“Thanks for your feedback”: How to really mean it as a designer

Design jobs are sales jobs.

(And sales jobs are design jobs. But that’s another article.)

As a user experience designer, you craft pitches, show-and-tell shiny things, try to wow and delight your audience, describe the problem they have and how your shiny thing can solve it, list the various benefits of your shiny thing — and otherwise dance and dazzle people into why they need to buy (into) this thing you’re selling to make all their dreams come true.

It’s deeply human work.

And you need the thick skin of a door-to-door salesperson to handle what comes next: The Feedback. Feedback is how you and your work get better, of course, but it’s one of the toughest things about being a designer — especially when starting out, maybe uttering “thanks for your feedback” through tense jaws or barely-veiled tears. Many times early on for me it felt so emotionally brutal that I wanted to change careers — and for designers I’ve mentored it’s a top challenge that they come to me with. There are of course many ways to work with feedback; what I’ll focus on here is how to manage it in the moment it’s given, and how this can get you to the most painless and productive flying altitude possible in your career.

Here’s what I’ve learned and what I tell my mentees:

1. Be curious. (This is most of it.)

2. It’s not about you.

3. “Peel the onion.” 

4. Focus on your shared goals.

People have emotional responses to design (e.g. colors, interactions, sounds, shapes, experiences, buttons, whatever) that they don’t to, say, spreadsheets –and tend to communicate them so: passionately, combatively, vaguely, wildly, prescriptively. 

“I hate it!” 

“That’s too simple!”

“I don’t like that blue.”

“Do it this way.” [starts drawing on whiteboard]

“[Competitor] doesn’t do it like that.”

“That doesn’t feel right.”

Take a deep breath and put your detective hat on. It’s as much your job to unpack why they respond the way they do and help them to articulate what they mean as it is to design the thing. It doesn’t matter if it’s an intern, peer, or a C-suite exec — if they’ve engaged with the topic at hand, they’ll welcome curiosity about their opinion. Actively listen, repeat or paraphrase what they’ve said back to them to show they’ve been heard, then start to peel the onion:

“Why does it make you feel that way?”

“What are the benefits of doing it a different way? Let’s try that and walk through it.” 

“Great instinct. That’s the first thing we tried actually [but it didn’t test well].”

“Interesting idea. I’ll work with that and come back with it next time.”

Etc.

Get at the essence of where they’re coming from — there’s always something useful there at the root of it. Lean into empathy and curiosity. Try to see through the lens they see through: emotion (fear, excitement, pressure), expertise (business, technical, scientific, logistic), etc and meet them where they are. Stay with them. Understand their motivation. Help them to refine and articulate what’s behind that initial response. Find common ground. They will feel engaged, invested, allied, and more confident in the design process and eventual end result.

You can and should come into any room with a solid proposal (ahem, sales pitch), data or other research to back it up, and maybe some alternate options in your back pocket depending on what story you are telling — then meet the energy in the room with curiosity, calm, and an open spirit. When folks get mired in details or skirmishes, always bring it back to the common goals and problem you’re collectively trying to solve. You all (usually) want the same outcome. And you all want to be heard.

When I was a junior designer, I’d be easily intimidated by the more powerful people in the room, living and dying by their approval or criticism, or blown this way and that by the strong winds of words or personalities. Don’t do this. Fully engage with the feedback and anyone who gives it with this approach. Breathe. Find your center. Use, master, and teach these tools of inclusion and reflective guidance to the people in the room. (Hint: They’re useful for many contexts.)

Be curious. You’ll save your sanity, have compelling conversations, and free yourself to do your best work.