A client may be pleased with themselves and happy to get their own way. But at what cost? The ensuing results aren’t always pretty. Crowded layouts, inaccessible design elements, and a general sloppiness can seriously harm the user experience (UX).

For example, consider a client who meddles in the design details of their eCommerce website. Leaving UX decisions regarding product layouts, calls-to-action, and hero areas to a non-designer could be disastrous for sales. And yet, any potential fallout may land squarely on your shoulders. Fair? I think not.

Therefore, it’s up to us to prevent such silliness from happening in the first place. Let’s explore some ways to keep clients at a safe distance from UX.

Define the Stakes

User experience is a critical factor for every website. Yet, clients aren’t always fully aware of what’s at stake. As is often the case, it’s up to web designers to provide some background.

It’s worth taking the time to talk about the importance of accessibility and ease of use. How the design of each element within a page needs to be measured against these factors. Oh, and the massive roles that performance and mobile compatibility play as well.

Then there’s the matter of personal preference. Clients often (and unwittingly) put their own opinions above the needs of the average user. Sometimes, implementing their preference is a detriment to everyone else.

The importance of UX and its contributing factors should be brought up from the very start. When clients are informed, they’ll be more likely to follow your lead.

Welcome Feedback, but Set Boundaries

How does a client go from providing useful feedback to taking over a designer’s job? It’s often subtle and can happen quicker than you think.

To be sure, some people insist on having control of a given situation. They may be just as likely to stand over the plumber fixing their leaky pipes as they are to pester a web designer.

In other cases, the mere fact that a client is paying good money for your services gives them a certain sense of entitlement. And although they may be well-meaning, it can lead to overstepping boundaries.

The dilemma is that getting a client’s feedback is necessary for a successful outcome. But it can also be fertile ground for such a takeover. So, how do you prevent it from happening?

The key is in setting clear guidelines. For example, defining goals for a particular item and asking for feedback based on those parameters.

Consider the hero area of a home page. Let’s say you’ve built something beautiful and need client approval. You might approach them by saying something like:

“I’ve set up the hero area, please take a look! Here is what we were hoping to achieve:

• Introduce branding elements, including the logo, colors and fonts;
• Encourage users to subscribe to the mailing list;
• Mention the 20% off discount for new subscribers;
• Keep the entire area accessible, easy-to-read and concise;

What do you think?”

The example above isn’t all-encompassing. But it puts the stated goals into a client’s mind. This helps you to narrow the scope of their feedback and (hopefully) avoid anything that distracts from the desired outcome.

Put UX Back Into the Hands of Experts

Don’t get me wrong – clients should absolutely be involved in the design process. It’s their brand, after all. And things usually turn out best with their input.

But the heavy lifting of UX should be done by experts like you. Your job is to turn a client’s vision into something that is highly usable. It’s about establishing a brand while helping users get to where they want to go.

If all goes well, they’ll take the path to conversion – whether that means sales, contact, or a subscription. That’s simply too important to leave to client whims.

Instead, educate and work with your clients in an effort to drive home UX best practices. Provide them with parameters to work within. The result will be a website that benefits its owner and users alike.

The post How to Stop Design Clients Making Too Many UX Decisions appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Thanks to modern developments, it’s easier than ever to capitalize on these design concepts to the benefit of the user. To leverage these concepts effectively, designers have to empathize with their users.

Empathy Drives UX

To create amazing UX, you definitely need a different approach. Unless you empathize with your users, it can be hard to understand what they are looking for when they land on your site. You need to be honest in guiding users while understanding their requirements.

With users in mind, look at their different perspectives and give them engaging solutions.

If you have trouble with this, step away for a moment – what would your mother feel like if she visited your site? How would that differ from your college-aged cousin? Whether you choose your mother or your cousin matters – who are you talking to with your site?

Get to know your audience a lot better by understanding their demographic. Figure out how their needs can be best addressed. Simultaneously, focus on result-driven solutions that will attract them.

Modern businesses have plenty of data at their fingertips, so it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out who your target demographic is.

That information can be used to engage customers, and customers – happy to see a brand they know is targeting them – will engage back.

