Some Thoughts on design review

"Your http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/29798.html" >design isn ' t a work of art. It ' s a business solution. Practice maximally critiqued.-matthew Smith "

The above statement is the design motto of Zaarly design director Matthew Smith of American Internet company, which means that your design is a business solution, not a work of art, so you must prepare for the design review. In real life, there are many designers have complained about the design review, because there are many uncertainties in the design review, different people will have different aesthetic preferences and value preferences, a design scheme can not meet the preferences of all. Therefore, sometimes a more complete idea of the design, in the design review will be due to some people's personal preferences have been changed beyond recognition; sometimes, the design review has become a collective decision-making time, a little change to the full consent, seriously affected the pace and progress of the project. The author through participates in the project design appraisal work, has formed the personal humble opinion, here shares with everybody.

Why do I need a design review?

In the eyes of many non-design professional colleagues, the significance of the design review is to confirm that the existing design is acceptable to all, and to design fault-finding. This is actually a very wrong idea. This is not only because of tune, but more importantly, if the design is intended to be universally acceptable to all, it inevitably causes the design to be mediocre and devoid of individuality. The real value of the design review is:

A. The design review can help the designer to confirm whether the current design idea can achieve the product target, whether there exists the design idea and the product goal deviation condition.

B. Design reviews can help designers to identify which parts of the current design are very effective and which are problematic and cause the problem.

C. Feedback from different professional perspectives in the design Review can provide designers with a new vision to help designers find more and better design ideas.

D. Feedback in design reviews can also help designers to fully understand the design of their own designs in the subsequent design process and those potential can be tapped.

As the above graphics and text shows, the true meaning of the design review can help designers improve the program, for the design and product direction, and bad design review will bring a lot of trouble with the design, or even better not to do design review.

How to make a meaningful design review?

There are two main types of design review, one is the designer's review (the participants are all designers), the other is the project team's design review. The former reviewers, who have the same knowledge background, generally do not have too many problems in communication. This article focuses on the design review in the project team. In the project team design Review the participants should be kept at around 4-8 people, which is an efficient meeting principle. The background of the staff is best from different majors, which can bring more different horizons to the project review. As to how to conduct the design review, the individual thinks that it can be divided into three stages. As shown in the following illustration:

At the beginning of the project, the design review should put aside the various restrictions on engineering and design details, and explore as many design directions and design ideas as possible to achieve the goal of the product. Review topics should be heuristic, such as "whether there are other ways to achieve." Feedback from different professional perspectives to inspire more design ideas. Because no design is perfect, only by acquiring more methods and ideas can we evaluate which design is optimal in achieving the product goal.

In the middle of the project, the design review is more to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the different schemes, not only to consider the current pros and cons, but also to point out the future design of the program may have what potential and good. After weighing the pros and cons of the scheme, determine the most potential design to continue to deepen.

In the late stage of the project, the design Review focuses on design details. The usability principle is needed to determine the availability of the details in the design, and it is necessary to discover where the details in the design are more coarse and leave it to the following grinding.

What are the issues that are easy to design review?

1. Subjective opinion of the reviewers

Many designers have deep feelings about this, many of the people involved in the design review, especially the product managers, often come up with suggestions such as "the interface is less comfortable with yellow", "the word for this title should be more compact", "I don't think the design is atmospheric" and so on. The above comments reflect a person's preferences more than the design review to help designers find better design, guide the role of the direction of design.

2. The review is vague

Because the participation in design reviewers from different professional backgrounds, there are many people on the design process and the design itself lacks enough understanding, so the evaluation of vague opinions in the design review also often appear. Vague opinions result in two kinds of results, one is that designers can not get effective feedback, and second, can not inspire the effective discussion of reviewers.

3. The early stage of the project too tangled details

Detail grinding is a necessary way to improve the design quality, which is usually done after the design scheme is determined. But the design review often meets the reviewers who are too tangled in detail. As shown in the following illustration, there is an argument for a particular detail in the initial review of the project (not all details affect the user experience and need to be repeated.) ）。 Too early to tangle with details, it's easy to make the design stay on one project and lose the opportunity to find better directions and ideas.

4. Continuing challenges

Some of the participants in the design review will continue to challenge the design, they often ask the question: "Why to follow a design", "Why according to B design." Challenging the design itself does not have any problems, in many cases can inspire everyone to find new and better ideas. But under the challenge, the human instinct is to defend his point of view. Designers are no exception, and continuing challenges allow designers to think about how to defend the current program or improve the current scenario. Although this to a certain extent, but also promote the design of optimization, but the drawbacks are also obvious, designers and participants in the thinking of the reviewers are limited to the current program, deviated from the search for "more" and "better" design ideas of the original intention. It's like people always say, "Give up the whole forest for a tree".

How should the designer deal with the problems that arise in the design review?

