On this episode, Karen Cheng, a Professor in the Division of Design at the University of Washington, discusses how she found her way to design and the value of critique, not only in education and work, but also in everyday life.

CHAD:

What’s your backstory? Where did you start in your career or in your path in design?

KAREN:

I probably have one of the more unusual career histories as a designer because I have an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Penn State. Most graphic designers don’t start that way.

My parents are both from Taiwan and like a lot of Asian parents they were very keen to see us get into something that would be safe financially, you know, secure. They really encouraged us to either be a doctor or to be an engineer. So, I went to Penn State and they had an honors program especially for women and minorities who would get into STEM fields essentially. I went through that. It was an honors program in chemical engineering.

It was kind of unfortunate for me because I was always more interested in the arts. I had, at different times, wanted to be an artist or to be a writer. But, my dad said that he wouldn’t support me if I would go that way. And, you know, I wasn’t totally sure what that would mean, becoming a writer, becoming and artist.

When I went through school, I had an internship for Proctor and Gamble, the consumer products company. When I was there, I worked in chemical engineering on liquid Tide. I met some people on the brand side of Tide—they have a brand management program. I realized that could also be financially stable. And, they worked with advertising. Proctor is also a very numerically driven company. So, they were sort of interested in having an engineer.

It was kind of the beginning of data analysis in marketing. They purchased scanner data. Everything you buy in a supermarket goes through that scanner. So, they had a vast amount of data to analyze. Because you can look at it all over the country at any supermarket, and so forth.

So, I interviewed over there. They have a long process. They actually have their own little SAT type test and everything you have to take. It was kind of unusual, but then when I was hired there, in their advertising or marketing department, it was my first job. That was fine. I worked on a brand called Dash, which isn’t around anymore. It was one of their first value brands in laundry. And, then I worked on Downy sheets, where the major competitor is Snuggle the bear.

I just got really interested in design by working with the advertising agency. Because it was in Cincinnati, the University of Cincinnati has a fine design program. So, I went to school at night for a while. Then, I decided to apply to a three-year program that they had where you would spend the first year as a bootcamp, then do the two-year masters program. So, I went through that.

After doing that I decided I’d like to become a faculty member because I’d been a TA while I was in graduate school and I really liked that. One of the faculty members there was friends with Doug Wadden, who is a long-time, sort of pillar, of the University of Washington program. It was sort of stupid, but I had been out in Seattle for a wedding in the summer and I was like, “Oh, it was really nice! There are so many Asian people.” You know? Because I was from Allentown, Pennsylvania, where we were the only Asian family in town. When we would go around the supermarket people would follow us and point, for example. So, I was like, “Wow! There are other locations where the environment is different.”

So, when this position opened up, I interviewed out here and I really liked the university and the city. It seemed to be a really solid program, so I figured I’d moved out here.

CHAD:

How did it feel like taking that leap switching disciplines after putting all of that effort into learning engineering?

KAREN:

That was super frightening. Well, it wasn’t frightening to get the job at Proctor. That felt pretty safe. I thought, “Well, I’ll go there.”

I was thinking about it this morning. I think the salary was thirty thousand dollars. I felt really great because they were going to give me a three thousand dollar advance. So, I bought a little used car so I could drive from my home in Allentown to Cincinnati. Then I used the rest of the money to buy a bed at IKEA or something like that. I just sort of felt like, “Okay, I’ve got an apartment. I’ve got a car. And, I have this job.” I just thought that pretty much nothing could go wrong.

But, it was a much bigger leap to leave my job at Proctor and go to school for design. It would have been much more logical. I thought about leaving and going to another corporate product firm that I might enjoy more. I was interested in Clairol for example. Or, there were also the people that made Mars candies. I thought, “Well, I could go to these other kinds of jobs.”

But, I really liked making things. That was a huge issue trying to decide that I was going to leave essentially a really good job that was secure. Even my family was okay with the fact that I left engineering because I was still working at a Fortune 100 company. So, it was actually very difficult because you’re taking a risk, it was so unknown and my whole family was so against it that it was really challenging.

CHAD:

Jp, how did you decide to go back to grad school?

