Feedback in daily communication & design

The more real-life experience I gain the more I realize how important the concept of feedback is for becoming a better human, designer, and for creating valuable experiences.

Thanks to the feedback we as humans have been surviving and evolving for millennia. Feedback is a key component of all the interactions we have, be it with living or non-living systems.

Feedback drives change and through change achieving the desired result becomes possible. Whenever a system/environment reacts to an action or/and behavior we can witness feedback happening. We use this new information to learn and get better. We change and eventually apply the new knowledge in other situations when we interact with interfaces or people.

As designers, we can think of feedback as communication that happens between two sides, alive or not. We must always keep the focus on what feedback will come back from each action or event.

Ignoring feedback runs the risk of killing communication. No communication leads to silence and stagnation. This most often kills the positive user experience, leads to bad emotions and misunderstandings.

Feedback helps us surpass our limitations, move forward, and create better quality products and relationships.

Let’s explore several feedback perspectives that hopefully will inspire you to pay closer attention to and apply this important element of communication and design.

① Humans and feedback

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Delivering, asking for, receiving and a few more points on feedback can be found in this section. All of them helpful for improving how we interact with people.

Delivering specific, truthful and focused feedback

The proper delivery of feedback is fundamental to making a difference and causing a change in behavior. If the delivery is not good, well-intended feedback could lead to a damaged relationship and bad decisions.

Whenever you are about to deliver feedback please first stop and open your empathic…