For most of my career I gave design feedback the way everyone gives feedback.

For most of my career I gave design feedback the way everyone gives feedback. Annotated files, red marks, specific corrections. Move this here, reduce that, try this label instead.

The designer would implement the changes and the work would get better. I felt productive. But about eighteen months ago I noticed something uncomfortable about that loop. The designer was getting better at fixing things. They were not getting better at seeing things.

So I changed what I do. When the work was off in a way that felt structural, I stopped marking it up and asked one question instead: what decision does this screen help the user make?

What came back was not just better executed. It came from somewhere more solid, sometimes unrecognizable from the previous version, because the designer went back to the thinking instead of patching the output.

Next time you are about to leave ten annotation comments, try leaving one question instead. See what comes back.

More on this in this week's issue of Design is Dead. Link in the comments.