The power of feedback: a crucial factor in the design quality
Have you seen the sequel to Legally Blonde?
Elle Woods, the star of the show, gave this epic speech that changed US law. She told a story about getting her hair done.
She was super excited to hit up this fancy salon because they said they had an opening. She was stoked because only celebrities could go to that spa.
But instead of doing what she asked, they totally messed up her hair. They gave her a nasty haircut and changed the colour.
She was mad, but then she realized it wasn’t just the salon’s fault. She sat there for hours, saw the mess, but didn’t stop them.
She didn’t give feedback. Maybe she was so in awe of the salon’s “skill” that she forgot to use her voice. I mean, it was her hair.
Feedback is essential to making good designs
Design’s all about making stuff people love and use, right? So it’s smart to find out what clients think. User feedback shows us what’s working and what’s not, helping us make our clients even happier.
There are tons of ways to get feedback. Surveys are cool for finding out how many people like a feature or how user-friendly a site is.
More detailed info can come from interviews and focus groups, like people’s real thoughts on the design or how it makes them feel. Analytics are useful, too, because they show us how people actually use the design.
Getting comments
Getting feedback from users isn’t always easy, of course. Bias can happen, like when clients only say nice things because they don’t want to hurt our feelings. Some don’t say anything, and you only find out they’re unhappy when they cancel.
To get good feedback, it’s important to ask the right questions in the right way. We also need to be able to figure out what the data we collect means and put the most important changes at the top of the list.
Suggestions on how to get honest feedback
- Be clear about the goal. When asking for feedback, it’s important to be clear about what you’re trying to accomplish. This will help people give information that is focused and useful.
- Ask neutral questions. Don’t ask questions that might influence the client’s answer, like “What do you think?” Use neutral, open-ended questions instead to get honest, unbiased feedback.
- Ask for specific feedback. Instead of asking for vague questions that beat around the bush, ask for feedback on particular parts of your design. This will help you come up with more steps you can take to make changes.
- Use different ways to get feedback. Use surveys, interviews, and user testing to get a variety of views and facts.
You can also directly ask the client or incorporate a website pop-up so you can collect feedback directly from website users. - Look at the feedback objectively. When assessing feedback, don’t pick out answers that support what you already think. Instead, look at the data in an unbiased way to find patterns and trends.
- Think about the situation. When figuring out how to use feedback, you should think about the situation in which it was given. Things like their background, experience, and motivations can have an impact on their opinion.
Client-centric design improvement
So, based on what users say, what kinds of design changes can we make? There are a lot of options!
We might make website navigation easier so that people can find what they need faster. People can give suggestions on new features that we might implement.
We can make campaigns better by revising the design according to feedback.
There are many successful case studies of projects that took user feedback into account when judging the quality of their design and made changes based on feedback and comments.
Airbnb is a good example of this. They found that users were having trouble getting the information they needed about the listings, so they changed the site to make that information easier to find. Because of this, their sales rates went up by 10%.
Happy client, happy life
Design can be subjective, and even though there are standards, it’s important to use user feedback to create designs that people will love and use. Clients have to be happy with the end result since their company or brand is on the line.
Revising designs over and over can be tough, especially for small and medium web design or marketing agencies. The challenge is keeping clients happy when they want endless revisions. On-demand design services can be a lifesaver.
We can take client feedback and tweak the design right away. With our quality analysts, you can chill knowing each revision is taken care of.
By making changes based on what clients say, we create even better designs that make everyone happier.
