10 Tips for Collecting More Meaningful Design Feedback From Your Clients

 When we ask for a review of a design or a project, we typically send over emails that read like this:

“I finished up this design last night. What do you think?”

It’s no wonder we are met with confusing, misdirected, and frustrating commentary on the colors, fonts, imagery, layout, etc., when all we really wanted to know what whether the copy worked. Without instruction, people have no lens through which to review the project. So they simply state what comes to mind -- their personal opinion of the project.

This is especially true when you ask for a variety of opinions -- whether that is from within your agency or if you are asking for feedback from the client team.

A diversity of opinions helps you become a better creative, and you need this insight from your client: They know their customers and prospects better than you ever could. Plus, they are the final decision-maker, so their opinion is arguably the most important one. 

Refining your feedback process will help you to gather more constructive, useful commentary, and in the end, you'll create a piece that is clear, compelling, and relevant.

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10 Tips for Receiving Useful Feedback from Clients

• State the goal of the project
• Control the environment - Use a Project Management Tool
• Limit the options
• Provide data to support your design decisions
• Present the design as a part of the bigger marketing plan
• Ask specific questions
• Give people the idea to consider and process the idea
• Instill confidence in your client
• Ask why? Keep asking again and again
• Provide multiple opportunities for feedback

1) State the goal of the project

Feedback shouldn’t just be about the aesthetics of a design or how entertaining a blog post is. It needs to solve a problem or service an end-goal. Include a summary of the project that includes:

• The target audience
• The problem this project is meant to solve
• The desired action viewers should take after seeing the project
• The emotion the project should evoke
• What can’t be change

This will help people to buy into your approach and the creative solution to the problem, such as low conversions or high bounce rate. Once everyone is one the same page, it will be much easier to talk constructively about what works and what doesn’t.

2) Control the environment - Use a Project Managment tool

Email is a terrible way to ask for feedback, especially if you are sending out a visual. The best-case scenario is being able to present a project in front of the client or your team members, but if this isn’t possible, use a creative collaboration platform or project management tool. With many of these tools, viewers can add notes or draw directly on the project. All feedback is then centralized and organized for you to consider as you begin to make revisions.