What a good critique actually sounds like

"I don't love it" has never once told me what to change. It's a real reaction, but it's the reviewer's job to keep going past it — what specifically isn't landing, and what would landing look like. Stopping at the feeling is the critique equivalent of a bug report that just says "it's broken."

The best reviewers I've worked with point at a specific element and say what they'd try instead, even a rough guess. It's easier to react to a wrong suggestion than to an open-ended feeling, and a wrong suggestion still moves the work forward — you find out why it's wrong, which is information you didn't have before.

• Name the specific element, not the whole screen
• Say what you'd try, even if it's wrong
• End with something actionable before the meeting ends