Construct the right environment in order to get the right kind of feedback.

When trying to pioneer systemic reform or drive radical innovation, one can expect a degree of resistance to change as people hold onto the status quo. The resilient designer takes care to construct the environment in which they will share work and thus receive feedback.

Showing work opens the designer to harsh criticisms that can be driven by others’ prejudices or biases. You might have had an experience where you presented your work and received no constructive feedback, but only criticism. It likely felt especially painful, and maybe it took a few days for these negative feelings to subside.

Throughout our project, we were particularly inspired by a PhD candidate who took great care to manage meetings with supervisors. They would carefully plan the agenda of a meeting, share their work, and ask for certain types of feedback. For example, they might say, “Today I want you to focus on giving me feedback related to positioning and scope, and not go into too much detail regarding my writing tone or images.” Or they might say, “Today you might feel some resistance to the direction I am going in, but bear with me. I want to use this session to explore opportunities, so I need your open minds.”

To learn some of these skills, we advocate using role-play techniques to present students and teachers with likely scenarios, including extreme scenarios, where design work is shared and feedback is given. This activity allows students to explore practical approaches to create environments for feedback and develop ways to deal with harsh feedback or criticisms of their work. Through role play, students practice sharing their work, giving and receiving feedback.

Tip: When somebody responds negatively to your work, ask yourself why that might be. What does that tell you about what they value? What pressures are they under? Treat their negative feedback as a system performance (see Principle 6) rather than a personal or even public attack on you as a designer.