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1. What most people call "critique" misses the point since it's natural to assume what they like = what is good. But Like/Dislike is *your* preference - what if the thing wasn't made for you? 
2. To decide what good is you have to ask some questions.
Who was this made for?
What problems is this supposed to solve?
What feeling or experience was it trying to create?
It's only by exploring questions that you set the table for a real critique to happen.
Who was this made for?
What problems is this supposed to solve?
What feeling or experience was it trying to create?
It's only by exploring questions that you set the table for a real critique to happen.
3. It's natural to jump right in to redesigning something or tearing it apart, but that's critique immaturity. It makes your own opinion/ego the center of attention, rather than trying to understand why the thing you are looking at exists at all.
4. For most kinds of things it's very possible not to like something, but to see how it does a good job for what it was made to do. I don't like horror movies, but I can admit that good ones exist. My personal preferences don't invalidate an entire genre from having good works.
5. It's also possible to personally like or even love something, but to see how it's not good for a particular purpose. Or that its charms are in part because of what others might call "bad". Example: I like watching The People's Court, but I wouldn't call it a good show.
6. While it can be fun and therapeutic to just rip in and tear things apart, it's not really critique since it presumed from the first moment, which is dominated by emotion and surface experience, that something is bad, which presumes intents, goals, and effects.
7. It's a better exercise for a creative person to try and defend something they initially don't like, rather than discard it. You don't learn much from instant judgements, but if you force yourself to generously ask "why did they make choice X and Y?" u may learn something new.
8. There are films and albums I *hated* on first viewing/listening (Forrest Gump & Rollin's Band Weight), but in curiosity I tried them again and slowly started to understand. In a 2nd experience you're not prone to quick judgments. You look more carefully. Ask better questions.
These thoughts are from one of my oldest and most popular essays: scottberkun.com/essays/35-how-…