To do this, brands need to make a solid first impression and establish value and reliability to consumers as quickly as possible.

If you’ve spent time getting to know them and implementing practices that makes their UX easier, they will feel it. Failing this, consumers will look elsewhere and see what competitors have to offer.

Most contemporary business strategies use data collected from their audiences and user bases to craft new tactics for generating brand interest and making connections to customers.

Data drives the modern world, and it’s critical for designers to leverage the insights gained from data to the benefit of their customers.

This aligns seamlessly with overall business goals: you analyze your data to see what customers are most interested in buying, which pieces of your content they enjoy the most, and how much time they spend engaging with you.

While companies leverage these data trends to provide better customer goods and services, these insights can also help web designers create better user experiences for their consumers online.

Intuitive Web Design

When you visit a website, you generally have a better overall experience if you can quickly and easily navigate around the site and find what you need.

When web designers imagine what their customers are going to want to see on their sites, they can devise more intuitive user experiences. Anticipate how a user will want to engage with the site and design it with functionality and usability in mind.

Intuitive design hinges on knowledge of your customers and understanding their goals and reasons for engaging with your brand. Customer profiling, or the concept behind defining your ideal customer types, is crucial to intuitive design.

Depending on the type of business you conduct, the typical customers you serve, and the overall culture and mission of a company, potential website designs can vary widely. The first step in effective, intuitive design is taking the time to understand your customers.

Design for Users, Not Search Engines

Once you know who you are targeting, you must establish value to them. This means proving your relevance in your market and showing customers what sets your brand apart from the competition.

This matters in web design, too. Countless companies use cookie-cutter templates for their websites, and stuff them full of keyword-laden, generic content to improve their search result rankings.

It’s imperative for modern web designers to avoid falling into the trap of designing for search engine bots rather than actual users.

Search engine giants like Google and Bing regularly update their search result algorithms. This practice aims to create a more level playing field for every brand vying for top search result page positions.

In turn, you must find new ways to make the search engine rules work in your brand’s favor.

In years past, getting the top spot in search result rankings depended on a web designers’ ability to make their sites easily readable for the bots that crawl through web pages to determine value.

Now, most search engines prioritize sites optimized for human browsing, penalizing sites that use exploitative tactics like keyword stuffing to reach the top spots.

Think about who will be visiting your site and what they will need to find, want to see, and which kinds of content they’ll enjoy. In many cases, this may require quite a bit of testing.

You’ll need to carefully define your customer profiles and determine where they spend their time online, which social media networks they use, how they prefer to consume content, and what types of content they tend to share.

Once you have an understanding of the type of customer you want to attract, it’s much easier to design a website built around providing that customer type with a stellar experience.

Personalization Takes Intuitive Design Deeper

While intuitive design aims to provide various general customer types with fantastic experiences, personalization takes this endeavor further and strives to generate functionality and content tailored to individual users’ preferences.

Many services like email clients, social media platforms, bill paying websites, and various eCommerce sites provide their users with a plethora of customization options. Users can tailor their experiences how they like, only seeing the content and information that most appeals to them.

Customization vs. Personalization

Customization can be enjoyable for many users, but ultimately personalization has a more profound effect.

Some of your users may not want to have to tailor their experiences themselves, or may not realize the option is available. They’ll assume the site’s apparent clumsiness is the fault of the designer, not their own, for failing to investigate how much they can customize on their own.

When you employ user data to craft personalized experiences, it conveys that you are paying attention to your users and want them to have a fantastic experience.

For example, in Android’s BBC News app, users can select their preferred news topics and access them quickly in the ‘My News’ section of the app.

Most modern consumers likely engage with highly personalized designs on a regular basis without realizing it.

As we all know that if you regularly sign into a Google account to read emails, browse the web, pay your bills, and make purchases, you probably agreed to allow Google to collect your user data as part of your end-user license agreement.

Google collects your data to determine your habits and which aspects of the web you find most appealing.

Eventually, you’ll notice the advertisements shown on various websites resonate with your interests, and may even directly relate to products and services you’ve purchased or researched in the past.

