3 Useful Tips To Conquer App Critique in UX

As a UX designer, you must be very familair with “App critique”. Especially during the intervew process, you will be asked to do a small practice of app critique.

But why we need to do it all the time? In fact, it’s a way to see if you have two key capabilities:

🌟 Logical Thinking

🌟 Commication with coworkers

So it’s not important whether you like the app or not, it’s all aboutb “process” and “communication”!

？What are the common misunderstanding of App critique？

❌ Don’t say I like this app becasue …..(Don’t be biased. You need to think what the users think and be user-centered)

❌ Choose a very “complicated” app with multiple functions, and you didn’t narrow down the scope to review it

❌ Jump to the visual design directly , and skip the process beforehand

🔆 how to make a great app critique?🔆

1. ✅ Start from the overview

You can use “one sentence” to introduce the app with the target users and target market.

For example: LinkedIn is an American business and employment-oriented service that operates via websites and mobile apps.

Next, start from the following points :

💡 First Impression: Is it mininal style or complex style? Popular or not?

💡Information architecture: What’s the major feautures?

💡Layout: single page or group layers?

💡 Design principle: Visual style? Solid color or Linear? Elegant or cute?

2. ✅ Drive the conversation

After the overview section, you can dive in to the details. Remember, take control of the conversaiton and lead the manager to follow your steps.

You can say something like: Let’s start with the user journey map….(some specific tasks).

Remember to pause and ask their opinions.Just like freetalk with your coworkers, that way you wll feel less stressed.

3. ✅ Have a business-driven mindset for design improvement

All the UX designers should be business-driven. You can ask the hiring manager quesrions like:

What’s the company’s business goal? Improve the conversion rate or boarden the market? Save budget or improve sales rate?

After they clarify those quesitons, you can talk about your design improvement ideas accroding to the business goals.