Beyond Content, Deeper than Delivery: What Critique Feedback Reveals about Communication Expectations in Design Education

What I read

In this text, the authors research the nature of communication from faculty to students during design critique and project-specific conversations. They conclude that students are expected to be competent in presentation, and this competence is about interaction management, showing how a design evolves, describing their intent, explaining the materials, and staging the performance.

The authors begin by discussing the "communication across the curriculum" emphasis that was intended to help students in all disciplines learn to speak effectively; this emphasis was largely driven by popular media and by accreditation boards, and that led to a body of academic research about the nature of oral communication in education. Literature specifically focused on design-emphasized public speaking skills has been limited to a theoretical conceptualization of feedback, although literature specific to other disciplines has become much more focused on content. The research focus, then, is to identify "what does teacher/critic feedback reveal about valued student communication competencies in the design critique?" A "naturalistic ethnographic framework" and "intensity sampling" was used during the research, and the primary data produced was from transcripts of five studios, over a span of 9-12 critiques, that were 2-4 hours each. The data was analyzed using a "typological analysis framework."

The results of the analysis identified five "communication competencies" that are necessary during a design critique. Each of these is shown in detail, with quotes from critiques used to illustrate each competency.

The first competency was the ability for a student to show and tell a systematic demonstration of how a design emerged. This is a display of process, to provide some rationalization for creative output. The second competency was a selective use of visuals, and the ability to describe the visuals and use them effectively as demarcations during the presentation. A third competency was to provide "transparent advocacy" of the designs in a convincing way. Another competency was the staging of the presentation so it appears professional; the last was "appropriate interaction management" to control the way the conversation emerged and continued.

The authors then discuss the implications of their findings.

The study has created a "new foundation for scholarly inquiry on feedback in design education." Educators had a consistent set of feedback mechanisms, but were not aware of them and did not have them developed in a clear framework. Additionally, the study highlights that there is much more to a critique and design feedback than simply a delivery of the content. The critique is culturally contextual and socially mediated, and it's necessary for educators to understand how these play a role in the feedback process. The last implication of the research is that educators may not be aware of the lasting aspect of their spoken criticism, and there is a need for educators to learn to be more reflective and strategic in how they talk to students about their presentations. They conclude that "this study has called us to consider carefully, reflectively and perhaps strategically, the broader implications of what we say when students speak."

What I learned and what I think

The framework of five competencies is very helpful, both as the boundaries of a rubric for students, and as the reflective tool for educators that the authors describe at the end of the text. It encapsulates a number of the different things I find myself saying to students before, during, and after a presentation, but I've never tried to put these in a concise set of categories. Repeated here, they are "interaction management, demonstration of design evolution, transparent advocacy of intent, explanation of visuals, and the staging of the performance." The three Big Pillars I've always described are much less tactical: Every presentation is a chance for you to gain or lose something, every presentation is a structured conversation, even if you are the only one talking, and you feed the energy in the room, and your participants consume it. I'm not sure if these make sense, or are the "best" anymore. These were based a great deal off Luke's content at frog, and they certainly reflect Big Presentations, but I'm not sure if they are suitable for in-process critiques.

I keep reflecting on the nature of design critique. I've always felt it was a fundamental part of a design process; I've never actually questioned it, and I'm not sure most designers have, either. It's hard to separate the "lore" from the value, but I'll try to ignore the nostalgia of feeling terrible (…). I've always felt the value was in helping students build muscle memory around ideas not being precious. Actually, that's maybe the only (?) real content value of it. It would be nice if critique improved a design, but it's so rarely given by someone qualified to drive that level of improvement. In real life, it's a strategic tool so people can see the work in progress and feel that they've contributed to it, and it's a way of socializing ideas so no one is surprised. When it's done generatively, it has huge value—let's get ten designers working on a single idea, producing ten different variations quickly—but that's so rare in academia. Input from other students is really not useful, because other students are by definition not qualified to provide "good" suggestions, just suggestions.

So, the basic value is learning that ideas are not precious. Part of that is learning to separate yourself from your work. Part of it is also forcing iteration; do this again, because we're not done yet: you just gained new constraints.

None of these are the point of a final critique. So what actually is the point of a bookend critique? There's no opportunity to actually do anything on the project, so the value has to either be celebratory, or useful on another project in the future. There's always a gap before whatever that next project is, so it has to be written down. Students don't write anything, and if they did, it would be haphazard. Even though the things are often recorded, I've never really heard of my students revisiting the recordings. The faculty never write anything down during the critique, and I know I was in the minority of writing any feedback afterwards; and for me, the detail was gone by then, other than that presented by the artifact.

Also. This is from 2008. Nothing changed. Oof…