of trying to get to a level of productivity that you used to be able to get to, without those same tools, is just that, an idea.

What made you amazing then, will most likely be needed to make you amazing today.

Can you overcome the current shift in societal dysfunction, I don't think so.

So, what can you do instead?

I don't know, let's talk about it.

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Rizwan's avatar

Great point. We are all affected by the pandemic and we need to adjust to this new reality and make the best of it instead of staying stuck in the past and not progressing.

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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

I will say, money helps. I use Miro, and I use Vibe.

https://vibe.us

These things combined with only positive interactions with the team, help significantly.

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Rizwan's avatar

+1 for Miro

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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

True. Adapt is the key word.

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Jonathan Bowman's avatar

There are a lot of concerns here. I will tackle 1 at a time.

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