Feedback is an incredibly important part of the overall website design process, and one which is so often overlooked and forgotten about.
Without an effective feedback loop, you will struggle to get a website that lives up to its full potential, no matter how good your chosen website developer is.
If feedback is not given in the right way, you run the risk of increasing confusion between yourself and your website designer or company, resulting in a disconnect between your vision and the results you see.
Therefore, it’s critical that you firstly know what you are looking for from your new website, and secondly, that the feedback you provide is constructive and clear.
Read on to discover how you can utilize feedback to get the best results from your website designer, ultimately resulting in a sleek and professional website.
Don’t Worry, We’re Working on it!
The feedback we love to hear at SALVé comes in many forms, and any website developer worth their money will listen to each and every concern until you, the paying customer, is completely satisfied.
However, the feedback you provide should, generally, be in order of importance, from largest to smallest. By following this basic framework, addressing the larger concerns to begin with will often iron out some of the smaller concerns you might have.
While it’s completely normal to want to get rid of all of the little bugs and issues as soon as possible, this can sometimes slow down the overall design process, costing you more money as a result.
You hired a website developer for a reason, so have trust in your chosen talent, and let them lead the way based on what you need!
Target Acquired: The Audience
Remember all that work you did to identify your target audience when you started your business endeavors? You do? Great! Keep that in mind…
The main reason you need a fresh and effective website is primarily for the purpose of your audience. How else are they going to know who you are and what you offer?
As you go through the process of giving feedback to your website designer and discussing further changes, you should ensure that any changes you do make, are made with your target audience in mind.
A common mistake many companies make is nitpicking the website design to suit the needs of the company, rather than the consumer. Doing this will limit the impact the website can have on your target audience, so keep your own feelings aside and put yourself in the perspective of your target audience.
Frame your website design feedback with your audience in mind… it’ll make finding solutions SO much easier.
Positivity Rocks
To get the most from your website developer, look to form a collaborative working relationship with them, as this is a sure-fire way to get the best website possible.
One of the easiest, yet most effective ways to do this, is simply by being positive towards their work and the suggestions they are tailoring for you and your needs.
No, you might not like all of their suggestions, and that’s ok, that’s part of the design process! However, being constructive about criticism goes a lot further, and enhances the relationship you’ve built thus far.
By being open and honest about what works and does not work will also help to speed up the overall design process while highlighting what you do and do not like.
If nothing else, a little bit of positivity never hurt anyone…
Goal-Driven, Always.
Just like you should be considering your target audience at every stage of the design process, the same is applicable with your business goals.
Ensure that your new website design will help align your business goals while appealing to your target audience. This is a fantastic way to guarantee that your website serves its purpose fully.
By keeping your objectives and goals to the fore, you can clearly understand what you’ll be needing from your new website, and allow your decision making process to speed up.
Website Design Approval Checklist
Follow this checklist of features that you must be happy with before approving your website’s much-anticipated launch:
- Useful navigation: can you easy move about your website from one page to another? How is the generally usability?
- Scannable content: content should be easy to see and pick out. Don’t make this more difficult than necessary.
- Readable fonts: as with scannable content, readable fonts increase the usability of your website drastically. Make sure your font supports this.
- On-brand: make sure your website is an extension of the brand you’re trying to create.
- Proper contrast: balance is key. Different elements should support each other. Features may look great on their own, but clash when with close to other features.
- Balanced whitespace: your web pages shouldn’t be overcrowded with content, but they also shouldn’t be empty. Find the status-quo.
- Alignment: keep it neat. Keep it tidy. Your website must look proper to retain audience retention.
- Well-placed calls to action: content should always be supported by clear and concise CTAs. You’re trying to get customers remember!
If you can successfully check off all eight items on the above checklist then you’re going to be in a great place for come the launch of your website.
Bonus: Top Tools for Website Design Feedback
There are many tools to help your company with website design feedback- and some are more useful than others.
Here are some of the best tools to help you with website design feedback:
1) Atarim
Atarim is a website design feedback tool which is specifically for digital agencies.
Atarim has useful plugins that designers can install on their clients website so they can pinpoint exactly what changes they want made and can leave direct comments.
Other useful features of Atarim are:
- Review screenshots and turn them into tasks.
- Assign tasks to specific team members.
- Activity updates and comments from clients can be viewed on the dashboard.
- Project management capabilities.
- Auto-login gives you access to all of your clients sites.
2) InVision
InVision is a popular tool which has over 100 templates from reputable companies such as Microsoft and Atlassian.
At its core, InVision acts as a wireframing and prototyping tool that allows designers to create website mockups and gather feedback from clients.
Reasons to use InVision include:
- Free for up to 100 users.
- Has a host of ready-made templates.
- Multiple viewing modes.
- Easy-to-share projects.
- Has a range of integrations for popular apps such as Asana, Figma, and Adobe XD.
3) Notable
Notable is a markdown-based website design feedback tool which allows users to leave feedback using the flexible markdown editor tool.
Notable allows you to take screenshots and exchange notes with clients, which is important when presenting a new design ideas. Designers can attach a brief explanation with the tool too.
Why use Notable?
- Ideal for designers who prefer basic markdown-based edits.
- Notable is a local tool that you can install onto your computer.
- Free for Desktop use.
- No need to create accounts.
- Ideal for note-taking on the fly and for making sharing suggestions.
- All attachments are portable as they are stored on your local disk.
Conclusion
Whether you’re looking for a website redesign, or you’re on the market for your business’ first website, working with a website designer will promise results.
However, just because they’re a website designer doesn’t mean they know YOUR business like you do. By combining your talents, you can collaborate and create a website that looks and feels highly professional.
By having conversations with your developer will get you the best results possible, and in a more timely fashion — don’t be afraid to speak up, just don’t undermine their knowledge… nobody likes that…
To know how you can take your website to the next level, contact SALVé and schedule a free discovery tool.
