How do you run a design critique session that is useful rather than a debate about taste?

What the interviewer wants to hear

• Share context: goal, user, constraints and stage
• Ask for the specific feedback you need
• Feedback tied to goals and users, not taste
• Facilitate: timebox, include quiet voices
• Capture actions and decide afterwards

Model answer

I start by framing the session: the problem, who the users are, the goal and success metric, the constraints and how far along the work is. Then I say exactly what feedback I need, such as "Is the comparison clear?" rather than "Thoughts?". I ask reviewers to tie comments to the goal and user, for example "this might make users miss X", and to describe problems rather than prescribe solutions. As facilitator I timebox discussion, ask quieter people directly and park off-topic debates. When I review someone else's work, I follow the same rules and also mention what works well. Critique is not where decisions are made, so I capture comments and then decide which to act on, and I share back what changed and why. This builds trust and keeps sessions useful.

More medium UI/UX Designer questions

• You have only one week to design a new feature. How do you include user research?
• A stakeholder gives feedback on your design that you disagree with. How do you handle it?
• How do you measure whether a design change was successful?
• Why are empty, loading and error states important, and how do you design them?
• An engineer says your design will take three times longer to build than planned. What do you do?
• How do you plan and run user interviews for a new feature?
• You are asked to restructure the navigation of a large website with hundreds of pages. How do you approach it?
• A team wants a custom styled dropdown instead of the native select. How do you make sure it is accessible?
• How do you turn research findings into design decisions the team actually acts on?