Personalized Data Creates the Best UX

Ultimately, customers must make peace with the fact that their user data is a valuable commodity to the businesses that advertise to them. By providing companies with this data, users will eventually start to have more meaningful and engaging experiences with those companies.

Data is a critical element for achieving this, but solid design matters just as much. If users aren’t enjoying the time they spend on your site, it doesn’t matter how much time and money you’ve invested in researching them.

Great user experiences in web design should be a marriage of artistry and functionality. We’re growing closer to a world in which every internet user has a unique, carefully tailored experience on the internet.

Web designers should strive to make this a reality on a smaller scale with their own websites. Intuitive and personalized design will invariably generate better.

The post How Empathy & Personalized Interfaces Can Help Improve UX appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

The bottom line is that the ways we’ve been keeping track of feedback (spreadsheets and email trails – to name just a few) aren’t very efficient. Designers and developers more or less try to interpret what stakeholders are trying to say, rather than having a full understanding. This needs to change.

BugHerd is the visual feedback tool that brings sanity to the process. It acts as a transparent layer on top of a website, allowing stakeholders to pinpoint feedback right on the screen. With this contextual information, there’ll be no more guessing!

Indeed, BugHerd can help to smooth out the build process by providing actionable information. Finally, everyone is on the same page.

BugHerd Facilitates Feedback, Without the Back and Forth

Website projects can have multiple stakeholders. Clients, project managers, marketers and more. They all have their own wants and needs. Making sense of all the feedback that comes your way can be a nightmare.

But that’s what makes BugHerd so special. It takes what used to be a muddled mess of searching through old email chains and simplifies it. Now, everyone can collaborate and get things done quicker.

Let’s take a look at how BugHerd can make your job so much easier:

Easy to Implement

Adding BugHerd to your website is simple, and you have a couple of options for doing so. The first is through embedding some JavaScript into your template. Alternatively, you can utilize a browser extension to get up and running.

That’s it! After BugHerd is implemented, you can (literally) watch that feedback start to come in.

Anyone Can Use It

BugHerd offers a simple point-and-click UI, so even your most technically-challenged clients can use it. Clients can click on a page element to report an issue and even add a note if they wish. It’s fully intuitive and there’s no training required.

And it also works on mobile devices! This allows users to report issues on their phone without having to install additional software.

Like Sticky Notes for Your Screen

Have you ever received feedback and wondered what in the world your client was trying to tell you? BugHerd squashes that problem, as stakeholders can add feedback to the exact spot within a page. Issues are “pinned” to the screen, much like virtual sticky notes.

Context is Key

And you also get full context. Each issue contains vital info such as CSS selectors, browser, screen resolution and OS. Plus, screenshots can automatically be attached to every bug report.

This provides you with actionable information – even if the element changes its location.

Manage Tasks from a Single Screen

The days of trying to catalog all of your feedback in a spreadsheet or Word document are over. BugHerd lets you manage issues and assign tasks from a simple Kanban board. This allows you to track every issue from beginning to end.

You can manage and prioritize tasks; group items using tags and even conduct real-time discussions. Everyone will know their job, enabling the entire team to stay on the same page.

Developer-Friendly Features

While BugHerd is easy to use, it also has powerful features built with developers in mind. For example, you can use version control sync to update tasks with commit messages. This allows BugHerd to integrate into your existing workflow in a snap.

In addition, BugHerd integrates with a number of popular 3rd-party apps and services. Use it with tools such as Basecamp, GitHub, Slack and more.

Privacy and access control are also covered. Provide guest access so that clients can provide feedback. And with permission controls, you decide who has access to what.

Start Your BugHerd Free 14-Day Trial

Want to streamline the feedback and bug-fixing process? BugHerd has everything you need to gather feedback, manage tasks and collaborate. It’s perfect for agencies, remote teams and freelancers.

Anyone who needs to work with stakeholders will appreciate how simple and easy-to-use BugHerd is. With a straightforward UI and visually-rich issue reporting, you’ll have the context you need to keep your projects moving forward.

What’s more, you can start a free 14-day trial of BugHerd – no credit card required. If you like what you see, stick around with a paid plan. You’ll be glad you did.

