A Writer's Tip for Giving Product Feedback: Say something true, kind, and helpful
Getting critiqued as a writer is hard. You take this fragile creation that only exists because you made it up from scratch and ask people, sometimes even strangers, for feedback.
When I went to my first fiction writing workshop I was very nervous about getting and giving feedback because I’d never done done this kind of thing before. Fortunately before our first critique session of our instructors, Steven Gould, gave us great coaching. Here’s what he told us:
“When you’re critiquing what you say
should be true,
it should be kind,
and it should be helpful.”
When it comes to products, everyone’s got an opinion and getting a variety of feedback can make the product a lot better. And, a team of folks have poured their own heart and hard work into this product and have a lot of reasons for the choices they’ve made. It turns out this writing advice works really well for giving product feedback, whether it’s about engineering, functionality, or design. Let me show you how.
Say something true. Be objectively truthful. If you were critiquing a book it’s the difference between “no one will like this book” and “I don’t like this book.” You can be certain about your feelings, but you can’t speak for the whole world. In the product engineering world, it’s the difference between between saying “this is the wrong way to do this” and “this violates our design standards.” Wrong is too broad and subjective, a standard is a fact.
Say something kind. Some people won’t give any constructive feedback because they don’t want to be a jerk. But giving feedback can be a tremendous active of kindness. It is not kind to let someone steer into a tree you’re not sure they see. It is kind to give people insight you think will help, if you can do it in a way they can hear it and use it. Consider the difference between “I don’t know what you were even thinking coding it this way, it’s all wrong” and “I don’t understand why you did this and it seems to violate our coding standards.” In the kind version, you are seeking information and pointing out a potential factual problem, and you’re assuming the other person is competent and has good intent.
Say something helpful. Telling someone something that they can’t do anything about isn’t helping. Telling a writer “I hated this character” doesn’t give them a clue as to why. Maybe she’s an overblown stereotype or maybe she reminds you of your ex—the writer doesn’t know and it’s not actionable. Saying “I hated this character because she was mean to dogs” gives the writer information they can use. Perhaps they want you to hate the character because she’s mean to dogs, or perhaps not. It’s actionable, even if the action is to leave it as is.
In the product engineering world, saying “I don’t like the blue button” isn’t helpful. It is helpful to say “the blue button slowed me down because on the previous screen the blue button was for continue but here it’s for cancel.” And look! You didn’t say the person who made this decision was an idiot, you didn’t say “no one will understand this interface.” You gave them information to help them decide how to use your feedback. You rock.
Don’t forget the positive! While we mostly get twisted up giving negative feedback, this technique also improves positive feedback. You could say “I love the new user interface.” But it’s even better to say something specific like “The new user interface is a lot easier to use because it is so consistent” or “I like the new user interface because it workes just as well on my phone as on my computer.” Two very different, true, kind, and helpful bits of feedback.
Bonus! You can apply all of this to performance feedback, too. Even while giving the most difficult messages, you can be truthful, kind, and helpful, especially if you approach the conversation with altruism.
Your Dot Release: Is there a conversation you’ve been avoiding because you don’t want to sound like a jerk? Is there someone you work with who tends to shut down or get defensive when you’re trying to provide constructive feedback? Try using “true, kind, and helpful” to frame the conversation and let me know how it goes.
Release Notes: Steven Gould is best known for writing the book Jumper. If you’ve only seen the movie, or haven’t seen the movie, I loved the book ten times better than the movie and that is both true and kind. And if you didn’t like the movie, I hope it helps you reconsider reading the book.
The writing workshop I mentioned is Viable Paradise, a one-week residential workshop in writing and selling commercial science fiction and fantasy. I highly recommend it and am happy to answer questions about it.
Yes, that Scott Lynch was one of our instructors. One of the proudest moments of my life was when he told me that if he came across my dead body on the beach with this story sticking out of my pocket he’d gladly steal its plot and claim it as his own. The story went through many revisions and was published in 2021 in the Beyond The Stars: Across the Universe anthology under the title “Unarmed and Dangerous.”
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