Response 2 – AustinH

In creative arts, there isn’t much of a better reception for one’s work than unbiased feedback. Classroom environments, particularly university-level environments, offer a uniquely ideal setting for this kind of constructive criticism. Busy work based on the stricture of textbooks is replaced with a kind of show and tell, in which we present and explain creative projects. In this format, with a group of people aiming for mutual improvement, creators learn some of the best lessons in their field thanks to the kind of feedback provided. All without fear of any meaningful consequence, like public shame or monetary loss.

But what about what happens after this safe stage of accelerated development? Unbiased feedback is somewhat ironically hard to come by. Or perhaps, in the case of smaller schools, even college students have a hard time getting that kind of response. Even mild acquaintances run the risk of offering nothing more than a superficial “I like it” or “looks good to me”.

Enter the Confidential Critique Café.

An idea our lab team came up with collectively inspired by an article on a “repair café”, found on the “Beautiful Trouble” page.

A casual and quiet location with refreshments and comfortable seating where every patron must sign a legally binding non-disclosure agreement upon entry. Anyone can schedule a presentation or demonstration or screening of whatever they would like to share to a broad, unfamiliar audience, all of whom agreed upon entry to keep the content of the showing between the others present and the creator, leaving all rights to the latter. A focus test sans the formality and the big corporation.

In this way, the process of product review is crowdsourced to the general public and by extension the development of the product itself. There is also potential for the same style of public-but-private review to extend to an online format, allowing for a many-to-many interaction between creators and reviewers around the world.