Template

Design critique template

A designer shows work in progress and the group says, against the goal, what works and what does not — so the design gets better before anyone builds it.

45 minutesFor The designer presenting, other designers, and a product manager or engineerAgenda room
Change the agenda first

The agenda, with a time for each part

  1. The goal and where the work is5 min
    • What problem is this solving, and how finished is it?
  2. Walk through it10 min
    • What does somebody see first, and what do they do next?
  3. What works8 min
    • Which part does the job well, and why?
  4. What does not, against the goal15 min
    • Where would the user get lost?
    • What here does not serve the goal?
  5. What the designer takes away7 min
    • Which three points will you act on?

How the notes read afterwards

A made-up example, so you can see the shape. In a real call each line carries the words that were said and who said them.

Goal. Let a new user invite their team in under a minute.

Works. The invite step comes straight after sign-up.

Does not. Pasting a list of emails is hidden behind a small link; most teams invite five people at once.

Taking away. Make pasting a list the main option; cut the welcome video from this screen.

Running it well

Ways to change it

Silent firstEveryone writes comments on the design for ten minutes before anybody speaks.
Across teamsInvite an engineer to say early what would be hard to build.

When to skip it. For tiny changes that follow a pattern you already use; a quick message to another designer is enough.

Questions

What is a design critique?

A meeting where a designer presents work in progress and others give feedback against the design's goals, to improve it before it is built.

How is a design critique different from a design review?

A critique is about making work better while it is still changing; a review is usually a check or approval before something moves on.

How do you give good design feedback?

Link each point to the goal or the user, say what works as well as what does not, and leave the decision to the designer.

What happens in the room

Everybody joins from the link, with no account. The agenda sits beside the call and each item fills in with what was said about it, under the name of the person who said it.

More templates

Feature kickoffBefore work starts on a feature: everyone who will build, test, launch and support it hears why it matters, what done looks like, and what is deliberately left out.Launch planning meetingA few weeks before a launch: who hears about it, in what order, through which channels, what each team must have ready, and the one date everyone works back from.Beta feedback sessionA conversation with a customer using something before it is finished: what they used it for, where they got stuck, what they would miss if it went away.Product councilThe leaders of product, engineering, design and the business decide together what gets built next and what stops, so teams are not pulled in different directions.Project kickoffWhy the project exists, what done means, and who owns what — agreed on day one.Sprint retrospectiveWhat went well, what did not, and the one or two changes you will actually make.Sprint planningOne goal for the sprint, the work that serves it, and who takes what.Incident postmortemWhat happened, why, and what changes so it does not happen again — without blaming anybody.

All 162 templates →

Try Meetful

Meetings that take their own notes

Free video meetings in the browser: every line of the transcript under the name of who said it, and the summary and action items when you hang up. Nothing to install — guests just open the link.

Try Meetful freeSee what it does