JP:

I actually missed the critiques. For me, the idea of coming in and doing something from eight-to-five, nine-to-six, sometimes twelve hours a day was still gratifying for me. But, the thing that I really missed was bringing it to someone and going, “I’m having trouble with this, what do you think?” and they being, “Oh, it looks so good already.” And me saying, “Oh, okay. That’s not really what I’m looking for. I’m looking for something else.” Or, getting it back and later on hearing, “I wish we would have done this, I wish we would have done that.” And saying, “Well, I asked for more,” or, “I wanted to do this,” or what have you. So, it was really missing and environment in which people had the same sort of knowledge base to have a more in depth conversation.

KAREN:

Where were you working before grad school?

JP:

I did a couple of different things. Right when I came out of undergraduate I worked for my alma mater, Valparaiso. Then, I went in and did some other freelance work after that. Then, I pretty much went right back into grad school. It was a quick turnaround. I was like, “Oh no, I don’t want to do that. I want back in the environment.” And, similar to you Karen, I did a TA position and really enjoyed it. I loved the atmosphere and being able to contribute and to have that conversation; to be controlling that conversation and move things around. Then, I just stayed in it.

KAREN:

I just thought, to be fair, I think that depending on where you’re working as a designer some firms definitely have more of a critique culture. Some may have collegial kind of relationships with other designers or with senior designers. It depends on where you work, I think.

JP:

And, I think that’s probably more so now than I think what we’ve seen ten, fifteen years ago where you had to have that larger cooperation that had it already built in that we’re building a product and we’re wanting that product to be better. So, continuously revise, revise, revise as opposed to, now I think even more smaller corporations or smaller entities are saying, “We want to do something better. Is this the best we can do?” And, revise, revise, revise.

KAREN:

Yeah. More knowledge of the process. But, I also think that designers are sometimes pretty proactive about developing that culture. We had a group of three alum who went to Facebook. You know, fairly early in 2009 or so. And, they actually did not have a critique culture at that time. I mean, people were making stuff and I think it went to the head guy—you know, Mark Zuckerberg. They looked at it and decided what to do. And one of the things they began to do was to institute a time and a date and a location in which people would show their stuff.

But, they had a number of difficulties. I think a number of the people who were participating were from different cultures, like engineering for example. I know they actually had to set aside and make everybody obey the rules. You could ask for certain kinds of responses. Or, you had to come to a series of critiques. You couldn’t just come to one critique. And then, cannot come back and show new work. Then, they had to limit the size because it got pretty popular and they’re like, “Okay, 75 people around one computer, this doesn’t work.” But, I think that’s interesting that they had to build it from the ground up and they experienced a lot of the challenges of making a culture and how to respond to that.

JP:

I think that the critique culture is about growth. That growth we see not just in the classroom, but also in our own environments growing as an artist or in a company. I’m wondering if that’s something we’ve experienced outside of academia more so than just the critique setting. We know when we’re at the beginning of a project, the middle of a project.

Chad, you’re coming from a management consulting firm, what do you see as that sort of growth, that critiquing culture. Is that available to you in that kind of area?

CHAD:

I think it’s a similar story as what Karen was just talking about with the people at Facebook. I went in and was hired as a marketer. I was the first person with a design background that they’d ever hired before. So, there wasn’t other designers around.

But, it was an environment where they noticed there was something different about the way I thought and approached things. It was very different from all of the people with MBA backgrounds. You know, MBA’s think a lot differently than designers do. But, they liked it.

It was an environment where the CEO was really open. So, if people had good ideas he was very approachable. He, and they, saw that I was approaching my work in a different way. Then, we talked about how that could be proliferated throughout the company a little bit more. It was a matter of banding together colleagues that didn’t have the same background as I did, but leveraging each others skills to create a culture.

I don’t know if it was so much about critique. At that point it was more about teaching and spreading an approach to the way we worked. But, maybe critique is the next phase of that.

KAREN:

I had a guy come into my class. We did some infographics about K-through-12 information. He was a K-through-12 education expert. He told me afterwards that he was really impressed at the classroom experience. He was essentially observing a critique. He mentioned to me that one of the life skills people really need is learning how to give and receive feedback. And, that our teaching in this specific way was such a good preparation for life overall. I often think of that.

