In Has Sharing Gone Out of Bounds? found on AIGA's Voice, Steve Zelle examines the online design sharing tool Dribbble, and whether or not designers are overstepping the ethical lines of client confidentiality by sharing 300x400 snippets of designs and applications they are working on. It sparked a huge discussion in the design community, and even got the attention of Dan Cedarholm himself who voiced his disappointment in the blogpost. While the article is great for educating young design professionals, design students and new freelance designers on the legalities and ethics of working with clients, I would agree with Shawn Borksy’s comment that one would hope that those participating in Dribbble are well aware of client non-disclosure agreements and when it is appropriate to ask permission from clients to share work in progress.

It is almost as though the article was written to discuss Steve Zelle’s 5 Reasons Why Client Work in Progress Should Not Be Shared and then Dribbble was retrofitted into the article to make it trendy and topical. Meaning- many of the reasons that Steve brings up about sharing existing long before Dribbble bounced into play.

Dribbble is an invitation-only community of designers who wish to solicit feedback on their designs or create excitement for new designs or applications. The article paints the community as some kind of design star popularity contest and declares asking for feedback “is either an act of insecurity, or a request to have your ego stroked.” While I agree with Steve that not all feedback is valuable when it is based on personal feelings (instead of aligning with project goals and core audiences), being able to get genuine feedback from other designers and developers is only going to make your designs stronger, and asking how your work can be better is not insecurity, it’s admitting that you can’t possibly know everything. Everyone brings different professional experiences and knowledge to the table and to think that you are a genius in everything you do is detrimental to your work. Sure, you may push back a little on a piece of feedback that challenges your solution, but often times the follow-up conversation helps me identify the problem they were having with my design and allows me to come up with a better solution.

Many of us who work on teams have the ability to solicit this kind of feedback and not have to worry about non-disclosure agreements because we all work at the same company, but what about those designers/developers out there that are a team of one? Isn’t a forum like Dribbble only going to benefit the client?

So as a designer, yes you should definitely get proper permissions if you want to get feedback on a design that is still in the works, but you should always get feedback from others. Feedback will allow you to see things you might have otherwise missed. In the end your client will thank you for exhausting all of your resources and coming up with the very best work you can before they ever review it.