I'm lucky that I get the chance to speak at conferences on a fairly regular basis. Last year, I presented about a dozen talks on web design topics and taught a couple of workshops. But, I'm still a neophyte next to the Molly Holzschlag's and the Jared Spool's of the geeky lecture circuit. I know I have a lot of room for improvement. Yet, getting honest criticism from your audience is just about impossible.
Earlier this year, Khoi Vinh correctly made the case that designers are generally too kind to each other. At no time is this more true than when you're asking people to criticize your public speaking. You can ask attendees and even fellow speakers for tips and they'll invariably concoct a compliment and shrug their shoulders before telling you that they couldn't do as well as you just did — which is total crap.
During the past year, I've figured out a few decent techniques to encourage people to give you a critique. This is something I still struggle with so I'd appreciate your ideas as well. A few things that seem to work for me:
- Ask for just one thing
- If you ask people to tell you 'anything' or 'everything' that you could improve upon, they'll usually stumble about and not give you anything useful. But, ask them for the 'one thing' you could improve on and they'll at least wrack their brain to come up with a single criticism. This is much better than getting nothing.
- Ask people who know you well
- The best post-presentation critiques I've received have come from a long-time coworker and my father. People who've been on the other end of your own stinging criticisms are much more comfortable throwing some back at you. This is great! My dad's a really nice guy, but he's both heard me carp at him more than a few times and he's a seasoned university lecturer. He was kind but blunt with several pieces of good advice.
- Ask drunk people
- Seriously. After a workshop at Future of Web Apps in Miami last year, I asked the attendees to give me some honest feedback and got a tepid response. But... that night, a couple of the guys were pretty drunk and (standing a little too close for comfort and with potent whiskey breath) gave me a healthy dose of totally unvarnished advice. That advice, which was to show more examples and to cover less material but in more depth, was fantastic.
- Ask groups of people
- This seemed counterintuitive to me. I assumed that if you cornered an individual that you could get good one-on-one advice. But, if you can coax just one person in a small group to give you a single piece of advice, the rest sometimes sense blood in the water and will join in too — yay! Once the ice is broken and people see that you actually didn't rip the critiquer's head off, it's much easier for the other people to add their own comments.
- Be persistent
- People are eager to please. Heck, that's why they're being too nice to you in the first place. If you seem genuinely disappointed that no one is offering you criticism, people sometimes throw you a bone to please you. Like in the previous point, once you've broken the ice...
And, of course, If you've seen me present recently or if you're going to be at one of the same conferences I'll be at (I've got a list at the bottom of the page), I'd appreciate your critique in the comments. Be honest, be judgmental, be picky, be cold, heck be downright mean — I'll learn more from your criticisms than from all the platitudes you might write.
Comments
Daniel Burka - November 24, 2009 1:34 am
Oops, I just noticed that I've screwed up the time for a few events in the footer of this site. I'll fix this in the morning (when someone can push code to production for me)!
Michal Migurski - November 24, 2009 1:54 am
Good advice. The thing about designers being too nice to each other definitely rings true for me, it's difficult to come up with good criticism in a culture tuned excessively towards positive reinforcement. The best suggestion for good criticism I've ever heard comes from Pixar's Michael Johnson, who described a good note as one that simultaneously identifies a problem and offers a solution. He brought a few excellent examples from The Incredible, too detailed to get into here - the short version is that the critique solved more than just the problem at hand, and really tightened the script as a whole.
Interesting that Khoi Vinh made the point about insufficient criticism, I think he's one designer who gets too much of a pass from his audience for his work.
your sister - November 24, 2009 4:02 am
Does it have to be about conferences? I have a bunch of day-to-day stuff I could write up! Example, too many "glamor shots" on your flickr feed.
tyler - November 24, 2009 9:43 am
In my design class we had a critique of our album covers project. Many of them looked like sloppy Photoshop mashups with really poor font choices. However, its in the Wisconsin mentality to be super kind and say, "Wow, I really like your piece, I think the font works well!" Daniel, should I start going to class drunk so I am impervious to this kindness and deliver some real criticism?
xethorn - November 24, 2009 3:07 pm
Awesome, the "Ask drunk people" statement is awesome. I would never have think about this one but this is certainly the best :)
I would add one step: "Ask another yourself the correct questions". Doing a presentation should imply:
- Do the audience adapted to the content?
- Is the content light and relevant?
- Does my presentation have thousand of text (if yes, it's not good)?
- Does the topic fully covered?
- What can I do to make it better?
Etc.
Being truly honest against our personal work is the best way to enhance it. I'm sure, 80% people can tell us can be figure out by us if we take the time to step out and look back.
Thanks a lot for this share!
@xethorn (blog, flickr)
Sylvia McCabe - December 30, 2009 1:58 pm
I was a lecturer, so I know how important it is for you to have a good presentation, whether it be two or two thousand people listening.
You want a positive up beat, motivated interest and the audience to sell you to their family and associates long after your lecture, or presentation is finished.
I have very good skills in this area. If you like, we could communicate via e mail, or I visit and will give positive critism for you. All the best for the New Year. Sylvia
Beth - January 4, 2010 4:09 pm
One of the most shocking things to me about entering the professional world of design was the lack of criticism, aside from clients telling you they don't like the color orange because it reminds them of their ex-wife or something equally useless.
Back when I was walking uphill barefoot in the snow every day to art school, every project went through a rigorous series of critiques, sometimes harsh enough to send students fleeing the room in tears. I'm certainly not advocating publicly humiliating your peers, but in the professional world we are too afraid of stepping on toes, particularly if the designer in question happens to have a well known reputation.
Hearing how we suck is how we get better, thick skin should be a prerequisite for the industry. This definitely applies to speaking as well, I can't tell you how many panels I attended at SXSW with big name panelists, that were an utter (and surprising) disappointment. Being great at one thing does not make you great at another. In fact, some of the best people I've seen speak on design aren't necessarily the best designers.
Al - January 19, 2010 8:59 pm
Nice post, and brave for a designer. I manage a team of designers and writers and I'm guilty of being too easy on them sometimes...
Now, since you asked for criticism, I have just one that relates to your site. I can't read the copy in the sidebar starting with the TWEETS via Twitter section. There's not enough contrast, except for the white links. OK, there's your problem, now here's a possible solution. Maybe making the copy the same yellow/green as breadcrumb bar would enhance legibility. That way you're able to stick with the current color scheme and keep it all consistent.