Design feedback without the fight

Someone shares their work, and the only honest thought you have is that it won't work. You keep quiet, or you say it and the room goes cold. This week: what makes design feedback land.

The question

How do you personally create the kind of environment where someone can say "I think this is a bad idea" without it turning into a whole thing or an argument?

How it's said decides whether the next idea gets shared at all. Can that room be built on purpose?

What we talk about

A beautiful coffee cup with a bad last sip, and a yellow mug picked for its color alone. Then the cup goes into a meeting: critique that starts as a question, the five whys, the four stages of psychological safety, and one small word traced back to improv.

How do you separate what you make from who you are? And how much of a hard conversation does the room decide before anyone speaks?

Mentioned in this episode

Also mentioned

• The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety by Timothy R. Clark: the four stages we walk through.
• The five whys: borrowed from customer interviews.
• "Yes, and": the improv rule behind avoiding stop words.
• Susan Weinschenk: research on how context shapes a conversation.

Got a question of your own?

Got a design question or dilemma you're stuck on? Send it to Thorbjørn and Martin through the contact form at hiddenbydesign.net and it might become a future episode.