5 Tips for Providing Effective Feedback to Your Remote Design Team
Posted on Jun 18, 2020
Let's cut to the chase. 2020 brought in the heat with COVID-19, lockdowns, and quarantines... and forced teams to change the way they work. Many of us are going to be working remotely permanently, or until 2021. As product design teams, we were not immune. This shift to working from home has changed how we work, how we communicate with each other, and how we collaborate to get things done.
As highly collaborative teams, we design and product teams, now have to rework our processes. One of the most important elements of our work that we must preserve is an effective design feedback processes.
At Matcha Design Labs (MDL) formally known as AMSD, we've been working as a distributed team since 2017 and have spent the last few years learning the best ways to share constructive design feedback with each other and bring high-quality products to life - remotely.
In this article, we're breaking down how we've learned to provide effective remote design feedback to achieve the best results for our designs, our clients, and our clients' clients.
⏰ Timing is Everything
Before being able to provide helpful feedback to your design team, you need to be on the same page when it comes to when the feedback will happen. Being clear with expectations on when you'll touch base on a project allows for the designer to have natural stopping points where they can pause for reflection. This also allows you, the manager or product designer, to have visibility into the progress of a project.
Below are a few tips for ensuring you're setting the best expectations for a designer on when they should be asking for and expecting your feedback.
Gauge the designers capabilities
Evaluate this based on past work to understand when they may need to check in or where they might get stuck. From here, you can judge if the designer needs to pause to check in more frequently (i.e. after research, after sketches, and after wireframes) or less frequently (i.e. after wireframes). Note that the frequency of feedback check-ins can change based on the complexity of a project as well.
Break up projects into smaller chunks
Try implementing checkpoints instead of 1 big deadline. If a project is more than a quick production design task, it's helpful to break it up into smaller, bite-sized pieces with their own deadlines. This will also provide natural stopping points for the designer. At MDL, we do this using our project management tool, ClickUp.
Provide feedback opportunities in meetings
Designate time during meetings when designers can bring up items for feedback or help if needed. I set aside time in my designers' weekly 1:1's incase they want to go over a question they have or review a design they've been working on.
Make yourself available for ad-hoc feedback
At MDL, I set time aside for this to be done via Zoom calls. Because we can't just "walk by" someone's desk to get input on something, it's important to let our team have the opportunity to hop on a Zoom call to walk through any questions. An easy way to do this is to reserve office hours for your design team, make your calendar availability visible, and continue to encourage your team to come to you with questions.
Pro tip: Make it crystal clear that they can hop on calls with you if the need arises. However, at the same time, it's important to draw boundaries to prevent being overwhelmed with back-to-back Zoom calls all the time. This is why I like to open my calendar at certain times for these "feedback meetings".
💬 Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Feedback
There are 2 ways to provide feedback to your design team: synchronous feedback and asynchronous feedback. Synchronous feedback happens when you and your design team member are both in a Zoom room or on a phone call at the same time; you're giving and they are receiving feedback in the same moment. Asynchronous feedback happens when you and your design team member aren't online at the same time; you might be sending each other emails or commenting in Figma at different times, or asynchronously.
Both types of feedback are valuable and have their place.
When to use Synchronous Feedback
- Complex problems or ideas that need to be communicated
- When there is a lot to review and discuss at once (Pro tip: The best way to get the most out of synchronous meetings is to have your team members come prepared with meeting agendas or to-do lists. This keeps the conversation efficient.)
- When you need to check in for design feedback with an external stakeholder (like a client)
When to use Asynchronous Feedback
- If you have teams that are working across multiple time zones
- When you have clear, simple feedback to communicate
- When you've been working with a designer for a long time and understand each other's communication styles
- On busy, meeting-filled days when you have to give feedback for deadlines coming up and no one has overlapping availability
When using asynchronous feedback, things can get easily lost in the day-to-day shuffle of Slack, emails, Zoom chats, and Figma... especially when there are lots of projects going on at once. This is why limiting design feedback to a couple different places is crucial. You don't want to make it harder for your design team to keep track of feedback to implement. To avoid this, always be clear with the design team about where they will expect to get feedback and stick to that whether it's Figma, Zeplin, InVision, or your project management system.
Don't be the team member who leaves feedback in 5 different places and expects their teammates to string together a complex puzzle... on top of doing their actual job.
🎙Utilize Multiple Feedback Modalities
Just like different people have variable learning styles, different people receive feedback and integrate it differently. Be aware of what works for your team members and what doesn't.
The best way to do this is to start understanding your team members' individual learning styles and context. Understand where your designers are coming from by asking these questions:
- Do they tend to be obsessive note takers?
- Do they write words or draw pics more often?
- What kind of words do they use? (Do they say "I see what you're saying" vs "I hear you" vs. "I feel like..."?)
- Is English (or your language of business) their first language?
- Do they tend to want to talk through problems or write it out in text?
