"Game of soft wording" is, indeed, doing it's job, but it works only for juniors. So, if you know that a person is learning and you want to keep this person motivated and help you building your product, then playing words here is important.

On the other hand, if you may replace a person to someone who is not so sensitive, then you should do it. If a person does not accepts critique then this person will never become a professional and there is no need in investing your time and money into this person. The person who accepts all the critics even in very rude form will learn much faster and also will be a more reliable partner.

I know many professionals and myself don't like when anyone wastes his time trying to tell me beautiful words my mind wants to hear and not the real facts. With my experience I instantly see when someone plays a word game and lies right into my face. Any real entrepreneur is also talking simply what he wants to say, no more, no less, no playing any Shakespeare's plays.

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If someone did a crappy job this is exactly what you have to say without any emotions and never related to personality itself. However, you should obligatory provide strong arguments and facts. Professional should distinguish professional life and personal one. The most of young people, of course, will react and hate you at the beginning because of their psychological self-defense mechanism, this will be forgotten very soon. Be strong and keep going.

Talking about the UI engineer and a design. It is not UI engineer's responsibility to do a designer's job. In that situation best approach is to solve that problem with a designer. UI engineer will accept arguments and work from a good designer but, badly, will accept manager's critique. It's a common problem in a professional life, even if you are a very good designer yourself but you never had an "Art director" title in your life, then all the people around you and who don't know you very well in most cases will just ignore your "design advices" since they will think you are not a professional in that field. That's why you need someone who will have a reputation in the eyes of that person and will be able to support your opinion.

Changes without crushing are impossible. If something needs to be totally rewritten, then it must be accepted. People also learn much faster when they understand their mistakes and work they did was useless so in the future they wouldn't waste their time again.

P.S. Being strong and constructive critic still doesn't mean you have to be an asshole. Never allow yourself to put yourself higher then anyone else, never think you are smarter and always respect the opinions, help, rights and the interests of other person, still you have to think what you say. Respect is what you always must show.

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Small personal advice at the end - always remind every team member that there are no "one" or "I" in the team and bad work of a one team member means a bad work for a whole team and everyone is guilty.

How To Deal with Someone Who Thinks They Know It All But Really Doesn't in 3 Easy Steps

I lead a team of 12 analysts at work, they get a lot of things wrong a lot of times.

I've come up with a formula when dealing with mistakes and it's fairly simple: all you have to do is to ask the right questions, you don't have to tell them anything. That's right, you can make them realize their own mistakes and have them come up with their solution (otherwise, it would be you doing their job instead).

I'll tailor fit the answer to someone who "thinks they are right."

What you need to prepare:

1. Company/Department vision or goal
2. Model design(s)
3. His design
4. Respect

The Conversation in 3 Easy Steps:

1. Create a good atmosphere

Ask him how he is. If you work with him, you would know a bit about what they are up to. Ask him about his quest to become a better designer, this will help you transition to a discussion on his project

2. Ask him how he feels about his project

2.a Pull up his design. Start the discussion with the Good Parts "Speaking of design.. I wanted to get your opinion on your project" Let him start with the good parts, and agree with him on the good parts that you actually think are good as lying won't help. If he says "everything is good" let him elaborate what makes it good. Having him write these down will be very helpful.

Remember: If at some point you don't agree with what he says, do not say he is wrong, it'll only make him defensive. Say 'okay' and just tell him to write those down. Later you can compare what he thinks is good and what good really means for your project (2.b.i).

2.b. Ask him about what he thinks needs improvement

Ask him what about things he thinks he can improve on. Having him write these down too will be very helpful.

Remember: Have him say these, avoid the urge to enumerate what needs to be done properly.

• If you're lucky, he'll hit some of your items you wanted him to know about.
• If you're really lucky, he'll hit all and add some more to your list.
• If you're even luckier than that, he'll hit all of the stuff on your list and IMMEDIATELY state how he can improve on it and you're conversation ends here. Pat him on the back and your back as well because you've hired an excellent employee.
• If you're unlucky, like the most of us proceed to section 2.b.i

2.b.i He REALLY Thinks he's Right

Here's where your Company's vision/goal becomes useful. If somewhere there states for example: "Making UI's Simple and Elegant" but his work is the complete opposite, then you can go back to 2.b. and ask him "How can we make this design more simple and Elegant?"

A model design also helps, show him a design that fits the company/department/project's vision. Ask him what makes the model design look/feel great, have him list these down. Make him do a comparison, his notes should tell him everything. He might have listed down "I have 15 useful buttons on my navbar" as part of things he did good, but finds that it is contrary to a "Simple" UI design. Then you can go back to 2.b. and ask him "How can we make this design look/feel great?"

2.c. Now he's acknowledged his work isn't perfect and might have provided his own suggestion (some might even be really good this time), but now is time to provide your inputs too

Avoid telling him what to do, suggest instead with phrases like:

• "I've an idea. What do you think if we did this, that, etc?"
• "You know, we had a project like this one once, and what worked well was when we placed this and that over here and there. What do you think?"

3. Let him know you're on his side and you're there to help him

Because you are. If he does a crappy job, your doing a crappy job too.

In fact, I encourage you to see this in another perspective, one that is trying to help him. Because if you're genuinely trying to help him, it'll show and chances are he'll be more receptive. The day will end with you doing the world what we all need, a bit of kindness.

@chilimatic oh, I don't have quite a lot of experience with that. I usually do stuff on my own and people don't care a whole lot about it, so I constantly have to look up best practices and be critical myself :D

But all in all, when I have to review some task a student works on (I have one or two from time to time), I usually do just what @chilimatic mentioned. I sit down with them, the request on the table in front of us, and then I ask them to explain what they thought while creating the application. They usually explain whatever they did and thought. Often, especially when I don't agree, I ask them about a situation in which things probably won't work out. That way, they start thinking about such a situation and how to manage it themselves.

As a result, I do not criticize them and it is a learning experience!

To be fair: You need to have at least a bit of UX knowledge. If you don't feel too comfy yourself, ask a UX specialist to join the meeting. Plan the meeting with the specialist beforehand!

I've found design critiques are what separates the 'artists' from the 'designers' more than anything. A designer creates work suited for a purpose, so if the design they have created doesn't hit the target, it's not a comment on them as a person just a comment on the design.

You have valuable information (knowing how to improve the design) and so you need to frame that news as a good thing. The design will be stronger for it if they listen.

Another thing you can do to help protect people's feelings when talking about design changes is always keep the design the focal point of every sentence and speak about every change from the design's perspective, not the designer.

“You put this too far to the right” should become “This feels like it wants to be further to the left”

“This is sloppy and you didn't put things in the right spot” becomes “This layout feels unbalanced, and if we moved this over here I think it would be more stable”

“Why didn't you make this bold like the others” becomes “This one feels like it wants to be bold too” etc.

Hopefully with a little luck and grace, they will listen to you and be grateful for your input! Even when I have done my very best on a design, I enjoy hearing insights others have; iron sharpens iron!

walk with them through the application and let them explain why they've built it that way, maybe with a 3rd party designer whom you trust ? so all of you can learn and it can be done in a mediating manor ?

don't know how much they've done, but i try to do it that way, because I tend to have a strong opinion on things so I need to be forced to listen so i can really understand why someone did something before jumping to conclusions.

just a thought. Maybe others have more experience :D .... invite mev and marco and sai and others ! :)