There’s a kind of pattern you see repeated as the kids come in as freshman and they become seniors to how receptive they are to being able to both show their work, which is of course a really vulnerable thing for them to do, and also to be able to solicit feedback. It can be very disappointing, even for myself, when you show design work to a client or a colleague and they point out flaws in your thinking. Even if you know that there’s a flaw that you’re worried about. But, it can also be such a wonderful collegial experience when you work together with a colleague and you both focus on different ways that something can be improved.

I thought that was interesting because working with students and critiquing has changed in my life overall. Like how I give and receive feedback, even in things like my marriage, or when I go to the post office and they’re like, “You should have waited in this line.” You just kind of see the possibilities for communication differently when you’re engaged in critique all of the time.

CHAD:

I think that’s a good way of putting it.

JP:

Yeah, definitely. Do you think that we do a good enough job of preparing our students for being good critique-ers, or having criticism given and taken in their day to day lives?

KAREN:

I think we could definitely be more direct to them. I think sometimes a lot of what we’re doing with students in the classroom is we’re simply modeling.

I’ve tried to write a little bit about critique, and this has been a little on my mind. AIGA national is coming up and I was asked to moderate a panel about critique. So, I’ve invited Michael Beirut and Marcia Lausen. Marcia Lausen is an AIGA Educator at the University of Chicago and Michael Beirut is, of course, a massive design star. I thought that would be interesting because, as a professional designer, he is in charge of critique in a different way in getting feedback from clients. And, at Pentagram I’m sure he has some role in mentoring junior designers, and so forth. And then Marcia is a faculty member, but also has a design practice.

Sometimes I think in design, in our classes, we simply go into a critique and you behave a certain way and the students start to realize, like, “Oh, I see. This is how it’s going to be. I’m supposed to get called on. I’m supposed to say something.” You set certain expectations.

You could be much more clear about it. Before critique you could have them read something about critique, you could actually talk about critique, you could even talk about aspects of vulnerability and how that might change the way they look at and respond to people. But, frankly, I think that mostly we do it in a very ad hoc way in the studio where we deal with problems that come up, when they come up. We don’t really set expectations in a really strong verbal way prior to a critique happening.

CHAD:

But, especially in the class you’re talking about, the introductory level classes at UW, it’s also being able to see that model come from different people within the course of the same class because they switched around from all of the TAs and the professor. And, we all probably do it a little bit differently.

KAREN:

I thought it was interesting that you played music before your class. I’ve seen other faculty do that, too—like Jamie Walker. I’ve tried to do that. But, it’s a bit of a time burden thing because you have to get there twenty minutes in advance, set up your music, and have music that you think is appropriate. But, I do think that actually setting a kind of atmosphere up…I also think that sometimes it goes to far. I’m not sure I’m that kind of teacher personality that I would play music. I mean, I think you have to teach to the kind of personality and teacher who you are. If you try to take on something else it can feel pretty phony.

Do you do anything special at PLU?

JP:

I used to do music before class started. My classroom is right next door to my office. So, it was just an easy walk in and hit play. But, I’ve gotten away from that and I’m doing different things.

I mainly just come in right at the beginning of class, so that way I give them time to acclimate to themselves, to build a community of, “I love what I did. I hate what I did. I can’t believe I got this done. Thank you for helping me.” So on and so forth, you know? This way, they’re all in a them-against-me mentality.

I want them to be able to feel confident if I am having a conversation with someone that someone else can come in and say, “Well, this is how I see it.” Whether it’s defending them—though, I’m not very malicious about my critiques to people. But, at the same time I want them to be able to say, they have a buddy in here. Rely on the buddy to help you get through that conversation if they need to.

KAREN:

I’ve done that sometimes in some classes, especially at the beginning of the quarter if they’re a new group, where I pair them up. And, so one person has to critique the other, or two people have to critique a third person’s work. I think that’s great for an icebreaker. There’s not that huge pressure of, “I’ve got to say something right now,” with everybody listening, with the teacher listening. It’s true, too, because the kids all know each other, that makes a huge difference in their comfort level in critique.