When you start asking yourself these questions about a specific design team member, you'll begin to build a picture of how they understand and process the world. Many team members may already know how they process the world, so it helps to ask them what they know about their learning + communication styles! This will help you understand how they will process your feedback. Based on that, you can then customize feedback styles to their optimal modalities.
Being able to optimize modalities for feedback like this will allow you to ensure the feedback you're providing for your design team is received and understood. It will ultimately make your life easier, help you get to final designs faster, and produce higher-quality work.
Don't be afraid to experiment with different feedback modalities to understand what works best for your team. Below are a few different feedback sharing methods we use at MDL:
Loom - This is one of my all-time favorite ways to share ideas with my team. Loom is an easy tool that allows you to screen record with audio and/or video. For us, this has accelerated feedback on designs and helps me articulate feedback with visuals and audio to go along with it.
Screenshots - Often when providing feedback for a designer, I'll drop in examples or visuals to help clarify what I'm talking about. Instead of just saying "that new nav bar that Amazon is A/B testing," I'll also include an actual screenshot of the nav bar. (One of our favorite tools to capture screenshots is the Fireshot Chrome Extension.)
Sketches - Many times, just describing something isn't enough, we have to draw it out. I love sharing thoughts and feedback with my team using sketches when we are in early ideation or concept stage. This helps me clearly communicate what's going through my head and keeps the team on the same page.
Text - Sometimes, simple is best. There are times when writing it out is the best thing to do. I like to do this when I can directly comment on designs with a tool like Figma or InVision. Sometimes I'll also leave bulleted feedback in our project management tool, ClickUp.
Pro tip: Re-read your feedback before sending it off to make sure it makes sense. It can be challenging to describe visual ideas in words, so it's always a good idea to double check. I also recommend tagging your teammate in the comments if applicable, so that they are notified, providing an additional level of directive.
⚒️ Be Constructive + Intentional
So we've spent a lot of time around the how to provide effective feedback to your design team... but let's talk about the what do you actually say when you give feedback?
As with most things in life, it's a careful balance. Giving effective feedback that's also received well is a muscle that takes time to develop. The best place to start is to get to know the person you're giving feedback to (see above section on Feedback Modalities). Next, I like to use the reinforcing and redirecting (R+R) framework.
The R+R framework is a step up from the "feedback sandwich" that we've all been told to use. (By the way, most designers can see through the feedback sandwich and can tell when it's inauthentic.) The R+R framework guides us to not only focus on what needs to be better in someone's work, but also be sure to tell them what they are already doing well.
The goal here is to reinforce the things a designer is already doing well and has been doing well and then redirect something that needs improvement. One of my favorite ways of redirecting designers is by asking them questions about their work. This allows them to think critically about their designs and come to the conclusion of next steps on their own.
Some great questions could look like:
- What would the user expect if they clicked on this?
- What messaging could we use to help the user feel like this process will be quick and easy?
- How will this help the user?
It's also important when giving feedback to differentiate your opinion from a request you're providing to a teammate. This helps the designer know when they should be helping your vision come to life versus interpreting your idea, adding their own ideas, or proposing a collaborative solution. A simple way to differentiate clearly is to add "What do you think?" or "Do you have any recommendations?" to your feedback. When you're trying to be more directive, you can frame it differently by saying "Can we try X?"
In addition to asking guiding questions & differentiating feedback type, it's crucial to limit feedback to the design itself and not share feedback on the designer or their capabilities. (Designer feedback should be given during performance reviews or weekly meetings.)
💖 Infuse Feedback Into Your Culture
If you want giving and receiving feedback something that your team is constantly getting better at, it's important to start integrating feedback into your team's culture. The best way to do this is to make it clear to your team that you're receptive to constructive feedback yourself.
Give your team the chance to ask you questions about design projects, briefs, and business goals. Encourage them to ask for clarification and challenge the status quo. If your team is comfortable giving feedback to you, then it'll be easier for them to receive feedback from you - this normalizes the feedback process.
Encourage your team to also give feedback to each other. A team's capacity will improve when they learn and grow together. We love doing this at MDL by pinging team members in Slack for feedback or sharing design ideas that a peer might find valuable on their project. When giving and getting effective feedback becomes an integral part of your team's culture, the effects show in the final products your team creates.
Pro tip: At MDL, we have special channels where we share feedback and ideas. Everyone is welcome to contribute to these shared channels.
Bringing it all together
Just like any process in a designer's world, our remote feedback process is living and breathing. We continue to iterate on it as our team grows, technologies change, and the way our clients operate evolves.
To recap, when you're looking to upgrade your remote design feedback processes, keep the following in mind:
⏰ Timing is Everything
💬 Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Feedback
🎙Utilize Multiple Feedback Modalities
⚒️ Be Constructive + Intentional
💖 Infuse Feedback Into Your Culture
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