Feedback elevates work, but only when it is done right. If the feedback is personal—or solely about potential solutions—it can stand in the way of innovation.
For creative endeavors that produce abstract products, like data visualizations, figuring out a client’s or teammate’s feedback is often the difference between success and failure. Let us start exploring this concept of feedback with an all too common, yet completely imaginary, suggestion. “This part needs to be red.” The imaginary feedback might sound similar to designers. Most creators have experienced a client or teammate set in the presence of a design component which they see as their only solution. This sort of feedback stifles the creation of innovative options, because it does not center on a pain point.
Pain points are meant to be the superpower of any person providing feedback! The feedback provider hopefully knows why things are not working better than anyone else. Certainly better than the designer would, if they were an outside consultant. In many cases the pain point is why the client called you in the first place—their data was not working well enough for them. The client should provide the most feedback possible in as much detail as possible. They also get the final say on efficacy; whether they believe the solution addresses the pain point.
The problem for clients, and I completely understand this, is that it is difficult to disclose your needs and problems. The disclosure experience is one of vulnerability requiring trust in a person you do not know well. Ask anyone in therapy how good and easy this disclosure process feels. Furthermore, it is possible that the client reached out after they felt the effects of the pain point and not after they understood that pain point. In this ‘early call’ situation, the client would not even fully know what is wrong. I mean, would you wait to see a doctor until you understood what was happening to you, if something demonstrably bad occurred? Of course not. Given these circumstances, I, too, might find it easier to ask for a red component and lean into people when they do not create one.
This is why, as designers, it is important we help our client and teams uncover the underlying pain point often hidden in the feedback. While feedback meetings feel scary, they do provide an opportunity to uncover pain points and reframe requests in those terms. It is critical that we apply all the respect we can muster to these meetings. The clients hired us because we are gifted at this work, by definition of hiring us they are stating a need for help. Further, design mastery by itself does not support a successful business—respect for others does. If we overly rely on our designs, eventually work internal and/or external may dry up. No one wants to work with a judgy know-it-all.
What might underlying pain points look like in our imaginary feedback? Maybe this release is during the holiday season and the pain point is that people feel the website is not organically responding to popular culture. Or the pain point is overuse and they want to discourage folks from using the feature in question. It might be that the pain point is their materials don’t feel associated or consistent and red is a brand color.
Each of those pain point examples felt plausible as to why someone might “see red” as the only answer—cultural ties, overuse, and disconnection. Yet, each one of those pain points generates more options to choose from than “red.” If we can help the client see their feedback in those terms, the terms of pain points, we can generate for them so many more solutions. I am absolutely sure a UX expert can generate 25+ solutions in fifteen minutes on how to curb overuse, for example.
I find that this concept plays out well with an analogy about a doctor and patient’s interaction. An analogy expertly explored in Jordan Marrow’s book Be Data Analytical. The physician knows little of why the patient is in their office on any given day and will not know information unless it is provided by the patient. Hurts when you laugh? Mention it. Pass out when you sneeze? Mention it. Not slept well in weeks? Mention it. Each one of these items helps the doctor do their job—diagnose and treat. In fact, it would be silly to imagine a doctor telling you how to feel and what your pain points were. Conversely, the patient is not a medical expert. As such, the patient would be better served by deferring to the medical provider in generating possible solutions. Imagine a patient saying, “I need surgery,” and accepting nothing else. They may be correct, but how many more options could they generate together?
Christopher Laubenthal focuses on better data use with visualizations in an organizational setting. He has experience in both for-profit and not-for-profit sectors where he increases literacy, grows culture, and builds data visualizations. Christopher is the Data Design Manager at The DeBruce Foundation, a national foundation whose mission is to expand pathways to economic growth and opportunity. Current projects include his public viz and The DeBruce Foundation’s Career Explorer Tools.
