Feedback Doesn’t Mean Failure

To make matters even worse many people see UX as everyone’s responsibility, and use that as an excuse to comment on all of our work. Thus, the amount of feedback that we receive is not only overwhelming, but it can be, at times, daunting. It is hard for many of us to not take this feedback as a sign that we are “doing UX” wrong.

Athletes also receive a lot of feedback. Align your wrist, go faster, slow down, be more sharp… the list goes on. My freshman year of high school, I tried out for the varsity soccer team. During tryouts, the coach was extremely demanding of me. He had feedback about my play constantly, and this made me certain that I wouldn’t make the team. Surprisingly enough, I was one of only 3 freshman that made the cut, and I couldn’t understand how. I went to the coach who helped me to make the connection. “If I didn’t see potential in you, I wouldn’t have provided any feedback at all. Feedback doesn’t mean failure”, he said. This principle is something we should also apply to practicing UX.

The next time that others are heavily commenting on how you did facilitating a meeting or how your concepts worked, or didn’t, don’t let it get you down. Instead keep in mind that if they didn’t see positive potential in your abilities, and didn’t respect you as the professional, they probably wouldn’t provide any feedback at all. This can help you to stop any negative thoughts you have towards yourself so that you can really hear the feedback, and apply it to make yourself and your work even better.