Critique that helps, not just judges
A good design review moves the work forward. The difference between feedback that helps and feedback that demoralizes is structure and specificity. This builder frames your critique the way experienced reviewers do: lead with genuine strengths, group concerns by category so patterns surface, and tag every suggestion by priority so the designer knows where to spend their effort.
How it works
The template has three parts.
Positive observations come first — specific things the design does well. These are not padding; they signal to the designer that you read the work carefully, and they tell both of you what to preserve when iterating. Empty praise is transparent, so name concrete strengths.
Concerns are grouped by category:
- Usability — can users complete the task, or do flows confuse or block them?
- Accessibility — contrast ratios, touch-target sizes, keyboard focus order, text alternatives
- Visual — hierarchy, consistency with the design system, whitespace, typography
- Content — clarity and length of copy, labels that mislead or confuse
Each concern includes a description and a reason it matters. “Why it matters” is what turns a personal reaction into a professional observation.
Priority tags tell the designer how to triage: must-fix blocks shipping, should-fix is important but not blocking, and consider is a preference or refinement. Without these, a designer cannot tell whether they have five showstoppers or five quibbles, and that paralysis is where good feedback goes to die.
The export renders clean Markdown — positive observations first, then each category as a heading, with priority labels inline, ready to paste into Notion, GitHub, or a Slack thread.
Worked example
Under Usability — must-fix: “The back action is a plain text link in the top-left while every other action on this screen is a button. In usability testing this pattern reliably causes users to hesitate or miss the action. Make it a secondary button matching the existing button style.”
Under Accessibility — must-fix: “Body text at #9a9a9a on a white background measures approximately 2.4:1. WCAG AA requires 4.5:1 for text at this size. Darken to at least #767676 for the minimum pass, or use #595959 for a comfortable margin.”
Under Visual — consider: “The card spacing on mobile is 12px, while the component library standard is 16px. Aligning to the system value is not blocking, but it would make the page feel more cohesive with the rest of the product.”
That level of specificity — the element, the observation, the number where there is one, the fix — is what makes review feedback genuinely useful rather than a list of impressions.