The lifeblood of any artistic endeavor is obtaining a detailed summary of the clients’ appreciation of your designs. You should be looking more at the negatives than the points which your clients find to be acceptable or surpassing their required standards.
While it is agreeable to receive positive feedback you will learn more from the negatives expressed by the users. An overall view of the project with fresh eyes can be a great help in solidifying those unspoken points that you felt you could improve but didn’t or even unexpected criticisms of details which you were unaware of.
Now with access to a global audience that is a mere click away by using the power of the internet, obtaining thoughts and appreciations from your peer group has never been easier.
The internet has aided the process of creative criticism with sites of like minded designers such as Behance and Dribbble but as these are used by artistic users who mostly look the same way at a design project and besides this, it is possible for them to lack something in producing meaningful criticism as most users are far too nice to be brutal and while it does help the ego, inane comments such as good work and well done don’t really help at all.
If you search the internet highway it is possible to find sites whose sole reason for existence is supplying unbiased and meaningful observations on the quality of your work and it is possible to analyze their comments to arrive at the standard that you wish to set for your design work in the international marketplace.
The importance of feedback
Considering that all the minor details can steal away the time that you need to dedicate to pure design, any assistance with helpful observations relating to the pure design aspects of each project is welcomed. It doesn’t matter if the feedback is coming from a colleague of yours or from your aunt. As long as it helps with your project, it is good.
This applies the same whether you are a web designer or an artistic one. Whichever way you look at this, it becomes more obvious that any critique, positive, neutral or negative feedback should be, is welcomed.
You should be making use of all social media platforms for gathering observations from users, seeing feedback and paying attention to the comments section as well as taking full notice of website analytics and any other data or observations that can be gathered. The entire process should be channeled towards the ultimate improvement of design practices and needs to be part of the learning curve necessary to improve the quality of your designs.
It improves your skills
The problem with a project is that once finished and accepted by the client all of our energy is channeled into the next task with little or no interest being shown on the previous completed job.
This attitude surely needs revisiting as it is necessary to learn from the previous task, even if what you learn doesn’t change the project that you delivered and although client was willing to accept the last project, you should do better next time.
It makes you see things differently
Of all the analysis carried out by a mixture of views from clients, peers users and viewers, all have valid points for you to consider. It is possible that they may highlight details that you haven’t thought of when designing a product, whether it is a website, vector illustration or a business card.
This is an important part of getting feedback, the fact that you can see your product through other people’s eyes and acknowledge issues that you thought to be perfect.
It makes it easier for you to deliver a better user experience
There is absolutely no point in gathering all the feedback, comments and observations without making some attempt to understand them from the contributors point of view and how they came to form that opinion. It is necessary to break down each comment to its smallest component parts and analyze each one separately to understand how visitors interact with your design, if the design project is a website or an app.
Also, remember the old adage a broken clock is still right twice a day, there is no such thing as useless criticism, be aware that just because you don’t agree does not mean it is wrong. This process is all about other viewers’ perceptions.
Resources
Red Pen
ProofHQ
Prevue
Concept Feedback
Fivesecondtest
Usabilla
FeedbackArmy
UserTesting
Bounce
Get Satisfaction
Uservoice
Cage
Viewflux
Notable
ConceptShare
TheCommentor
Conclusion
By listening to your clients and to the people that are giving feedback to your projects, not only will you improve the project, but you will also improve your skills which on the long term is the biggest win. If you consider yourself a good designer, you need to know when to listen to the feedback that is given to you, cause this is a good way to deliver the best product for your client and his audience.
Feedback isn’t a thing that you can ignore. This should be an important part of the design and development process and everyone should know it.
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