The post Client Website Feedback with Context? Yes, Please. appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

First – designers do their best to create beautiful websites. Not a surprise – it’s their job, and they want their portfolios to look astonishing (and often really do).

But is a beautiful design the ultimate goal? Not really. You also want a website to fulfill its business objectives. If you run an eCommerce business, you want it to convert visitors into satisfied buyers. If you have a news website, you want to encourage visitors to read and engage with the content. If you have a portfolio site, you want it to attract potential clients. Long story short: you want the website to present your company in a particular way to provide a high conversion rate.

On top of that, you must take into account what your visitors want and expect. They won’t buy anything from your website if it’s not user-friendly or if they simply don’t like it. They might not understand how fancy elements work and want your site to behave similarly to the other websites they already know.

It’s their opinion that matters the most – not designers or conversion optimization experts. Why? Because it’s visitors that pay your bills. Every website has a unique audience and sometimes following the tips of top CRO or UX experts won’t result in a design that satisfies your audience.

So how to align all those goals? Analyzing qualitative data collected with tools like Google Analytics can help. For example, after changing the web design, the bounce rate increases. This suggests that the new design for whatever reason scares people away. But why? Google Analytics or heat maps won’t tell you that. But visitors will.

In this article, I will show you how you can use user feedback in the process of assessing the effectiveness of a website design.

Questions to Ask About Your Design

The key to collecting valuable information is asking the right question at the right moment. Here’s a list of 5 questions that will provide you with actionable insights.

1. Do you prefer the old or new design?

This is the simplest question you can ask after introducing a new design. Just remember to ask visitors that are familiar with your old design. Don’t forget to ask the follow-up question ‘why?‘.

Visitors will point out what the biggest issue is. Also, keep in mind that sometimes users don’t like big changes (even those that are right for them) and may need some time to get used to them. You can investigate the magnitude of this issue by asking this question over time and observe how responses change.

2. What do you like the most about our website?

This a good question to ask before implementing any changes to the website. Changing things your visitors like can be counterproductive. If your visitors like your classically simple design, then upgrading it to anything too modern can be dangerous.

3. On a scale of 1-10, how trustworthy is this website?

If people don’t trust a site they won’t buy anything or endorse it. SSL certificates will help, but the design itself influences how visitors perceive the security of your website. If it turns out that people don’t appear to trust your site, take a look at this article to learn how to fix it.

4. Did you accomplish the goal of your visit?

Some people visit your website because they are merely curious and don’t have any particular objectives. But most visitors want to accomplish something. It might be to buy, learn or just read something.

When a person is unable to accomplish that goal (no matter what it is) they are dissatisfied and less likely to come back. Don’t forget to ask the follow-up question ‘what prevented you from achieving the goal?‘.

5. What was your first impression when you entered the website?

As already mentioned, you can’t make the first impression twice. Your website should immediately create the perceived image you want. If it’s the website of a bank, it should create a picture of trust and security. If it’s a website about funny GIFs, it should be more relaxed. Everything from colors and shapes to the website structure affects that first impression.

Does User Feedback Really Work?

In theory, it sounds interesting, doesn’t it? You ask questions, collect feedback and learn what visitors think of your website. But does it really work? Yup, it does, and big businesses are actively using feedback in the process of designing their websites. Companies like Nationale-Nederlanden Investment Partners.

This asset management company went through a rebranding process and used this opportunity to redesign their website. To make sure the newly redesigned site worked as intended, they collected feedback from users. What did they learn? That visitors simply didn’t like the design. The company used this information to rework the design, which immediately increased users’ satisfaction.

Key Takeaways

Collecting feedback from visitors is not only a method to get to know your users better, but can help to improve your web design. Asking the right questions will help you quickly decide whether your design is effective. But how can you collect feedback from visitors?

A simple answer – by using the right tools. Survicate and Qualaroo are two you could consider using. Both of these tools offer simple widgets you can place on your website to collect feedback from visitors in an unobtrusive way.

Keep in mind that improving your design is a contact process and collecting feedback is not enough. After gathering a meaningful amount of responses, you should analyze them, turn into them into actions and monitor their performance. Only then will you ensure that your design is as good as it can and should be.