A. Preparation is sufficient, otherwise the review time will be postponed

As the following illustration shows, the designer's proposal in the design review is just like the iceberg exposed to the sea, but it's a small part of the plan, and the design might be like a bigger part of the sea. Because design itself is a process of divergence and creation, there are many ways to achieve product goals. The designer's job is to find the best solution and present it in many ways. If you do not have many plans before the design review to participate in the review, the review can easily be questioned the situation, the scheme may need to be questioned after the plan, wasting time and waste of manpower. Therefore, it is important to explore all possible options before the design review, or you may as well postpone the review time.

B. Design objectives should be clearly defined before the programme is spoken.

As shown in the figure above, the problem to be solved before the scenario is described, and what kind of experience (which needs to be agreed with the product manager and the entire team) and the data and experience of the support design to the user is defined first.

I've seen a lot of design reviews, talking about the details, and not talking about them at one level. If a design goal is defined, the designer can review the design goals and pull them back in the right direction when discussing the confusion. The support design data and experience judgment, then played a two-part role; First of all, to help the designer to talk about the program is justified, and secondly to make the discussion more effective, the reviewers can be more specific discussion is the data and experience judgment problems, or design performance problems.

C. Guide everyone to find better design direction and ideas

guide you to find better design direction and ideas, in the design review is essential, can be said to be the essence. There are many people mistakenly think that the design review is only a review of a design, if it feels good to start development, if the feeling does not go back to change. As a designer, should understand the design review can bring to their help, in the review process to guide everyone to find better design ideas, here need to pay attention to the idea is not the plan. As mentioned above, the significance of the review is to find more and better direction, and finally by the designer based on feedback to improve the proposed an optimal solution. If a solution is presented in the review, the method that is thought out in a short time is likely to have such or such a flaw because of a half-baked thinking. It also loses the opportunity for designers to think about better solutions.

D. When the design is agreed, guide you to discuss the risk points in the solution

If you talk about the design of the project, we all agree, and can not find any better design ideas, in this case, the designer should turn the discussion to the availability of existing solutions have potential problems, projects in the later implementation and operation of the risk of the topic. In this way, staff from different professional backgrounds can provide some professional advice to help improve the existing programmes.

E. Designers need to lead the entire design review

In the design review discussion, the designer must dominate the entire design review work, only the designer most understands in his solution which place is strong and weak. In the design review, designers should play a leading role in the design review. In addition, designers in the design review to receive feedback, absorption of effective information to improve the design of the plan, the final plan how to improve should be determined by the designer.

How do designers lead design reviews?

As shown in the figure above three stages, first of all, before the design review to make adequate preparation, the review of the organization after the discussion and review follow-up. A few small methods are listed at each stage, and these methods should be used in a local context. Overall, designers want to lead the design review, need to be in the review before the full preparation of each link, these small links, will let the designer in the project team more influential, and finally to promote the design review efficient, reflecting the ultimate goal of professional designers.

How do people who participate in the review give valuable advice?

1 First listen and say, reject the continuing Challenge program

This is a very plain truth, but easier. After listening, you can avoid commenting and introducing the discussion in the wrong direction without understanding the other person's intent. The rejection of the continuing challenge programme avoids losing the opportunity to discuss more and better programmes under continuing challenges.

2 Be sure to make a statement in advance when expressing personal preference

This may be a lot of designers have feelings, many participants in the design review, especially product managers, often put forward some like "I think this design is not enough atmosphere", "the title of the word should be more compact some", "now the color feels a bit too simple" and so on comments. The above comments more reflects a person's preferences, but thousands of people, different people will have different preferences, it is difficult to fully meet. Of course, this is not a total negation of the above comments, but in the above comments must be stated in advance that this is a personal preference. This will enable the designer to understand the intuitive feelings of the reviewers, but also to avoid the above comments become the focus of the discussion in the review.

3 to start with the problem, sorted by importance, key questions priority questions

The ideal way of presenting a problem is that every problem can be a step forward for discussion, the first and most important question you can use is "have you ever tried to use the B-way ..." sentence at the beginning, such a question will give the designer a chance to vindicate, "I have thought of B way, did not use because ..." The discussion then leads to rationality, discussing whether there are better alternatives, rather than personal preferences for details.

4 Find the essence of the current design

This is a very easy place to overlook in design reviews. Find out the good part of the design, on the one hand is the affirmation of the work of the designer, on the other hand, clear what parts are better, need to retain and can continue to explore.

5 Find out the problem, point out the direction that the designer may miss, avoid giving the solution directly

As mentioned above, to find out the problems in the design, to find a better design direction is an important part of the design review. However, to avoid direct solutions, designers lose the opportunity to continue to optimize the program.

This article has been included in the UPA anthology industry-type articles, the text of some of the texts and texts referred to the following articles, interested in the following links can be clicked to expand the reading.

Design criticism and the creative process, C. McDaniel
Become a design leader, Frog