Your input of the design of your home is necessary, in fact important to guiding your Design Team’s work. They may not get everything right on the first try and that’s not just okay; it’s all part of the process. 

And yet design feedback is a double-edged sword. On one hand, your team wants and needs feedback to improve your project and make it better. On the other hand, your feedback can be ambiguous and not provide enough direction to get to those solutions.

Here’s how you can provide them with effective feedback, so you can work more fluid and faster together.

Good Feedback

• Be honest. If you don’t like something, we need to know - now, not three weeks down the road.

• Be specific. Point out what, exactly, is not working for you, and why it’s not working.

• Ask why. If you aren’t sure what we were thinking, we’d love to explain the reasoning. Some things we have done for the project has a purpose (ie. structural, cost efficiency, etc.) while others are just aesthetics.

• Refer to your project description. Perhaps there wasn’t enough information given during the initial meeting or circumstances have changed - that’s OK. Let’s just make sure that we get the information as soon as you become aware.

• Be Positive. Give as much positive feedback as you do negative. We would hate to make revisions and remove something you really liked.

• Be vocal even if you don’t have the words. Some of the best clients don’t have great design vocabularies. Don’t worry - we know pointy roof, pop-up window, thing-a-ma-jig, and whatchya-ma-call-it.

Not-so-good Feedback

• Involve everyone you know in the creative process. This is your home and it should reflect you and how you live; not how your friends/family live or what is “best” for re-sale. If you don't want two sinks in your ensuite, then don't have two sinks.

• Take things personally. If we missed the mark, we need to figure out why and move closer to our mutual target. If we mention exceeding the budget, it’s because we’re thinking about your overall goals and your budget may or may not be apart of that. It’s not personal, it’s business.

• Do our work for us. Please give us written or verbal instructions about what isn’t working. We encourage minor sketching on the plans to illustrate what you’d like changed, but don’t redraw the plans for us. That limits our creativity and the end results, and, unless you're framer or engineer, the changes may not work altogether or without a mass amount of money. Want an analogy? You wouldn’t tell a painter how to make his brush strokes now would you?

• Prescribe fixes. You’re paying us to provide solutions for your future renovation. Don’t try and do it yourself. Explain the problem and we’ll pitch potential fixes to you, based on our knowledge, experience and skills.

• Slow to respond. If you expect us to work fast, we expect a fast response. We cannot work until we receive the feedback and it takes time to make the revisions. The more time spent requesting a faster design, the more time we spend via. email or phone.

The key to navigating feedback is to establish trust and understanding. Your team has to listen to you and provide fair and honest expectations for the scope of work. And you have to trust the expertise of your team to do what’s right.

Both sides have to communicate openly about the project needs, likes and dislikes. An open line of communication will make for better, more successful home design.

Do you have any more tips for giving and receiving design feedback? DM us on Instagram and keep the conversation going.

Here’s to open line of communication,

— C.