Unrelated to the quality of the redesign. I would advise other designers to not follow this method exactly.
Talking to users is great, it's what separates a designer from someone who just pushes pixels, but it's not a good idea to ask users what they like or what they want.
"Does ____ look like a helpful feature to you?" "Does ____ work for you?" "Is this better than before?"
What's the response going to be? "Sure, sounds good to me". Or "nah, I hate that kind of thing".
What you should do instead is observe user behavior. Watch how they interact with the tool/site/etc. and what they do. What are they trying to click on, what are they looking for, what is confusing. Ask them to talk out loud and share their thought process as they're going through the design.
Granted, the designer here may not have had time or access to do this, but then the questions should be more along the lines of what goals the users are trying to accomplish, and what helps or hinders them.
There's the old adage attributed to Henry Ford, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." Through observation, or task/goal-oriented questions, discover what people need instead, and design for that. My explanation here is very simplistic, but I hope it gets the idea across.
Source: Am designer, and review portfolios and conduct interviews. We look at process as much as we look at quality of output.
I would have liked the post better if it didn't include any user feedback. I understand the idea behind it, but as you said, "Does this look good?" gives little insight into "Is this useful to you?"
Talking to users is great, it's what separates a designer from someone who just pushes pixels, but it's not a good idea to ask users what they like or what they want.
"Does ____ look like a helpful feature to you?" "Does ____ work for you?" "Is this better than before?"
What's the response going to be? "Sure, sounds good to me". Or "nah, I hate that kind of thing".
What you should do instead is observe user behavior. Watch how they interact with the tool/site/etc. and what they do. What are they trying to click on, what are they looking for, what is confusing. Ask them to talk out loud and share their thought process as they're going through the design.
Granted, the designer here may not have had time or access to do this, but then the questions should be more along the lines of what goals the users are trying to accomplish, and what helps or hinders them.
There's the old adage attributed to Henry Ford, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." Through observation, or task/goal-oriented questions, discover what people need instead, and design for that. My explanation here is very simplistic, but I hope it gets the idea across.
Source: Am designer, and review portfolios and conduct interviews. We look at process as much as we look at quality of output.