If you’re looking for guidelines for getting better feedback from clients on web design, take a look at this post.

The post 5 Simple Questions to Ask When Looking for User Feedback appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Yet, A LOT of designers insists on using words that are mumbo-jumbo to the ears of their clients when talking about design solutions.

In this article, I’ll share four guidelines that will help you get better and more actionable client feedback.

Guideline #1: Make Sure Your Client Gives Feedback from Their Audience Point-Of-View

Talking to people who are not designers using words exclusive to design makes people feel threatened (and even stupid). That’s not a good way to start a relationship with your clients (or anyone!)

The direct result is that, during the project, many of your clients will give you feedback based on their preferences and their personal taste. And you know what? It’s your fault. You never gave them a chance. What you need to do is find a common base.

And the best base, is focusing on the goals of what you’re trying to create. The easiest way to go about this is thinking like your target audience. So tell your client that when they’re reviewing your mockups and your drafts, their job is to put themselves in the shoes of their audience and think about what their wants and needs are.

It goes without saying that, who the target audience is, should be defined before you embark on any design phase.

It’s a surprisingly effective guideline.

Now, most of your clients will have to be reminded about this. It’s easy to fall back into personal taste. When that happens, gently nudge them back on giving feedback that takes their audience point-of-view rather than their personal taste:

“Ok, I understand that you want to use more classical typography here. Do you think that’s true for the people who’ll be using your website as well?“

Guideline #2: Ask Why?

You’ll come a long way with guideline #1, but you’ll still get a lot of feedback that sounds like: “I don’t like it”, “Can we make this button smaller/bigger”.

When that happens, simply ask your client “Why?”. Not in a rude way, but like you’re genuinely curious. You’re asking why because you want your client to explain why they’re saying what they’re saying. You basically want to see if their suggestions/objection is tied to any pre-defined goals of the project. Or if it applies to any special segment of their audience.

Try it in your next design presentation meeting. It’s simple and very effective.

Just ask your client to give you better feedback by asking:

• “Why”
• “What do you think is important about that?”
• “Tell me more about that” etc

Before you entered the design phase you hopefully spent some time defining the goals and the audience of the project. These questions are excellent in order to guide your clients back to them.

Guideline #3: Ask Your Client to Identify Problems, Not Giving Your Solutions

A lot of clients wants to genuinely help you with the design process and the most natural way for them to do this is by offering solutions. It’s the “make the logo bigger” situation. That is never a good situation.

Maybe for the client who really thinks they’re helping you, but it’s too leading. Rather than engaging your creative team, it directs them. And designers hate being told what to do…

When you feel you’re getting too many “solutions” from your client, ask them to frame their feedback as a problem or a challenge, rather than give you a solution.

Tell them that, by framing it as a problem, the whole project team can collaborate on a solution. In fact, if you’re all in the same room, this is an excellent opportunity to open up for a quick discussion by asking some easy questions:

• “Anyone else see the same problem?”
• “Does anyone have another idea on how to address this challenge?”
• “Should we go back to the drawing board and see how the client’s solution would look, together with some other possibilities?”

Note that you’re never discarding your client’s solution. You’re just communicating that you want to go a little bit deeper and have the whole team solve the problem.

And hey. You know what? Sometimes the client is right. Always be open for that possibility.

Guideline #4: Explain the Design Process for Your Client

The last guideline is about making your client understand that design is a process. The best you can do is give your client a quick run-through on what things can be changed in what part of the process. And maybe more importantly, what changes will come with a high cost if asked to be changed later in the process.

Layout, for example, is best defined early in the process. But changing the body font of the project can be changed later, without too many repercussions on the project as a whole. These kinds of things are obvious to you, but they’re not obvious to your clients.

By making sure your client understands the different phases in the process, you make sure that the project will run smoothly.

Collaboration – The Magic Ingredient to Any Successful Design Project

The common thread in these four guidelines is that design needs to be a collaborative process:

You, the designer bring a lot of domain expertise, but so does your client. It would be strange if you client knew as much about design as you and it would be strange if you know more about your client’s strategic goals and audience.

That’s why any design project needs to be a collaborative process. Both parts guide each other on the best decisions for the project.