I was asked once to go to this company on the West coast. And they asked, “Would you come and talk about making a critique culture?” And I said, “Well, it’s hard for me to really know what you need. I mean, do you know each other very well right now? How comfortable are you with each other?”

So, I think in 166, the class we were talking about, there’s a certain competition in the class, too. Where only so many of them are going to make it. That inhibits the critique tremendously. But, there is that moment…I do try to go early, first of all so kids that don’t have the work can come to you and cry. And you can say, “Okay, well do you want to go home? Or, do you want to stay?” You know, these kinds of things. But, there is this moment of revelation. I see this in the critique research literature. That is one thing really liked about critique is that you see all of these responses. And, the kids enjoy revealing what they’ve done. There’s a mix of things. Like some people say, “Oh, I didn’t know you were going to do that! That looks great.” And other people say, “Don’t look at this. I just have this right now. This isn’t my final.” I think that’s interesting as a community builder—the pin-up phase.

JP:

Do you feel that you have grown as a professor after doing all of these types of critiques for as many years as you’ve been doing it?

KAREN:

Oh, sure. I remember when I first started, this incident where we had a professor at the University of Cincinnati who was so picky about how you would put things up. And actually, I really admire him and he’s a very precise guy. But, if it wasn’t straight he wouldn’t begin the critique. So, eventually the system emerged where the first person would pin-up a piece of string and everyone else would align to that. But, the first couple of times, I think we took another forty minutes, or something, getting all of the work on the wall. To the point in which Dr. Puhalla would be willing to actually say something about it. And, I thought that was good because we were freshman and it sort of instilled in us a sort of respect the work, respect the process of critique.

I remember when I first came, I tried to institute the same thing. I thought, you know, “I’m going to do this, too.” So, my first typography class, I complained that they didn’t put the work up properly and I made them do it over and over. And then, I think the next time I went in, they had deliberately pinned up weird stuff to kind of freak me out. Like ripped up pieces of cardboard. That wasn’t actually the assignment. And, I wasn’t sure what to do. So, I looked at the work, I said nothing, then I went to the bathroom. And, I thought, “Okay, I’m just going to think in here about how I want to respond.” Then when I came back, they had taken that off and put up the work normally. So, I guess they probably thought I was filled with anger or something and they fixed it.

But, after all that I just think, “Why did I try so hard to be something I’m not. I wouldn’t approach it that way.” Now what I do, if I see the students are putting it up crooked, I say, “See, if you use this line on the wall, you can line it up and make it straight.” I’m helping them do it properly. Why did they have to make it such a thing of we were the idiots, they were the authority, we had to learn? Maybe for other people that worked and that was their personality. But, I can get the same effect now without working so hard for it, I think. And, without getting so upset.

JP:

Chad, you’re doing critiques now. In comparisons to the ones you and I were involved in, what kind of instructor are you when it comes to critiques?

CHAD:

I think the main difference between being a critique participant at PLU, being a critique participant in grad classes, and leading a critique in the undergrad classes is the size difference. At PLU our class sizes were really small and our grad classes are even smaller. You have large chunks of time where you can really talk through things. In most of the critique I’ve led, it’s always like, “Alright, we’ve got an hour. There’s twenty, twenty-five people here. That means everybody gets about three minutes, give or take. Alright, tell us what you need from us.” So, there’s different tactics of moving through that.

One thing that both Karen and Kristine encouraged us to do was to have them start by looking through each other’s work and putting tabs on stuff they thought was communicating something well. And, you can use different color of tabs to say something different about the assignment. For example, this had a good composition, so I’m going to use this color. Or, this one was communicating the idea really well, so I’m going to use this color. Then you can start with the good examples working through critique and sort of work your way down from there.

I think mostly I try to approach it from, and this came back in some of my reviews…I always tried to look at it as the one thing I’m trying to get them to do is learn how to critique, not just hear critique from me. So, often times I would let the room be silent. And, there was a few times where I said, “Well, if you guys don’t want to say anything we can just go home.” And then, believe it or not, someone would start talking. I think that, in and of itself, letting it get uncomfortable a little bit is fine. They realize, “Oh, critique is a give and take. I have to give it in order to get it.” I would try to push them to try and have a conversation about each other’s work, then I would chime in at the end to give my opinion. Because, I want to see at what stage of the process they’re at. Of what they can give, what kind of language they are adopting from the lectures to be able to talk about work. But then, I don’t want to influence what their perspective of the work is, yet. Then, I chime in at the end. Usually, by the end of the class, it’s moving much faster.

