Objectivity
An easy and universally understandable framework is imperative to giving constructive feedback.
Introducing our simple Design critique framework. It’s based on some basic design principles that every team should champion:
Consistency
Usability
Accessibility
Aesthetics
Each of these aspects hold certain weightage when we are providing feedback. This might differ from org to org, but this is what we use at Gojek:
- Consistency and coherence: Every design we create always places consistency with the design system as well as a collective coherence, as the top priority, since it's what makes the designs work effectively and ensures all our designs look and work like a single-family.
- Usability as the champion: The next most crucial principle is usability, as we want all our user's experience of the Gojek app to be an enjoyable, easy and informative one.
- Become an A11y: Having accessible designs is a must for a product like Gojek, with its variety of users, from age group to usage type. Making sure that the experience is equally great for all of them is very important.
- The great to have: The last principle is aesthetics. We rely on the design system to solve a majority of this principle when creating the designs, as the core of the system incorporates various aspects like colour harmony, typography scale, spacing and grid structures, etc.
Using these four principles gives us a clear measurement criteria, hence eliminating a lot of subjective opinions and feedbacks
Context
The next important aspect to consider is context awareness of the feedback. It should always be aligned with the goals that we are trying to solve for. Any discussion that we have must always remain framed by the end goal. Digressing from this often tends to land the feedback in the category of personal preference, which isnt useful at all.
Actionable feedback
The last and probably the most important aspect of a good feedback is the possibility of it being implemented. Giving ambiguous feedback, that has a low probability of seeing any form of real world application, will almost always be ignored. It's not important to provide solutions as feedback, but it's much more important to understand the core of the problem in its depth and THEN arrive at a possible solution, together.
