One being that whenever the subjects were confronted with a series of questions that asked them to critically evaluate the quality of their project, faces reddened and defenses went up. Many of the subjects were quick to defend rather than to reflect, with a "there is nothing wrong with my idea" kind of attitude.
I thought of how we might ask questions differently so that the subjects didn't feel threatened or criticized. The goal of the crit is to give the subjects an opportunity to self-reflect so that they can broaden their ideas, and develop better ideas.
I thought of how we might have to warn them more clearly and even more explicitly that some form of "critique" was going to happen so that they didn't feel surprised by the questions thus making them defensive. The other alternative was my behavior in the process: I thought about what kind of verbiage I may have used, or what my own body language may have been to provoke such a response.
A critique works when there is trust, when there is an openness to sharing ideas, when there is self-reflection, and when change and development of ideas are rewarded. A critique works when the participants know what is going to be talked about and when it is going to happen so that they feel prepared for what might be coming: an awareness and "bracing" themselves for an outcome that is unpredictable. There is nothing like a surprise critic to have people bristle with fear.
Having worked with a lot of design students for whom critiques are a daily meal, this level of defensiveness throughout many of the subjects in our sessions were notable.
At the conference a participant came to our poster session and asked about our research. I shared the outline of what we were trying to do and the results that we have found so far. (Full crits are not working as expected.)
This participant laughed and said that they were not surprised as they knew several mechanical engineers intimately, who, in their opinion, were quite defensive people. The participant couldn't see how the subjects would handle "criticism" well and had been very curious as to the outcome of our current study when they read about it and said that they were not surprised by our current results.
Crits are hard. Some environments are nurturing so that criticism is not accompanied by shame or fear. Some environments are not nurturing but because critiques are a part of how one communicates, there is no choice but to participate in the crits one way or another.
I would like to break down the process of crit from creating an environment, to the consent of the participants, all the way down to the actual items to be discussed and see how we can effectively bring the idea of critiques to the innovative process