JP:

How do you see students taking critiques over the last several years or semesters?

KAREN:

You mean, do you think the students respond to critiques differently as millennials, than they did when they were Generation X?

CHAD:

That could be something. I think it could also be interesting…We’ve sometimes had professionals come in and critique. And, that changes the critique process.

KAREN:

Did you think it was a lot different. For example, in your grad studio? When you had professionals come in and do critique? What was the difference between having an academic run a critique and having a professional from a corporate office do a critique?

CHAD:

Well, I think part of it was that [particular] class was framed in a much more corporate lens in general. Their whole idea was, often times, the fault we see in designers coming out of academia is it takes them a while to get back to to the idea of understanding constraints—whether they’re business constraints or client constraints. They wanted us to experience that again within the academic setting, which is more safe to practice some of the things we’d already learned. Critique was often focused a little bit more on…

KAREN:

Just meeting those constraints? For example, Linda Norlen is a different person, too. But, I mean she is much more academic in some ways.

CHAD:

Yeah, I’d say she has a very academic mindset. And, if we’re talking about seminar classes and writing, she looked at our work and encouraged us to write in a very academic manner. And, then transitioning to the full-time faculty was actually much more loose and open. They were much more focused on ideas than introducing us to something new, if that makes sense. But, even bringing professionals in to do critique, they’re very focused on….

KAREN:

I would describe it as more tactical. When I’ve brought somebody in to do a critique from outside, they’re very much like, “What are you trying to do? What are the constraints of the problem?” And, so forth. “Let me provide feedback on that.” You know? And, there is a certain assumption, because they’re used to talking to other designers, that you know certain things. Often the conversation moves at kind of a different level because of that. But, I don’t know that I thought as an academic, if I was to come into another audience and do that, if I would necessarily respond that much differently. They do hold the floor more. I do notice that. Professional designers, when they come in, they don’t know the students so they can’t say, “Vicky, what would you say?” But, they are less inclined, they do see their role as to holding the floor and providing that information.

You must use a number of guests at PLU?

JP:

Surprisingly no.

KAREN:

Oh, I didn’t know.

CHAD:

Well, you have alumni come in every once in a while.

JP:

Occasionally, yeah. But, even fewer and fewer these past couple of years. I find that our students are starting to expand outward, further and further away from PLU. And so, it’s harder to find alumni to come in mid-way during the week, mid-way during the year, mid-way during the work hours. I would love to have more and more of that kind of interaction. What you were talking about Karen is definitely true.

Even in the scenario that I have trained them how to give a critique, how to take a critique, I find that their mindset of how they work in, how their own environment is, “I will take the floor, I will tell you what is good, what is bad, what I’m seeing, what I’m thinking, what I think you should do. And, then you can ask a question.” And sometimes, that is informative, but not always the most helpful. But, definitely something students need to know. That here is a different way of critiquing. Here is a different way of gathering and gaining more information.

KAREN:

I think that has something to do with critique culture, as well. Even when you’re working working professionally, if you work along on a project with a certain group of stakeholders, or investors in it, then someone comes in from the outside and provides some input, that can often be detrimental to a project. Just because they haven’t gone through the process. There is a certain coalescing that happens around a certain thinking. And so, I think sometimes when you bring an outsider into a class critique, where directions have been established, it can be very difficult for the outsider to provide meaningful input. I think using a guest critic has to happen at the right time for them to be valuable.

CHAD:

Yeah.

JP:

I was in a meeting a couple of months ago and the client we were thinking about working with had asked us a question about, “Is it possible to come in to talk to our designers about how to give criticism and how to take criticism.” And, we tried to have that conversation a bit further. I remember the analogy we used was that a lot of our designers our caught trying to choose what color of tie to where, and we want them to figure out whether they need a tie or not. It was funny because at PLU, we don’t care about the color of tie, we want to teach you how to tie the tie.

