How to Give Design Feedback When You Know Nothing about Design

Here’s a catch for you, leaders.

If you:

• have no past experiences related to art
• your work attires constantly hurt people’s eyes, and
• your current job description states nothing about design

Your designer will secretly questions your feedback.

Courtesy of Unsplash/ Tim Gouw

Not-So-Constructive Feedback

Yes, your designers hate you in their sleep. They’re secretly asking why do you keep meddling with their job when you clearly have an awful color-coordination skill.

That’s because your design feedback isn’t helping at all.

This thing might happen because your input is conflicting with:

• The client (that person who gives your company actual profit)
• The other colleagues from other divisions (whose opinion you randomly ask),
• and of course, the design principle and artistic sense that your designers have sharpened throughout their life.

Your client opts for yellow, but then you prefer green (because it’s your favorite color). A minute after, your CEO thinks that blue is better. Then you ask your designer for a one-color solution.

Would you call that constructive feedback?

Courtesy of Unsplash/ Luis Villasmil

Your Ego vs. The Job

You probably think: “But the more people giving feedback, the more perfect the design will be! As their superior, I am responsible for their performance. That means I am allowed to set some standards for their works, am I? And since they ask me for my opinion, I must give them something to work on.”

The first thing you should know: there’s no such thing as a perfect design. But there’s a thing called a design that helps to achieve the goals. Focus on that instead.

The second thing, since you’re talking about setting a standard your designers need to meet as your subordinates, have you checked on:

1. Who’s paying for the design (should be #1 priority, ask for their objectives)
2. Who’s channel will be used to publish the design (also a top priority, ask for their brand guidelines)
3. Who’s experienced in executing the design (the one who’s proven to be worthy for their input)
4. The deadline and the budget

See? Your ego as their superior isn’t one of the priorities listed above. Yet your designers keep stressing out because they need to protect your feelings (and their job).

“But artistic people tend to roam outside the lines. I need to keep them in place so they won’t deliver wild results,” — is that what you think?

Why would you hire someone you don’t trust in the first place? Since you pay them to do your company’s artistic job, leave the designing part to them.

Your job as a superior is to make sure that:

1. They know whose opinions they should consider the most
2. They know how to articulate their artistic insights to all the stakeholders
3. They have the time, tools, energy, knowledge, and passion to do the job
4. They do everything on time and by the budget

Great design feedbacks aren’t always about the color, shape, font, copy, or style. Your responsibility as their superior is bigger than that.

The last but not least, just because they ask for your opinion, doesn’t mean that you need to act as their next client from hell.

Work as a team, lead them to meet the goals.