Prompting For Design Critique Instead Of Design Praise

Show a model a screenshot and ask what it thinks, and you get compliments. "Clean, modern, good use of whitespace." Useless.

Ask this instead:

"Here is a screenshot of [screen]. The primary task is [task].

1. What will a first-time user try to click first, and is that right?

1. What information do they need for this task that is not on screen?

1. What is competing with the primary action for attention?

1. Where would this break — long names, empty state, a slow network, 320px wide?

1. What would you cut?"

Question 5 gets the best answers, because it forces a ranking. Everything on the screen has a defender until you make something leave.

Q4 is where I have got the most concrete wins — an empty state nobody had designed, a two-line product name that broke the card grid.