How to Give Your Designer Effective Feedback
It can be difficult to provide effective feedback to your designer. Sometimes you might not even realize it and believe your feedback is effective. Designers work very hard and tend to give their all to their craft. They want you and your project to be successful.
Keep your relationship strong with your designer. Have a good attitude and provide useful feedback to help make your project a success.
Find out how to give effective design feedback below.
1. ) Be Clear, Honest, and Specific.
Have a good attitude when providing feedback. When you’re giving design feedback please make sure to be clear, honest, and specific. You want to ensure your feedback is descriptive and actionable. For instance, don’t say, “I’ll know it when I see it.”
Examples:
Ineffective Feedback:
Can you make it pop?
Make it razzle-dazzle.
What does this mean? Your designer is not going to know exactly what you mean and certainly won’t know what to do to achieve the results you want.
Effective Feedback:
It’s hard to read the pink text over the white background. Can you change the text color to black, so it’s easy to read?
Let your designer know if you want to change the font size or font, enlarge a graphic, move an image, or want to replace the image with another one. Effective feedback is clear and specific.
2. ) Provide Feedback in Writing in the Designated Format Your Designer Requests.
Even if you already had a conversation on the phone, put your detailed feedback in writing. Your designer will find this beneficial, so they can refer back to it and ensure they address each piece of your feedback.
If your designer requests to have your feedback in a designated format, please help them by cooperating. For instance, they may ask you to number each requested revision, so when they respond it’s clear which revision they are addressing. This helps keep things organized, running smoothly, and staying on schedule.
3. ) Provide All Feedback in One Place.
Keeping all your feedback in one place makes it much easier for your designer and helps keep the project on schedule. It’s time-consuming to search through numerous emails and files to gather every piece of feedback. Something could get missed—they’re human.
4. ) Focus on Communicating Problems. (Don’t Assume You Know Every Possible Solution.)
Don’t just give orders. Your designer probably has a lot of knowledge and experience, so explain what part of the design isn’t working well and why. You can suggest possible solutions. Keep in mind though, that your designer may know from experience what is possible and not. Stay open-minded and respectful.
Explaining the why behind the revisions you request helps your designer understand where you’re coming from. Plus, if you work together on a similar project in the future it can prevent you from having to provide the same explanation again.
Example:
Effective Feedback:
I really like how the services section is designed overall. The only thing is that some text over the image is hard to read. Do you have any ideas on how to fix this? Most of our audience has low vision. They need to be able to read clearly and easily.
5. ) Aim Your Feedback at the Design, Not Your Designer.
Give constructive feedback and don’t be rude. Remember that design is subjective and that there is a reason why your designer decided to design something in a particular way. Be open and hear them out. You may get a better understanding of their perspective. It could lead to you exploring another possibility because it aligns better with your audience and goals.
When you hear “Um, no offense, but…,” you tend to prepare yourself for an insult. Typically, nothing good comes after you hear those words. When you use “but” it erases everything that came before it.
Examples:
Ineffective Feedback:
You didn’t do a good job.
I don’t like your designs. They look childish.
Um, no offense, but were you rushing to get this done?
I expected better design skills for what I’m paying.
Effective Feedback:
Having the yellow graphic overlap the pink background makes it hard to see the graphic. Can we change the background color to dark green, so it’s easier to read?
When you give constructive feedback it can lead to other things. Your designer can become more motivated and learn and improve their skills. Please don’t make it feel like you are attacking them. Keep the relationship strong between you and your designer.
6. ) Give Positive Feedback.
Remember to not only focus on things you want to change or don’t like about a design. When you like something, let your designer know. It will allow them to see what aspects you like, so they don’t change them. It’s a good idea to start with positive feedback.
When you start by pointing out everything that you find wrong, it can be discouraging. Plus, everyone likes positive feedback and kind people. Leave a good and lasting impression.
If you can’t find anything positive and the work is not what you envisioned, then it’s time to have a different conversation. You may need to stop, regroup, and reset to ensure you’re both on the same page.
7. ) Keep the Project Goals in Mind.
Make sure the feedback that you give keeps the project goals in mind. Any changes should be to improve connection and engagement with your audience, not because you dislike something for your personal reasons. Many times your brand’s audience likes something different than you.
8. ) Be Timely.
To ensure the project stays on schedule it’s important to provide feedback promptly. Your designer will inform you when they need to have your feedback submitted to them.
Keep in mind when you don’t submit your feedback by the deadline it can lead to multiple things happening: they can’t proceed with the project, you forfeit your opportunity to have revisions done, or the project is delayed and you might have to get back into line and wait until they have another spot available. If you have to wait until your designer is available again you might have to pay additional fees to continue.
Also, if your designer already has another project scheduled, it’s not fair to the next client to interfere and push back their secured project time. You wouldn’t want someone to do that to you.
Conclusion
When you provide feedback effectively, it can help motivate your designer even more! Following these tips can make the feedback process easier, more productive, and more effective. Remember to be clear, honest, and specific while providing constructive feedback.
While you are improving your feedback skills your designer is working hard to achieve your project goals and improve their skills too. Everyone can benefit in this situation.
Are you ready to make your project a success?
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