The post Guidelines For Better Client Feedback on Web Design appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

The welcoming “You’ve got mail” from an AOL message. The shrill dinging when you’ve left a car door ajar. Even the cascade of digital cards filling the computer screen after you’ve won a game of Solitaire.

All of these are examples of user feedback, without which many everyday digital actions would be very confusing.

As overly-methodic as some of these may seem to us, the ability to provide constructive, relevant feedback is vital to fostering a positive user experience in website design, no matter how subtle. In any situation, the application of bad feedback, or lack of useful feedback, can escalate into unnecessary confusion.

Feedback Principles

When providing feedback to a user, it’s important to consider the context in which they’re receiving feedback. This includes the physical context – where on the screen are you giving feedback? – and the emotional context – are you providing positive or negative feedback?

Physical Context

Since we expect websites to respond to our input, it is important that this feedback is provided in a place where it’s obvious. If an item is added to a shopping cart, for instance, any relevant input (1 item added to your cart!) should be provided near the place where their action took place. Quietly updating a cart total in an entirely different part of the page is much less useful.

REI.com provides physical feedback that your “add to cart” action was successful by providing a drop down message.

Another useful application of user feedback in context is if someone made mistakes while filling out a form. Providing a clear visual label and explanation for each necessary correction is much more helpful than simply providing a list of all their errors at the top or bottom of the form.

Errors have ramifications that extend beyond the physical context, and appropriate use of emotional context is just as important to create a positive user experience and leave a lasting impression of a brand.

Emotional Context

Creating content for a website can sometimes be an emotional rollercoaster. While oftentimes we’re providing good news, in other situations we are forced to give feedback about something that didn’t go as planned.

Error states, particularly credit card declines, downtime notifications and legal policies all require some degree of empathy – you wouldn’t inform a customer that their flight was canceled with the same tone that you’d use to congratulate them on winning a sweepstake, would you?

The IMDB 404 page provides a series of movie-themed quotes that helps you understand what happened.

Feedback Implementations

Here are a few feedback implementations that our web development team find most useful to include in our projects. So useful, in fact, that each is applied to the framework on which we build our websites. They are integral not only to user experience, but also to retaining customer attention, trust in an organization’s brand, and a positive number of conversions.

The Load Status Indicator

The frustration of not seeing a reaction after clicking on something is most apparent on slower connections and addressed efficiently by designing a load status indicator (LSI) which animates while you wait, to indicate the request is in progress. Even better, an LSI can be customized for each web project.

We’ve made it a standard practice to design an LSI for each of our projects, one that is unique to the brand’s colors and overall website style. The design also encourages its use as an emotional feedback tool, a smooth animation that will induce a sense calm during the user’s moment of transition.

As with all user feedback, it is important to take some care with the application of an LSI. If a load status indicator shows up before any significant time has passed, it can be distracting or lead to an impression that things are progressing more slowly. Because of this, we only show an LSI after a few hundred milliseconds have passed.

Progress Bars

In cases when a file may take upwards of a few seconds to process, we apply progress bars. The progress bar would update as the file loads and then alert the user if there was an issue by providing an error state if the upload was, for some reason, unsuccessful.

To provide better user feedback, we progressively enhance the progress bars on our sites. For users on older browsers that can’t detect progress of your upload, we provide a striped bar (also known as a barber pole) to show that something is happening – essentially an LSI catered specifically for file uploads.

When our users are on a modern browser we provide more information such as updating the actual progress of the upload, providing thumbnails when images are being uploaded and queue additional files so that, when uploading a larger number of files, the user still sees progress, rather than spreading their available upstream bandwidth across all files. These cues increase user confidence that the task is proceeding and working as intended.

Hover Events

In the early years of the web, it was evident what a link was; that royal blue underlined text was an almost-universal visual pattern. Now that custom-styling of elements is the status quo, this visual pattern has been diluted, and hover events are a helpful feedback tool for users with a mouse.

They will alert the user that they have the ability to interact with whatever it is they are hovering their cursor over, such as an image, text link or button.

Image hover events help the user understand that they can interact with an element.

