Better Design Feedback
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
Welcome
01 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to better design feedback! This is a free course for designers, engineers, product people. We all know we should solicit feedback. But sometim...
Be curious
31 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If I had to boil this course down to a single phrase, it’s: Be curious. As the designer. You don’t just design pretty things. You’re...
Your gut really matters
30 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Before we get into all of the many ways that you can solicit feedback. Let’s first talk about your gut. I’m a firm believer that your gut ...
Reduce time to clarity
29 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Time to clarity is the time it takes to reach confidence that your design will work. We can think about this across a couple of different scenarios: S...
Not just for designers
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone knows that they should spend time with customers. Sadly in many tech companies, this doesn’t actually happen. Some product companies ha...
Multi-stage feedback
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s helpful if you gather feedback at each stage of the design process: The secret is to find ways to layer feedback in at each stage. And if y...
Multi-layered feedback
27 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Layering your feedback at each stage can help you get to clarity as quickly as possible. A common pitfall that I see. Is that designers find one or tw...
Be specific
26 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Whenever you’re asking for feedback, it’s good to be as specific as possible about the type of feedback that you want. This can save other...
DB query + email
25 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this section, we’ll talk about a dozen techniques that you can use to gather customer feedback. One of the most valuable ways that I’ve...
Newly onboarded users
24 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Another way to solicit feedback is to ask folks who just signed up for your product. This can be a valuable source of feedback. And it also allows ...
Support tickets
23 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Another valuable source of customer feedback can be support tickets. They tend to be easy to search. You can scan for patterns. And you can probably r...
Session recordings
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There are a number of services that you can use to record and then replay actual user sessions on your site. A couple of examples would be Microsoft c...
Forums
21 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Support forums can be another good source of customer feedback. This can be similar to support tickets, but with forums, you’ll see multiple peo...
Inline surveys
20 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Inline surveys or polls within your product can be a great way to gather feedback from customers. You’ll tend to gather the best data by not sho...
Beta groups
19 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Beta groups are a great way to test features and get feedback prior to shipping them. Again, it’s probably best to target specific segments of u...
Customer interviews
18 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Another way that you can gather design feedback is by scheduling individual customer interviews. Generally, I like to have a number of structured ques...
Office hours
17 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Another option that you have to generate a stream of customer interviews is to have office hours. Instead of proactively scheduling individual custome...
Advisory boards
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The idea of advisory boards is similar to beta groups, but more selective. Customer advisory boards can be an invaluable source of feedback. Made up o...
Concierge calls
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It can be helpful to make time for concierge calls. This is when you hop on a call with a new customer and you spend about an hour with them going thr...
Running A/B tests
14 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A/B testing is a pretty common technique in tech companies these days. That said it’s often overlooked as a form of design feedback. A/B testing...
Daily Journals
13 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Daily journals are a handy technique that you can use if you’re designing remotely. I picked this idea up from Buzz Usborne. I had the pleasure ...
Bi-weekly snaps
12 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Bi-weekly design snaps is an idea that I attribute to Joen A – a talented designer that I’ve had the pleasure of working with for 10+ year...
Design buddies
11 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In my experience, the max ratio that you should have for engineers to designers is eight to one. In some companies, the ratio will be way higher than ...
Call for feedback
10 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A call for feedback is a post that you share internally once the design you’re working on is ready for feedback. This could be multiple posts, e...
Call for testing
09 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A call for testing is another internal post that you can share. Ideally about a week prior to launching a new feature. The goal of a call for testing ...
Braintrusts
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
At Pixar they’ll frequently bring a director in his or her in progress film in with a group of other experienced storytellers. And they call thi...
From other employees
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There are multiple ways that you can solicit feedback from other employees within your company. Here are three specific ways. The first is via interna...
From executives
06 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Getting feedback from busy execs or senior management can be tricky at times. Here are a few tips that I’ve learned over the years. First distil...
From analytics
05 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Another way you can gather insights is from analytics. This can be slightly different depending on where you work. Some companies will have a robust i...
From support
04 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Your support team can be an extremely valuable resource when it comes to customer insights. I’m actually a big fan of pairing, at least one pers...
Friends and family
03 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Looking outside of your company, the first group that I would turn to would be friends and family. Oftentimes, you just need someone to bounce ideas o...
Usability testing
02 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Usability testing is one of my favorite ways to gather design feedback. Usability testing consists of coming up with a series of tasks. Then running m...
Social media
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Social media can be another good option for getting feedback. You have to be a little careful with social media because different people have differen...
In-person events
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Attending in-person meetups or conferences where your customers will be in attendance can be a great way to solicit feedback and get to clarity. And y...
Strangers
29 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
So this approach takes two people. And it generally works better in big cities. First, buy a number of Starbucks $20 gift cards. Then you want to buy ...
Build trust
28 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Fear kills companies. Fear of failure. Fear of looking bad. Fear of making mistakes. Fear of being called out. Fear of not knowing where you stand. Ea...
Good vs. bad feedback
27 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Good feedback focuses on the design. Bad feedback focuses on the designer. Good feedback helps the designer feel like they’ve had a light bulb m...
Candid, but kind
26 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s critical that you establish a culture of candid feedback within your design org. This is the only way that creativity and innovation can th...
Communicate clearly
25 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Whenever you’re presenting a design for feedback, it’s helpful to assume that the people who are reading your post or listening to your pr...
Upper management’s job
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As a senior executive there are two primary areas where you can help your design org. The first is to understand and respect the processes that they&#...
Manager’s job
23 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Your goal as a design manager should be to create a healthy and happy environment for your designers, where they’re consistently shipping high q...
Designer’s job
22 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A designer’s job is to create new things. And then to use data and feedback, to make sure that the things they designed are the best solutions p...
Document everything
21 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Well friends we’ve reached the end of our journey here together. If you’ve made it this far. Congratulations. If I could leave one fina...