Providing design feedback can be an intricate and sometimes difficult experience.
Is it heading in the right direction?
Has everything been accounted for?
What about print requirements?
What if the design copywriting doesn’t fit our tone of voice?
Here’s our guide to providing feedback that a designer will love!
If you’re working with our design team or a designer to develop a new website, brand guidelines, or even Christmas postcards, you’ll be asked to provide design feedback or approvals at some point. Receiving clear, constructive feedback means that we can easily implement it and get it into production.
When looking at the design firstly put yourselves in the eyes of your intended audience – after all, they are the people who you need to engage. Next, look from your brand’s perspective – is it in line with your branding and tone-of-voice? Finally, think about the future – is this a design that can be utilised in other areas and accommodate different applications?
Ensure that your organisation’s decision-makers have had a chance to review and provide approval, as sign-off and approvals for designs make it easier to progress the production of your assets.
Things to look for:
- How does the design make you feel?
- Are you interested in finding out more?
- Are the calls-to-action clear and encourage you to take action?
- Is it clear what the design is trying to convey?
- How does the overall design look?
- Can you clearly see the hierarchy of information? Is the flow of the document clear?
- Is there any overlapping text or elements that need more space? Is there too much space between sections?
- Is there enough contrast between text and images?
- How does it function?
- Is the text size suitable for the application? (Review the design at the final size it will be used)
- Are all components that you discussed during briefing incorporated?
- Is there anything missing from the design that you expect to see?
Web Specific Design Feedback
We will typically provide a homepage concept for you to review. This homepage is designed to set the overall look and feel of the website. The mockup is designed to be mobile responsive – typically, any columns will stack from left to right on smaller devices.
Our designs will typically have several sections that can be used throughout the site. We will further develop these in subsequent child page mockups. The mockup will likely feature placeholder text and images that you can change prior to launching the site.
Effective feedback means that we can apply your changes and move to develop your website sooner.
Some aspects to consider when providing website feedback:
- Images
- If you provide images, we will incorporate these into the design. We may use stock photography where a particular style or framing is required. This can then be replaced by your own imagery on the site.
- If you haven’t provided images, we will choose suitable, tasteful, stock imagery to set the tone of the images to be used on the site. These are designed to be replaced by your own photography prior to launch.
- Text
- We may use a combination of your existing website copy, lorem ipsum or draft a new copy within the design. This is demonstrating the amount of text that sections can hold and should be used as a guide rather than a strict word count.
- Website content and design should co-exist – neither should be the limiting factor on how a page should function. Lots of content does not mean the page needs to be a wall of text, nor does short text mean that a page will look incomplete.
Things to look out for during a web design review:
- Are the images that we’ve used reflective of your brand?
- Do fonts and colours complement the images and structure of the site?
- Is there consistency across various components and sections?
- Will the sections accommodate the various types of content you want to include on the site?
- Is any included functionality (calendar, booking widgets, forms) in line with what was briefed and scoped?
- Are there any specific elements/sections missing?
Providing Feedback
We will generally send through a PDF proof of your design. The best way to provide feedback for a PDF is by adding comments via a PDF reader like Adobe Reader (Free Download from Adobe.com). Open the file, then right-click, and then add a sticky note.
Specific Feedback
If your feedback is about changing a specific component, provide a reference to what it should be changed to.
General Feedback
Alternatively, if your feedback is more general, include notes around what your expectations are. Include links to relevant examples if available.
Images
If you would like to change any of the images used within a design, please outline the demographics or activity you want to be shown. If you have an image in mind, please send us the link. A good designer can produce some high-quality designs, but they can’t read minds.
“Use an image of older people enjoying lunch at a café” is more helpful than “this image doesn’t reflect our activities.”
At the end of the day, the designs are for you, so they should reflect your aesthetic, voice, and message. Providing clear feedback to your design team is a way in which we can streamline the process from concept to creation. Following these tips will allow for the development of the best designs to both reflect and promote your business.
To find out more about the design process contact us today.