On mobile devices, however, hover states fall short. To activate the element, most of the time a user would have to tap once to trigger the hover event, then again a second time to carry out the action – a case when less feedback is more helpful.

Error Messages

It is important to provide context-appropriate error messages for user input forms with text catered to the level of sensitivity the situation warrants. These input forms include feedback about fields that were required but not filled out or information that wasn’t formatted correctly.

We offer that feedback as soon as they leave the field, so if you type an invalid email, it instantly alerts you there is an error. To further guide users, when a form is submitted we scroll users to the place on the page where the first error was encountered and, in some cases, a popup message fixed to the element at fault so users can easily find and remedy their mistakes, eliminating any unnecessary frustration.

Form Labels

In many of our forms, we provide a simple placeholder label before a user has provided information, so they are aware what that field is for.

Then, once they begin to type, we move the label to an adjacent position so that the purpose of their information is preserved in case they are filling out a longer form or are interrupted mid-task, making it easier to resume.

Conclusion

Frustration is the killer to satisfactory user interaction, and many times, so avoidable! Implementing proper feedback in your design projects can not only secure a successful conversion rate but also solidify the confidence customers feel about the company’s brand as a whole.

As designer and author Josh Clark aptly writes, “Our job is to help our users translate their intent into action.” The more we can guide users through our interfaces and provide clear feedback about their progress, the more success, and fewer frustrations, we can create.

The post User Feedback in User Experience appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

A quick look at the dominant frameworks and technologies of the day will back this up. They all focus on visually responsive interfaces for the user, whether that’s AngularJS or React. But whether it’s visual or textual, feedback is important, there’s no denying that.

Collaboration for teams is as relevant an issue today as it was when only email was available for exchanging feedback. The volume of communication between teams is not getting smaller anytime soon and the same can be said for the complexity of this communication during web development collaboration.

Team members on the project need a system where designers can share designs with developers and other stakeholders in a simple and easy way to collect feedback so that the project moves forward as efficiently as possible.

To ensure better design collaboration, the feedback system should have certain characteristics that helps teams in web development collaborate. Let’s take a look at what these characteristics are:-

Feedback that has Context

Providing sufficient context in feedback is essential. When designers share designs with developers or review a project’s progress with managers, context is necessary to keep everyone in the loop and on the same page.

Source: zipboard.co

A major issue with sharing feedback via text based channels such as email, message threads, or even Slack is that you’re only sharing part of the information. You can give approximate ideas and translate bugs into words as much as you like, but words cannot substitute images when it comes to fruitful collaboration.

This is precisely why having screenshots and images as part of feedback is so important. Nothing beats seeing a live representation of the application.

Feedback that is Actionable

Source:notableapp.com

Time wasted recreating issues and bugs can be used so much more effectively when the problem is right in front of you. Visual feedback frees developers from having to follow every step to see the issue live so that they can devote more time to innovating and solving problems in the designs shared.

Feedback is not working the right way if it isn’t organized properly. Having a feedback system that can sort, prioritize and organize everything will keep your team from getting bogged down by the hassle of going through pages and pages of comments.

Feedback that is Accessible to all

A feedback system that makes it easy for every team member to participate in the process is surely better. Having a complex issue tracking system that needs tedious setup, a back-end server, an administrator and a special database installation is definitely not the most fun or effective way to work with your team.

That’s why a visual feedback tool is so much easier for web development collaboration. There’s next to no setup time. Most of these platforms have data hosted in the cloud so there is no overhead for the team and everything is accessible anytime from whatever location. Whether your team is working remotely or in the same room, it’s like a virtual whiteboard for effectively sharing designs with everyone, right from developers to external reviewers.

The biggest advantage of working with a visual feedback system is when collaborating with clients or external stakeholders. If people outside the team are going to review the application, they don’t need an overwhelmingly technical tool to work with. Design agencies, in particular, can benefit from this. Clients don’t need technical fuss as part of the review. They need tools that let them cut through the jargon and assess progress.

All these characteristics of visual feedback help reduce turnaround time and make collaboration faster. It also helps the entire team understand the scope of the project better. Tracking progress and tasks is much easier, all in all greatly making collaborating on web projects a more efficient exercise.

