Why peer reviews?
Starting in 2023, the design team would like to introduce the concept of Peer reviews for designers. The concept of peer reviews is not new—developers have been doing it for ages. The reasons we want to experiment with including peer reviews in our process are as follows:
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new—our developers do it all the time. We just want to borrow it and appropriate it for design with the following goals in mind:
Ensure cohesive design across our platform
To provide support to backup other designer’s decisions so it doesn’t all fall Provide design support so decisions don’t fall solely on one designer’s shoulders.To encourge
Invite fresh perspectives into the design process for greater objectivity
Encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing
To enhance the overall quality of the design outcomes
How does it work?
When a design solution is close to complete (> 80% draft), we can request a review by another design team member by following these steps. This is intended to be an asynchronous activity to give the reviewer time to look closely at the details and review on their own schedule.
To request a peer review:
Record a loom video walkthrough of your solution or prototype and share
Share for asynchronous feedback in the Design Team channel tagging
Tag the peer you wish to review your work. Include the following in your message:
Summary of the project and solution including:
The primary problem you’re aiming to solve
The core use cases you’re accounting for
The requirements of the project
Any specifics you particularly want feedback on
Link to Loom walkthrough (if you recorded one)
Link to Figma file
Link to prototype (if applicableyou have one)
The reviewer
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When a request is received by the reviewer, they should block time in their calendar to complete the review. Reviews should ideally be completed within a 48hr window.
The
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reviewer will do a detailed review of their peer’s work to identify:
UI inconsistencies
Potential ideas for improvements
Unaccounted edge cases or unhappy paths
Correct component usage
File hygiene issues Be as specific as possible. For example, saying "I don't like the colors" is different than saying "These two colors are vibrating against each other and it's causing a distraction."
Give suggestions, not directives. And leave it up to the design to take the suggestions or not.
Who can I ask for a peer review?
The following designers are well-established in our design system and our product and can provide support in peer reviews:
Matt Birtch
Asaad Mahmood
Abhijit Singh
Anneliese Klein
Michael Gamble
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Be careful not to ask the same peer every time to prevent bottlenecks with one of the peers. |
What a peer review is not
This is not the right time to derail a solution. When a design solution gets this close to completion, we don’t introduce the peer review process to stall it. This stil. Peer reviews are all about softening edges, refining design work, and making sure we’re shipping the highest quality we can.