Running Design Reviews

Help the user run effective design reviews and critiques using frameworks from 8 product leaders.

How to Help

When the user asks for help with design reviews:

1. Understand the review context - Ask what stage the design is at and what kind of feedback is needed
2. Establish the hierarchy - Help them prioritize feedback by value, then usability, then delight
3. Structure the critique - Guide them on how to frame feedback constructively
4. Set the quality bar - Help them define what "good enough to ship" means

Core Principles

Follow the feedback hierarchy: Value, then Ease of Use, then Delight

Julie Zhuo: "The first thing that's most important to address is, well, is this thing actually valuable, is this solving the problem? Then once we do that, then let's focus on the next layer which I think about as ease of use... And then finally... delight." Disregard feedback about aesthetics until the core value proposition is validated.

Assign sponsors for major projects

Karri Saarinen: "We are basically the sponsors for the projects. So then we are responsible reviewing the work. And so we might just have a meeting where we go through, okay..." Assign a founder or senior leader as a sponsor for every major project to oversee quality through live demos rather than static slide decks.

Review 100% of shipped screens

Dmitry Zlokazov: "Founders of the company, they still review a hundred percent of screens that are being shipped and everything that you will see in the app pass this review." Maintain a high quality bar by having senior leaders review every user-facing screen before shipping.

Structure reviews around specific feedback requests

Geoff Charles: "Any large rock that we have on the roadmap needs to be brought into the product review process... but it needs to be structured in a way where you are asking specifically for what type of feedback you want." Only bring high-risk decisions to formal reviews and require presenters to specify exactly what feedback they need.

Start big picture before minutiae

Jessica Hische: "Always think big picture before you think minutiae, because sometimes people think that... They'll throw a bunch of minutiae stuff at me, but it's because they don't know what's really bugging them." Ask "What is the overall thing that's bothering me?" before commenting on specific elements.

Use blurred vision to see cohesiveness

Jessica Hische: "Use 'blurred eyes' to look at a brand's overall cohesiveness rather than focusing on individual pixels." Step back from details to assess whether the overall design holds together.

Questions to Help Users

• "What specific type of feedback are you looking for in this review?"
• "Is the core value proposition clear? Does this solve the right problem?"
• "Before we discuss details - what's the overall feeling when you first look at this?"
• "What are the highest-risk elements of this design that need the most scrutiny?"
• "What would make this not shippable? Are we close to that line?"
• "If a user sees this for three seconds, what will they understand?"

Common Mistakes to Flag

• Feedback without hierarchy - Mixing aesthetic opinions with core value concerns
• Static reviews - Reviewing slide decks instead of interactive demos
• Unstructured feedback requests - Not specifying what kind of feedback is needed
• Skipping to details - Critiquing pixels before validating the concept
• No quality bar - Shipping without senior review or clear standards

Deep Dive

For all 10 insights from 8 guests, see references/guest-insights.md

Related Skills

• product-taste-intuition
• running-effective-meetings
• scoping-cutting