Jason Terhorst

Constructive Criticism

When you’re giving feedback to someone and you know they’ve spent a long time on the project, and you send them a comment saying “This was terrible! Were you even TRYING??”, you’re not helpful. In fact, you are (pardon my French) an asshat.

So, here’s a few tips to make sure you aren’t being an ass, and providing truly constructive criticism…

1. What experience do you actually have producing a work like this? If you aren’t experienced, you should back off a bit from assuming something “shouldn’t be too difficult” or “that won’t take long”.

1b. Don’t assume that you know what the root cause is. There’s probably a number of deeper factors that went into what you see. Instead, do some research, and give them the benefit of the doubt.

2. Give as precise a description of the issue as possible. This mainly refers to technical products. We call these bug reports, but in order to fix the bug, we need to be able to see it happen ourselves. If it’s a visual glitch, a screenshot may help. Most often, writing out instructions with step-by-step details will be most helpful. What did you click on, and when?

3. Don’t get personal. Don’t make attacks on the person or say things like “you can’t do anything right!”. That won’t get you anywhere, and just starts a war. And, of course, I’d like to see you do better.

It’s easy to be a critic (the web is infested with them), but it takes courage for someone to put their work out for public view. Be courteous and respectful - give them kind feedback that they can use, and we’ll all be able to improve our work together.