Mad*Pow Webinar: Discussing Design - The Art of Critique

Discussing Design: The Art of Critique

By: Adam Connor, Experience Design Director, Mad*Pow

Date: April 30, 2013

Time:1:00 to 2:00 PM EDT

Dial- in information: Will receive in an e-mail after registration is complete.

About the Event

Critique is a dialogue, a conversation that takes place to better understand how we got to where we are, how close we are to getting where we want to go and what we have to work on to get there. We need to work collaboratively with our teams and in doing so, each team member needs to have an understanding of the goals we’ve set for our design. Designers frequently complain about the quality and uselessness of the feedback they are given on their work, but we rarely take a step back and examine how to collect useful feedback and make our discussions around our designs more productive. Critique should be seen as a tool for the entire project team, not just for designers.

This presentation will examine the language, rules and strategies for critique and provide participants with takeaways that can immediately be put to work to create a useful, collaborative environment for discussing designs. The contents of this presentation will focus on:

• Understanding what critique is and isn’t.
• How to introduce critique to team members who may be unfamiliar with it
• Ways to improve our ability to deliver, collect and receive critique.
• Facilitation techniques for improving the quality of “feedback” discussions with clients.
• Best practices for incorporating critiques into a design process.
• Identifying common challenges to critique in organizations and tools to overcome them.

About the Presenter

As an Experience Design Director with Mad*Pow in Portsmouth, N.H., Adam combines 10+ years of experience in interaction and experience design with a background in Computer Science, Film and Illustration to create effective and easy-to-use digital products and services. He believes that no matter how utilitarian a tool is, at the core of its creation lies a story; uncovering that story is key to its success.

Adam is also a strong proponent of critique, not only in design, but as a key component of collaboration, learning and improvement. Occasionally he shares his perspective on design at adamconnor.com and discussingdesign.com