Critiquing

17 Jun 2008 | Angie H

A couple of weeks ago we received a response from our contact form. But rather than it being someone interested in hiring us for a project, it was someone who apparently had issues with our website. And by "issues" I mean the guy just doesn't like our site:

your site does not work, and the font you chose is Helvetica. bland. you need to fix the problem before you give advise.even [sic] this page is bunk.

Personally, the message made me laugh for a number of reasons. And I wasn't going to post anything about it on our blog¹ (primarily because I didn't want to come off sounding defensive) until I came across a recent article by Belgian designer, Veerle Pieters. Veerle discusses how there are differences between designing for yourself and designing for clients, as well as some tips on critiquing in general. Perhaps the one thing that resonated most though is that "people are giving critique to the designer rather than the design itself."

In our particular case, one could argue that our site's design is for ourselves and not for our clients. That wouldn't be a lie. But it's also true that we designed it for our visitors, who, in some cases, may be or may become clients. Either way, given the "criticism" (and I use that word loosely here) we received, it doesn't matter. Not a single word or idea in the feedback is useful. Let's take it point by point, shall we?

your site does not work...

Okay... how? What doesn't work? Really, telling someone their site doesn't work is just like taking your car to the mechanic and telling them that it doesn't run even though you managed to get it there. We can't even begin looking at the problem if we don't know what we're looking for.

...and the font you chose is Helvetica. bland.

True, we chose Helvetica. Bland? That's an opinion, not a fact, nor a "problem." In fact, many designers choose Helvetica for a number of reasons, so I doubt that that many people are somehow wrong. And let's not forget that there are only so many typefaces one can choose for the web. The statement made by our critic shows that they're misinformed in that regard. Besides, Helvetica isn't the only font we used (unless your browser doesn't support Flash / sIFR and our headings show up as Helvetica rather than DIN.)

you need to fix the problem before you give advise...[sic]

Never mind that "advice" is spelled wrong. This sentence goes back to our point about the car and the mechanic. Fix what? If we're not told what's supposedly broken then how are we supposed to fix it?

even this page is bunk.

Bunk? Really? That's the best adjective this person could come up with? This, again, tells me that this is at the very least, 50% opinion. If you don't like the design or the site as a whole, that's one thing. No designer, no matter how good he / she is, will ever please everyone. It's impossible. So if you hate our site, fine. But one or two people telling us (especially with words like "bunk") isn't really going to change much.

Now, it's important to know that having been in this industry for 8 years, I've grown very accustomed to criticism from various angles. I don't take it personally but I do respond to it if I know what to respond to. Had this person told me that our site wasn't displaying something properly in a particular browser, I would've dropped whatever I was doing and fixed it. In fact, it's happened before with this and other versions of our studio site. We've had people tell us that feature X on the site wasn't working when doing Y. My point here is that we do aim to please, but only if the feedback is constructive.

So how does one give constructive feedback? Like Veerle, I think Jason Santa Maria has those tips nailed.

Design (general), Web Design + Development

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