Creating the design itself is just as important, if not more, as presenting your design. It is where your design or prototype is evaluated and reviewed for functionality, user-friendliness, and various criteria your client requires. This step is important to identify the problems with your design and find the solution to it before implementation and execution of the design. To prepare for the critical design review, it is imperative to know the whole design review process. This ensures you are fully prepared from the design to the presentation and how you present yourself in front of the panel of experts, clients, and reviewers.
In this guide, we will discuss everything about the design review process to help improve your chances.
What Is the Design Review Process?
A design review is where you get design feedback from a panel of reviewers. The panel can include other design team members, engineers, product managers, etc. It will depend on the organization’s or company’s structure and the stage in which the design is currently at. Also, there are different kinds of site design reviews. This will also affect who the members of the panel will be.
The main goal of the design review process is to check and identify errors, problems, or issues and find solutions for them. During feedback design, the group or panel can determine if there are areas that can be improved or need improvement.
How you conduct the design review process, the design feedback tools you use, and where it happens will depend on your company or team. However, website design feedback should include the following:
- Summary of the designing process.
- Problems encountered.
- Research conducted.
- Outline your team’s solution to the problems and it should be backed with reasons and data why you went with this choice instead of other ideas.
What Is the Purpose Critical Design Review Process?
When creating a design, you and your team invest time, effort, and energy. You get attached to the design. And sometimes, fail to see the bigger picture. This can be problematic. You might end up overlooking some problems and issues with the design. This is the main reason why a design review is beneficial to your team and organization.
Fresh new eyes, people, and perspectives can look at the design and help you identify if there are problems. These people can also create more effective, efficient, and creative solutions to the issues you are currently working on. This can decrease your workload, improve your turnaround time, and decrease your and your team’s mental stress.
Another purpose of the design review process is transparency. The panel members will see the progress, or lack of it, of your team. If there are hindrances in the design creation process, the design review can be your platform to discuss it.
When you present a design in front of people, you can hone your presentation skills and improve how you accept design feedback.
The Design Review Process Checklist: For Effective Design Feedback
Every company or organization has its design review process. Hence, the critical design review strategy varies. In general, the design review process includes:
- Invite the Right People: The people you invite for the design review process should be experts or knowledgeable about the design creation process. You can narrow it down by identifying where your design is currently at.
- Create A Design Outline: Everyone in the panel should be briefed about the design to give good design feedback. By providing a detailed outline, you can reduce the time spent asking questions and explaining.
- Provide and Receive Design Feedback: Some designers get attached to their designs and can take the design feedback personally. Which shouldn’t be the case. Design feedback is all about searching for solutions to problems and not a personal attack.
- Prioritize, Delegate, Remove, and Schedule: After the discussion and receiving the design feedback, it’s now time to prioritize the tasks, delegate to the team, remove unnecessary assignments, and schedule deadlines.
- Communicate: Everyone on the team should be aware and informed of the results of the design review process.
Benefits of the Design Review Process
Aside from creating an innovative design faster and finding solutions, the design review process offers many benefits for the design team, company, and organization. Here are a few:
- Figure the Best Practices: Every person, team, and company has their own design process and strategy. Through the design review process, you can invite other experts or independent companies to look into the team’s design process. Their input or design feedback can help improve your team or company’s best practices and implementation.
- Get Another Set Of Eyes: The team or designer can get too attached to their design leading to errors and problems. With a design review process, there will be unbiased and fresh sets of eyes who can look at the bigger picture and identify problems or issues that might occur.
- Decrease Design Cost: During a design review process, the panel will see if there are problems that might arise. Your team can fix these and avoid extra costs and time extensions.
Improve Communication: Better communication and discussion means fewer problems within the design team, business owners, product managers, and engineers.
Conclusion: Will Design Process Review Benefit Your Company?
The design review process is a great way to look at the bigger picture which is important when creating a design. When your team creates a design, you invest time, energy, and effort. With exhaustion and looking at the design too often, your team can get attached to the solution and design. As a result, there are chances when some issues, errors, or problems are overlooked. And as your team progresses in creating the design, these issues can stack up resulting in bigger problems, time wasted, loss of profit, and reputation damages.
To prevent any issues in the future, it is best to conduct a design review in various stages of the design creation. A fresh set of eyes can help you identify problems, formulate solutions, create a better strategy, and finish the design quickly.
Whatever industry you are in, you must conduct a regular design review process. Not just for creating products and designing websites but for finding a more effective strategy for your team and company. Visit UI Collabo to learn more about collaboration and design review.
