Discussing Design

I believe that critique is a valuable skill for both practicing and learning Visualization (see Tutorial 4: Critique). The book Discussing Design is a great resource to learn it.

The Discussing Design book (the whole name is Discussing Design: Improving Communication and Collaboration through Critique) is an entire book dedicated to help people learn to critique better.

Critique is a valuable skill for a lot more than just Visualization. To quote the book…

Designers and artists don’t own critique. Critique is for anyone who wants to improve anything that they are building or doing. Critique isn’t a ‘design’ skill, it’s a life skill. Discussing Design, p. xi

The first chapter of the book is available as a “preview”. I think this is such a great resource that I require students in my class to read it. I strongly recommend that everyone reads it, because critique is such a useful skill.

The book has great examples, and is presented in an interesting style with “cartoon aliens” playing the roles of critics, both good and bad.

The book is focused on more traditional critique settings: meetings where the designer reviews a design with critics with the goal of getting ideas for iterative improvement. The ideas apply more broadly.

Part of the Critiques section of this site is for me to develop my own critique skills through practice. Hopefully, you will see me internalizing the lessons from Discussing Design.