ADDRESSING:
How's anyone allowed to publicly post pre-launch client work?

Does being secretive about creative work benefit or hinder?

When is the right time to show creative work for feedback?

I think Dribble has captured a solution to part of this problem, however, personally I think being secretive can do more harm than good unless it is of nature that should be kept secret.

Sharing work with fellow people in your field can help you reach a better conclusion in flushing out pages/concepts.

The best time for me to show creative work for feedback is after I've gotten at least an entire concept mocked up, but with that feeling of something isn't right, or something could be better.

The ability to show work prior to its completion/public release has everything to do with who the work is for.
When I was at deviantART, there were some projects that were obviously suitable to share pre-launch because they would help with promotion, and others that had to stay hush-hush until the official announcement. In my freelance work, some clients clearly want secrecy for their project, while others don't care in the slightest. Generally speaking, though, if a site is depending on designers sharing in-progress work, it needs to have some sort of "for your eyes only" functionality to it, to help prevent larger-scale leaks or broad public viewing. Feedback is always desired, but some things just can't be shared w/o secrecy.

I work with a lot of fortune 100 clients that all of the work is under NDAs and can't be shown outside of our studio and client. This creates difficulty in trying to get additional feedback.

The problem I see on Dribbble is that WIP is not likely to get feedback or praise and getting true feedback is extremely difficult on there.

I get input on my work by asking general questions about my projects on twitter to get insight in other others feel about a solution or UX problem.

@Timothy
What if you can invite a few people you trust in a private space, show them and get feedback - would you do that? I'm sure it violates NDA but we're talking a few designers outside your studio that you trust.

Getting feedback early & often is non-negotiable in the design process – totally agree.

I've worked both at huge companies (Google, LinkedIn, Groupon) and at startups. One of the big dissatisfactions of designers working at a startup (or being a freelancer) tends to be the relative isolation: you don't have contact with other designers for feedback and critique.

There may be a difference between interaction vs comm., too. Interaction by necessity reveals much, much more about product & strategy than e.g. a branding project or marketing campaign.

Would love to see an evolution that affords secrecy for projects that need it.

Something like Branch where someone has to be invited to see it - maybe have the social integration to invite people easily... maybe. It would still violate NDAs, but I could do it with people in the studio.

@Timothy & @Damian

What if the people invited to give feedback also agreed to a NDA? It is an extra step but it would allow for fresh eyes in problem solving.

@Damian, this is an interesting featureset. You create a sort of mini-community, more like a closed group rather than a network, for designers whose projects require secrecy. You'd probably want to develop a relationship with one or two critics who are willing to agree to an NDA in order to review the work, and perhaps they earn some sort of currency that's paid for by the designer.

As a design employer, I'd definitely pay for someone I've hired to have this type of "advisor"... I've talked to VCs in the area about having their Designers-In-Residence serve as this type of critic for portfolio companies' designers too.

@david — yes. You have to digitally sign the agreement (in a legally binding way) to review & critique the project. Plus a reminder that this project is under NDA. Real identities, real relationships.

@Ellen I like your concept. All too often with getting critic on ones work is the lack of the real relationship aspect.

By the way, big companies need something like Hunie *within* the organization. Design critiques continue to be a massive problem even at companies with large design teams. Consider letting companies pay to instantiate a private Hunie network a là Google Apps!

That's what we're thinking @Ellen.

I don't think I have much to add. I agree that often it's better to share and sometimes the client limits it (and it's detrimental to the quality of the project, usually). When Damian invited me into this branch, I was thinking of a "invite" and "NDA agreement" as well, even if, NDAs can be more dangerous than anything (once I see the design, and maybe I'm doing something similar... *bang*).

But a private, company-only Hunie with an internal stream visible to all the designers in the company plus an ad-hoc space for clients as well... would be awesome.
The stream would help fostering the internal design community, and the private sharing would be able to gather feedack (likely, the internal feedback isn't visible to the client).

I never thought about this until now but think I would be more inclined to sharing if I could curate a group of people I'd share with. I feel like this would remove:

1. The audience that *just* "thumbs up" the work.
2. The "fear" that one might be sharing this with the wrong person.

Now with that said, I don't have any clients or NDAs to deal with but there are still things I'd rather not share unless I know who I'm sharing with.

Victor, I like the idea of curating items to certain groups, I'm guessing in a similar fashion to the circles concept on G+?