A huge part of any design or web development project is the communication of feedback between me and my clients. I require feedback from my clients at a couple of stages in any project. In a web project, I ask for feedback after I send the design sample of the website to my client (in fact, I expect two or three rounds of feedback at that point) and again once the site is developed and up on a test url.
Here are a few points to help give me (or any web developer or graphic designer) clear feedback to ensure that the site gets launched on time.
- Don’t fire off your first impression. First impressions are everything, of course, but it’s usually a good idea to take a look at the site and then spend a little bit of time letting the site marinade. Going though the site thoroughly is key, so quickly firing off your first impression might not actually be super helpful.
- Set aside time to actually go through the site. We’re both excited about getting your site up, but it will go up much more smoothly if you have taken an hour or two — with minimal distractions — to go through the site initially. If you’ve got a super busy week, that might mean setting aside a few quite hours on Sunday. If we’ve set up a deadline for you to get feedback to me (usually I’ll give you a week or so) and you just can’t make it, let me know. I’d rather you have time to sit calmly and go through the site thoroughly then rush it and then find changes the night before we launch.
- Write it all in one email. It’s way easier for me to get through your changes if you write it all down in one email instead of sending me each individual thought in a separate email. If you forget to mention something, of course, send me another email, but I’ll be less likely to miss anything if you send me all of your feedback at once. You will have more than one chance to give feedback, so don’t worry if you miss something. Each round of feedback should be contained in one email.
- Click all the links. It’s always a good idea to make sure that the links in your site go to the places that you’d envisioned! Sometimes I make an assumption about where you intended a link to go and it’s the wrong assumption. It’s always good to check!
Following those four suggestions will decrease the amount of back and forth we need to do to get your site up on schedule. The feedback stage is often where a launch date goes off the rails, so the more efficiently we communicate about feedback, the better! And as always, if something isn’t clear on the site, just email me and ask!
* Image by waferboard used under Creative Commons.
Kate Moore Hermes 