And, now that I’ve been thinking about it, I’m not sure if that was the right answer or not. It’s one of those things that even after you’re in the field long enough, sometimes that critique mentality or the essence of wanting to receive feedback is not always there, or it’s starting to dwindle away.

Have you seen alumni come back with that kind of, “I need to know how to approach this?” Or when they come into the classroom you don’t see that same sort of mindset of x, y and z of trying to get what is good, what is bad, what needs improvement or however you would run a critique?

KAREN:

Hmmm. I don’t know.

When you were talking, I was actually thinking about a paper I’d read. A woman from MIT, who is a researcher has made a machine. It’s a computer that, in a way, is a design critic. It can look at various layouts and give you a score for how cluttered it is, and what is salient. You know, what is popping out. So, she showed it to various design groups and there was very mixed feedback about it.

Many people saw it as a weapon they could use to beat management back. Management would say, “Okay, put these five more things onto this layout.” And, they were like, “No, because the clutter score is already at ten,” for example. Which I thought was very interesting. And then, other people actually felt it was a valuable tool for critique because it enabled them to have a discussion about certain things. That they would say, “Hey, this tool says that the borders are really coming out. Who cares about the borders? We need to get people to look at x.” You know?

So, I thought what was kind of interesting about what you were saying is that, sure alum come back and they are more tactical. They’re thinking about these things. But, maybe their problems are more that there’s such a diverse group of people you work with once you leave academia. It’s so pleasant to have a critique with other designers because you kind of know what you can and can’t say, and how to say things in a way that provides feedback that is hedging or open ended.

CHAD:

I also think you’re able to use a certain level of language. A certain vocabulary.

KAREN:

There’s a certain camaraderie because you’re both designers. What I thought was interesting about this external tool, even though it was frightening, too—that say layouts I made would be assessed best by this machine and somehow scored—but I thought it was interesting as a tool that would allow non-designers to get on the playing field with you. That they would be able to kind of express themselves. Because sometimes they don’t have the same kind of language as you to express what their concerns are.

JP:

But, don’t you think that’s part of the actual educational experience we provide as academics in higher education? That you’re coming here, you’re coming to us, our institutions, to learn these things. If a program can be used to give you a score to say this is good, we can move on, we’ve kind of watered down our experience even more.

KAREN:

Well, I wouldn’t want that to be the ultimate judge. I guess I still see it as a mid-way tool. Just as when you go to a press check and they check the density of the ink. That gives me certain information, but I’m still going to tell you I want it to be yellow-er or red-der or blue-er. I just saw it as an additional tool.

But, what I thought was interesting about it is it was a way to facilitate conversation with non-designers. And, I think it’s easy as a designer to get caught up in your own thinking, ideas and emotions. I thought if this thing helped you to see it objectively—I mean sure it could probably be used for design evil—but I also thought in a way it wasn’t necessarily evil. In fact, I think the creator was surprised that so many people just assumed that the algorithm was fine. No one questioned the score. People just thought about what they could do with it. So, I think it is interesting the relationships we have with machines. That people just assume, “Oh, it works.”

JP:

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

CHAD:

Well, I was just reading how the MBTI, the Meyers-Briggs Personality Assessment, isn’t backed by the academic community at all.

KAREN:

Oh, I didn’t know. I thought that thing was bullet proof.

CHAD:

Nope. It’s, supposedly, not supported by the academic community, whatsoever. It’s like this whole thing that so many people have put so many eggs in and it’s actually quite monetarily driven.

KAREN:

Oh. Well, that’s good. Because I never thought my Meyers-Briggs score was accurate. So, now I can feel free to disregard that.

CHAD:

But, I mean it’s the same idea in that we develop a score, or an algorithm, to talk about critique or give some foundation for critique. But, then how do we establish some sort of standard or norm for that.

KAREN:

I mean actually that’s true. Because the Meyers-Briggs, at least how I’ve seen it used, is usually given to a group of people so you can talk about your team and whether your team is working well. So, in a way, it doesn’t really matter if the score is accurate as long as you have a conversation about what is working and not working on your team.

CHAD:

Exactly.

JP:

Well, I think that’s probably a good place for us to stop. There’s the future.

CHAD:

Yup.

KAREN:

Machines.

JP & CHAD:

Machines.