Final Thoughts

Visual feedback has a lot of benefits over conventional text based feedback systems or issue logs. Even major enterprise tools such as JIRA now offer a plugin(Capture for JIRA) for collaborating visually. There’s also lightweight tools like zipBoard and other visual bug tracking tools that can help share design with developers and other team members to collect visual feedback with better context.

The post How Visual Feedback Helps Collaboration in Web Development appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

One of the most difficult things when it comes to designer’s solitude is certainly dealing with bad feedback. No, we don’t necessarily mean negative feedback. But feedback that doesn’t provide us with any direction for our next iteration. Even when this feedback is given with the best intentions it can be infuriating.

While there are many strategies out there to hone in and get specific feedback to alleviate this frustration, sometimes it happens anyways. Or it’s too late to hone your boss or client in on a specific detail because they already saw too much. So what can you do to make bad feedback actionable to complete your project?

1. Hone in on a Few Key Words

Maybe your boss/client said a bit more than you’re hearing. It’s easy to focus on the filler words of bad feedback, meaning anything that sounds like an opinion or the simple, “I don’t like this” or, “this is a great start” with no additional direction. But instead of getting annoyed that their feedback sucks, try to listen for what they are having difficulty articulating.

For example, if your boss doesn’t like your layout of a new homepage you put together, but loved the new dashboard you created for your product, you can compare the two and see if anything stands out. Can you bring in anything that your boss liked from one piece of the project into another?

Did your boss simply tell you to make everything bigger? Well that isn’t always great feedback. Maybe its that certain important elements are getting lost or the company’s key messaging is hidden behind a hero image that doesn’t elicit the correct emotion from visitors. There may be another way to address the issue instead of making everything huge.

Clients might be even more difficult than that. While, in my experience, they usually want to influence the design process and voice their opinions, they often lack sufficient expertise in the field. Lack of the expertise creates a feeling of inferiority, which may result in the unbalanced feedback. If you’d try to analyse this situation down to its roots, you will certainly notice that enraged clients don’t always mean exactly what they say. They just lack the right words and your help in opening their minds.

By listening for things your boss and client aren’t saying, you will be able to blow them away by delivering something much better than asked for.

2. Use Historical Feedback

Chances are this isn’t the first time you’ve received bad feedback from your boss or client. It’s something that you have been dealing with over and over again. If you can remember or have any feedback written down from the past go ahead and review it. It’s possible that you will be able to identify common trends in what your boss or client are really looking for.

When you finally finished your last project, what turned out to be the solution? Focus your attention not on the product, but solely on your bosses/clients communication. You may be able to put together an entire glossary of what your boss means when he gives you bad feedback, even if he doesn’t realize it.

Using this historical information you should be able to cut out a few unnecessary iterations and greatly calm your nerves!

If you have a long term relationship with your client analysing his or her feedback and communication can make the whole process from initial offering to buy-in of the ready design much more efficient. Knowledge is power.

3. Have an Impromptu Brainstorm

Gathering feedback often feels less like a conversation and more like someone is talking at you. Getting bad feedback is a great way to change the perception that feedback needs to put you on the defensive. Instead of asking your boss/client for feedback on a project if they are notoriously bad at giving it, invite them to a discussion. If your boss/client is far away – just use ux design platform such as UXPin, which allows you to work collaboratively. This way you can brainstorm new ideas or see what thoughts your work has sparked about the project. Simply phrase your comments when you’re soliciting feedback to open up a problem instead of asking for general thoughts.

Also you can respond to feedback with questions and open up a brainstorm rather than simple saying, “okay,” then proceeding with your next iteration.

If you are regularly getting bad feedback, remember that you aren’t alone! As you know, design is iterative, so don’t fret. Your client or boss may not really know what they want or have difficulty articulating it in ways that make sense to you. Just remember to breathe, work with them and be comfortable doing a bit of heavy lifting to get inside their head.

All in all no matter whether you work in an in-house team, as a freelancer or you’re part of a design studio – we all go through the same problems. Excellence comes with practice.

The post Making Bad Feedback from Your Boss or Client Actionable appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.