In my 20 years as a design practitioner I’ve received, and given, a fair share of feedback. The ability to give helpful, and receive critical, feedback is as important to your design career as any other facet of the discipline. Engaging with both takes patience and practice. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up surrounded by peers who give you the space to practice as well as providing good examples of useful feedback.

In my career I’ve been fortunate to have been surrounded, more often than not, by colleagues who have been generous and effective in their guidance and feedback. This isn’t to say that I’ve also experienced my fair share of useless feedback, more often than not was delivered by stakeholders in the c-suite.

Useful feedback is…

• actionable
• specific
• objective
• requested

Here some examples of useful feedback I’ve encountered over the years.

"These two colors feel too close and aren’t providing enough contrast; can you find a secondary color that feels more complimentary?"

"The viewport margins feel too tight and cramped on mobile. Can you explore injecting some more space between the viewport edge and the content?"

"The sans-serif typeface is a bit difficult to read at this smaller size, can you try either bumping up the size or try a serif face?"

Useless feedback is…

• reactionary
• imprecise
• demotivating
• non-actionable

Here are some examples of useless feedback I’ve been given over the years.

"This is ugly…"

"This gives me heartburn…"

"This is odd…"

"This just doesn’t feel right…"

"This is stupid…"