Lots of Likes generally means it appeals to a large portion of the Dribbble users, but doesn't really explain to me what *type* of user liked it and for what reasons. It'd be nice if there were one or two comments pointing out the best and worst parts.

A more intuitive way of letting me gauge these things through Likes would be to tell me which people I follow liked it. If I follow someone, I do it because I respect their style and opinion. Their Like is held as a more credible validation of my work.

New branch. I'm going over there to start my own tree.

This is something I have been debating with myself on. I finally registered and received an invite, but have yet to post something. Not sure what to post nor why...

The like system seems a bit confusing to me, and it makes it unclear as to why we are there. My work could never compare to the insane skills that some have on that site, so if I am there to be "attractive" as a designer, I feel that it would be lost in advance as I believe my work would never be visible, and even if it were, next to it would be work with 5x more likes.

So I would be posting mostly for critiques, to see rebounds (which seem rare BTW), of better approaches helping me to learn and grow.

But thats not what I see happening when I browse the site.
Am I wrong?

I rarely use Dribbble but I can see why some people use it a lot. The problem I have with it is, if it's supposed to be used to encourage constructive criticism, why is it still invite only for accounts?

They say it's to keep standards of the work posted up, but the people who really need feedback the most are people who in the earlier stages of a career in design.

As I started dribbbling a year ago I was really looking for constructive feedback and I received it back then.

The problem is that there are a lot of "designers" (I could name at least 50 here and now) out there who post only for dribbble.
They don't show us what they are working on, but what they just did for dirbbble to get tons of likes.
Wasn't dribbbles tagline "what are you working on" back then?
Now it's "Show and tell for designers" and that with a good reason. Because it changed.

Anyway, what I meant to say is that back then, dribbble was great for getting feedback. Nowadays I just use it to be part of a great community and promoting my work.
For feedback I use Skype ;)

It may go without saying, but different people use dribbble for different things. When deciding who to follow and what shots to interact with, I look at the first comment left by the posting designer to see if they mention what they're after. Feedback? Announcing the launch of site? Just showing off?

Personally I'm looking to 1. To meet other designers with whom I can talk shop with, and 2. get feedback on improving the designs I’m working on. I treat Likes as ‘a tip of the hat’, but in reality they provide little more than that.

But I realize not everyone has the same agenda. If they did, it wouldn't be as fun to hang out there.

I first started using dribbble as a way to find a specific type of design for inspiration. When I started doing mobile UI design there wasn't alot of sites out there showcasing that type of work. Dribbble was the only place I could find that had this type of work plus let me know who designed it and what other stuff they have done. I feel really up to date on what is currently out there because of it. I see the likes are more of a validation to the designer that your stuff is cool. It's not super necessary, but its a nice pat on the back.

I can't show designs as I'm working on them for the most part because of NDAs, so I have to wait until things are released, but if I could I would have to have the feedback part.

(correction * I would love to have the feedback part.) But for me it would only work if it wasn't client related projects.

Considering most of the stuff found on Dribbble are just tiny fragments of bigger designs (and just rarely have links to full previews), I somehow don't see Dribbble as the best place for seeking feedback. Truth is that website posseses probably the biggest concentration of finest web designers in the world and that fact itself can appear as a guarantee for getting the finest possible feedback. However, there are much better sites, made for this purpose exactly - such as forrst.com or conceptfeedback.com, etc.

Personally, I find Dribbble to be incredibly inspiring because of the variety of work shown there. Also, I found myself posting some of my work there which was still very much a "work in progress" and as such wouldn't have been allowed to be publicly displayed. But I felt the need to brag about the selection of fonts and/or combination of colors. Sometimes you just want to show the world what you're working on *right now*, while you're enjoying the creative process and showing just a fragment of it easily beats showing nothing :) So yes, I'd say Dribbble is primarily a good exhaust valve, secondly a good source of inspiration and finally, a place where you can get good, concise feedback.

The tiny bits that get shown on dribbble are great for as UI designer cause you put so much delight into the details. I've learned how to perfect a drop shadow this way. I know alot of people make fun of dribbble cause of what sometimes gets posted (oh joy ANOTHER tab bar) but that's why you have to post at 400x300 size. You see just a snippet, rather than the design at a whole. I do like attaching the whole design so you can see context. But I wish people would stop posting things with shallow depth of field. It looks pretty, but I can't see the design!

@Davor So which of those sites do you prefer? I've never heard of either of them. Is the feedback good quality? What type of design is generally shown?

@Jenni Leder - When posting your own work, you use it primarily as a source of validation? To know if you're on the right track with your design?

@Davor Tomic - I think you nailed it on the head: dribbble is the largest concentration of designers. Being active there gets your work in front of more eyes. Other sites like Forrst are good too, but haven't gained the traction that dribbble has with designers. Other like Concept Feedback require more time and effort to leave feedback.

@Ted Goas Part of it is to show what I've worked on cause I'm proud of it and hopefully to put something back into that inspiration bucket for others, as they inspired me.

And I would like to know if I'm on the right track cause I don't know any other UI designers in real life, except for the ones I work with. But as mentioned, you don't really get that much feedback from others (unless you have thousands of followers).

@Jenni problems with both Forrst and ConceptFeedback - and I imagine probably with all such websites - when compared to Dribbble is that there's much better chance of getting crappy feedback. Just like @Ted said, Forrst is generally a very nice site, but seems to be much more popular amongst developers than designers (which is again very relative considering there are much more popular hangouts for developers than Forrst). Trying not to sound arrogant, I'll say it like this: on Dribbble, where there's such a high concentration of talented and experienced designers, I feel like I really can learn a lot and appreciate just being there and watching masters at their work. On Forrst or CF it just didn't feel that way.

Originally I was really hoping to share and receive feedback on my own work. I quickly learned that wasn't the case. Now I really use Dribbble as an inspiration tool as well as a way to meet new Designers. Dribbble allows me the opportunity to see a lot of work and styles from Designers that I usually would never crossed paths with. I can easily start following that persons work and social media networks. I have compiled a pretty good list of talented Designer I follow and interact with on twitter all from Dribbble.

Regardless I am happy to be a part of the Dribbble community.

:) Thanks,

AJ

Twitter: @216aj / Dribbble: 216aj / Tumblr: 216aj

@AJ Jimenez I've found it's all about who you follow and interact with. Some people actually *are* there to get/give feedback.

It's all been said, and most of it seems true. But none of it changes the fact that Dribbble makes me feel inspired, and not a lot of web sites do that for me.

I'd echo what @AJ said, I originally hoped Dribbble would be a place for critique, development, and discussion. I certainly don't think this has happened – but for me it's become a fun activity, and a way to share and discover. I think there's also modest value in assessing your followings interest in individual shots, and the community's interest in your work overall. I'd be wary in placing too much worth in those points, given that (400x300) pixels are hardly sufficient for assessing a design.

I think there remains an opportunity for a product that enables critique and discussion of work online with friends, colleagues, and even strangers. That product isn't Dribbble… yet.

I really think it's the best way to become a better designer. There's no network like it, which is a damn shame.