How To Give Better Feedback On Page Layouts, Visuals And Interactive Media?

Whenever one is involved in the production of top-notch online experiences, be it on a blog, a landing page, or even a full-blown interactive campaign, the review process can turn out to be a hit or a miss at the end of the process. Crisp visuals, clean layouts, and exciting media are not only nice but necessary in order to make people perceive you and engage your business effectively. However, when there are multiple stakeholders getting involved, short deadlines, and a constant onslaught of changes, how are you going to keep your creative reviews organised and streamlined?

This article explains what can be done to give more effective feedback, reduce the amount of friction, and increase the creative output of digital projects.

What Makes Reviewing Visual Content Such A Challenge?

It is easy to believe that delivering feedback is basically about jotting down a piece of idea and handing it over. Nevertheless, there are a couple of consistent issues in evaluating visual content, in particular, page layouts or interactive designs:

• Too many cooks: Having a lot of cooks is useful, but when it comes to feedback, it can be very fragmented or contradictory when the marketers, designers, developers, and brand managers all chip in.
• The wrong medium: You could never see an animated hover state or a scroll-to-reveal in an email thread, or a chain of Slack posts.
• General analysis: phrases such as, Can we make it more pop? or rather the slowing down of the process by the phrase, or rather, the sentence: or rather, this does not feel right, which leaves designers in a wondrous situation.

Agree On The Intent Of The Visual

Before one person puts a pointer on canvas, one might just step outside and start thinking about what this picture or design is supposed to do.

Does it want to guide the reader via a blog post? Does the animation serve to support an aspect of a product? Is this area meant to convert, educate, or entertain?

When you make feedback purpose- driven you give a context to your critique. Rather than mentioning that this header is cramped, you can mention that the visual hierarchy in this case is not putting the eye on the CTA. That is where a better starting point for improvement is.

Review The Full Experience, Not Just The Static Frame

On the web and mobile, everything is interactive. Looking at them on PDF mockups or screenshots does not capture much of the image.

Whatever possible, test the layout and graphics in their final location. Go through the blog posts. Browse across the tab module. The image can be hovered over. Hit the button to start speaking into the microphone. This gives a real feel of speed, changes, and functionality.

This is particularly important to interactive media, including video modules, scroll animations, sliders, and pop-ups, which require accuracy in time or movement to determine the way the content is perceived.

Be Clear And Specific With Your Feedback

Effective feedback should not be vague. When something is not being effective, tell why and how that can be changed.

You can say something like this: This section is out of place.

To use an example, the padding is compressing the contents and blending the CTA into the background. Is there a possibility of creating more space and making the button color bold?”

Feedback on a group basis (e.g., layout, tone, image quality, responsiveness) instead of random observations. This helps the design team to prioritise and act fast.

To Smooth The Process, Rely On A Visual Feedback Tool

Clarity and efficiency are very important when a layout or design is put to the test by several stakeholders. It is at this point that a visual feedback tool comes in handy. Instead of fretting with emailing pictures with unclear comments, these solutions enable you to pin remarks as opposed to live websites or static URLs.

Such tools as BugHerd, to give an example, enable the reviewers to simply click on the design that they are viewing, and leave contextual comments in order to be acted upon by the design and the development people. This helps curb confusion, guesswork, and keeps the feedback in one place.

More importantly, it keeps a record of the actual problem as it is in the browser and not in isolation. To perform testing on a blog picture that can break on a phone or an animation that can take too long to be played on the scroll, it is recommended to identify the location and manner in which this happened.

Don’t Forget Mobile And Accessibility Checks

Many users are tempted to accept a design after viewing it on a PC. But most of the users will not. Layouts and material should always be tested on mobile and tablet.

Can one read the writing? Are the interactive actions still ok? Is there suitable cropping of the picture?

Besides, keep contrasts, font sizes, and alt text to standards. What seems to you as a fantastic image can be out of reach to a screen reader customer or anyone navigating through a keyboard.

Reserve Space For The Expertise Of A Designer

Design assessment does not lie in criticizing every font size or personal preferences in the color of buttons. It is about balancing between the innovative and the goals of the project, and how you believe your designer is going to execute it.

In case you get something that is weird but you are not sure why, tell us. All you need to do is mix that intuition into a team spirit. Designers have great ideas worth laying on the table, and often the most desirable results are reached when they are permitted to propose suggestions instead of being told what to do.

Real Usage Should Be Reflected In The Final Sign-Off

Requirements: Replicate the user experience at the design stage before the issue of the green light. Enter the staging link on your laptop, phone, or tablet. Scroll in the manner of a user. Put the features to the test. Read the copy fluently. Leave the role and become someone new who has just seen the page in his life. When it all just seems to go well, aligned, and is working, you are probably a good candidate to ship.

Conclusion: Great Feedback Leads To Great Design

Evaluation of designs need not be painful. They can even be one of the most cooperative and innovative parts of the process of content generation with the right set of tools and plans.

When you are next asked to comment on a new blog design or interactive media, structure your comments, put them in context, and consider using some sort of visual feedback mechanism so that it stays on track. It saves time and also makes sure that your online experiences are successful with your business or target audience.

Also Know About: How Customer Feedback Impacts Your Business?