Stop 6 of 8 · Daily
Critique and accessibility
Screenshot in, critique out. Against the brief, against hierarchy, against contrast and tap targets, and against what the client is going to say.
Critique is a job, not a mood
Yara used to get critique from her studio partner, which meant getting it when he was free. Now she gets a first pass in two minutes and brings him the interesting half. The trick is that a critique is only useful against something. Against the brief, against the brand guide, against a rule. A critique against nothing gives you the advice on the back of a design book.
So every critique ask carries three attachments: the screenshot or the exported PDF, the creative brief, and the brand guide. Then it asks for the gap between them.
Four passes, in this order
| Pass | What it checks | What you attach |
|---|---|---|
| Against the brief | Does it do the job it was hired for | Brief and screenshot |
| Hierarchy | What you see first, second, third | Screenshot |
| Rules | Contrast, tap targets, line length | Hex values and sizes |
| The client | The three things they will say | Brief and screenshot |
Hierarchy is the pass people skip and the one that changes the most. Ask what a viewer sees in the first, second and third second, then compare that with what the brief said matters. If the order is wrong, no amount of contrast fixing helps.
Try this
Attached are the creative brief, the brand guide and a screenshot of the pricing page mockup. Critique the design only against those two documents. For each finding give me the line in the brief or the guide it misses, what the design does instead, and the smallest change that closes the gap. Rank by how much the change costs me. Say clearly if you think a brief line is wrong rather than the design.
Here are the colour tokens with hex values, the type scale in pixels, and the button sizes from our pricing page. Check every foreground and background pair we actually use and give me the contrast ratio and whether it passes for body text and for large text. Flag any interactive target under 44 by 44. Flag any body line that will run longer than 75 characters at our measure. Put it in one table with the element, the number and the verdict.
You are the founder of a mid-size food brand who commissioned this page and is not a designer. Look at this mockup and give me the three things you would say in the review call, in the words you would use, in the order they would come up. Then for each, tell me whether it is a real problem or a preference, and what I should say back.