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Get And Give Design Feedback – Sites + Tips

by The Web Squeeze on July 26, 2010 in Articles with 2 Comments

As a designer working on a design project, we often find ourselves staring at our designs looking for the flaws. Many times it would be helpful to get other opinions or critiques in order to improve our design from layout, spacing/kerning on the typography or text, the illustrations, icons, or even the concept. Alas we have to discuss these with our clients however, there are numerous design community websites and web tools that can help us to get other perspectives about our designs.

Below are the 15+ useful websites and web tools to get feedback for your designs.

Design Community Websites:

Working on a design project with multiple team members has many advantages in terms of getting lots of input or ideas. Yet when you have no other team members but yourself, you can check these design community websites that will give you the feedback you need to make your design ready to go.

1. Concept Feedback

Out of these design community websites, I usually post my designs here to get feedback. You can upload various types of projects (from presentation to print or web designs, but this site is mostly dominated by design projects). The service is free after you have given feedback on 6 posted projects/concepts. Though, for immediate feedback you can go premium with 3 feedback options offered: Basic, Mainstream, and Professional. Besides that, their new feature, Private Feedback, allows you to organize visual feedback securely with your team or clients.

2. Notable

Notable is specifically designed for web developers, either for team, within team, or client. A web page design can be uploaded using a standard image upload, screen grab, or plug-in (for Firefox only) that allows you to receive or give feedback on any website without leaving your browser. The service is available for free and the paid plan starts from $24/month. The iPhone application for Notable is also available for free.

3. Feedback Army

Through Feedback Army you can submit questions about your website’s usability and get a specified number of responses from reviewers. The cost is $10 for 10 responses.

4. ididwork

ididwork is intended for managers and employees to communicate on projects. It doesn’t offer features for clients to leave feedback but it can be useful for feedback within a team. It is a free resource.

5. Please Critique Me

People at OnWired were getting quite a bit of requests from the design community via Twitter to offer critiques. It was practically impossible! So, they created Please Critique Me. To get feedback you can easily fill out the form on their website. If your submission is selected, you get an in-depth and valuable review of your project, for free! Even if you don’t get selected, you can still glean some valuable insight from these professionals.

6. FiveSecondTest

Five second tests are simple usability tests that help you measure the effectiveness of your designs. Conducting a five second test allows you to find out which parts of your designs are the most prominent. You can do this in two ways: Memory Test, and Click Test. All you need to do is upload a design you want to test and choose the type of test you want to run. You can use their random website users to do your test for really fast feedback, or share it with your friends and colleagues.

7. SitePoint Critique & Reviews Forum

SitePoint is geared towards developers and provides a relatively active text-based platform for design, website and content reviews.

8. Design Critique

Design Critique is a blog that publishes critiques of all types of design. You can submit your work and request to be considered for a critique.

9. Creattica

Part of the Envato network, Creattica brings together a group of top-notch designers looking to share a wide range of design projects. Membership and participation is free, however, feedback is limited to marking concepts as a “favorite”.

10. DeviantART

As the biggest art online community, DeviantArt created a new feature to help you get feedback for deviations (designs or artwork) you posted and request it for critique. To get this feature you have to be a premium member.

Web Tools:

These web tools are for web design only. With these you will be able to receive feedback from your users/visitors who visit your websites.

1. Critique The Site

A simple and handy web tool that allows you to gather feedback about any of your web designs. Log in with your OpenId, type the url to the website you want to get feedback on and post it. You can share a site for critique or feedback by sending the shared link on Twitter, Gmail, or Yahoo!

2. Bounce

Similar to Critique The Site, Bounce is simple and a quick web tool to gather feedback using web services such as Twitter and Facebook.

3. UserTesting.com

UserTesting.com lets you “look over the shoulder” of people in your target audience while they use your website. To encourage people to use this tool, they made it fast, easy, and inexpensivet.

4. Userfly

Sometimes, you don’t need to have direct feedback in order to get meaningful information about the success or failures of your designs. With Userfly you can analyze how people are using your website. The free service records a screencast of how your users are interacting with your user interface. With just one line of code plugged into your web pages, you’re good to go.

5. Usabilla

With Usabilla you can create your tests, set up questions for viewers, invite users, and get specific feedback on various aspects of the design.

6. Backboard

Backboard automates the process of getting feedback and approval on all your projects—it can handle almost any type of file, but it’s especially good with mixed graphical and text media. Simply upload the file you would like feedback on, choose a security level, and select the email addresses of one or more reviewers.

Now that you know where to go and which web tools to use to get feedback, you should also consider tips on the do’s and don’t's whenever you are giving or receiving feedback.

The DO’s

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When receiving feedback:

Be open minded. Other people or designers might not see the design you created as great as you think it is. Consider their feedback as a constructive input to make your design even better.
Respond and communicate. When someone leaves only a line of feedback like “I don’t like it”, try to respond by asking them questions and urge them to explain the problems on your design. By communicating with them, you are building a network as well as getting deeper feedback on your design.
Stand up for it when you’re right. Sometimes people will try to correct your design, either for using the wrong color or matchless typography. Listen to their perspective but if you think your concept matches the design, stand up for it and explain it to them.

When giving a feedback:

Understand the full context & design. Before you give feedback on any design, try to understand their project concept, objective, target audience, etc. Be specific on your feedback when you find flaws. Sometimes they will ask you the reasons for your feedback and it’s good to be prepare to explain your reasoning.
Critique within the praise. Start with praising the overall design and the effort for their design, then follow your feedback with constructive criticism.
Discuss it! Feedback is not meant just to be given or taken. The longer you discuss a design, the deeper the perspective on a design becomes which will allow you to learn more as well as build a new network with other designers.

The DON’T's

Image Source

When receiving feedback:

Don’t get upset or lose confidence in your design. If it happens that someone is having a bad day and they take it out on your design in a critique, don’t be upset or lose confidence. Again, it’s another perspective regarding your design, consider the critique and revise your design.
Don’t strike back. When people give you unpleasant feedback on your design the first thing you should do is breath deeply and release. Think clearly before you reply. It was your choice to receive feedback, so be prepared to receive many opinions, suggestions, advice, or even criticism.
Don’t forget to say “Thanks”. It might be trivial, but it will sound rude if you don’t thank the people or other designers who have spent their time giving you feedback.

When giving a feedback:

Don’t be harsh. You might find that a design is poor. But everything in this world can be fixed and so is the design which requested feedback. Use friendly words while pointing their mistakes.
Don’t Interrogate. Giving feedback should be a process of investigation. So don’t interrogate the designers. On the other hand ask them more about their designs. Try to understand their problem in order to help them to solve it.
Don’t try to make it your design. As a designer, we want every designs to look perfect but you can’t make them all your design. Respect other designers by pointing out the flaws and let them do the rest. Don’t try to educate them, unless they asked for more instructions.

So, which website design community websites or web tools are you using to get feedback for your designs? Feel free to let us know in the comments.

Tweet Your Business To Success

by The Web Squeeze on July 21, 2010 in Articles with No comments

How And Why Your Business Should Use Twitter

Welcome to the year 2010 where anything and everything is living on or being talked about online. As a business owner it is in your best interest to keep up with the latest trends and position yourself at the forefront of the market. One of the best ways to help you do this is by using Twitter.

Twitter is an essential part of any modern day business, large or small, like it or not. In a recent study it was shown that 80% of people trusted businesses more if they (the business) were on Twitter. Having a presence in social media works, especially on Twitter. It shows that you care for your customers and will interact with them. People like the quick access and personal touch inherent in Twitter.

Dell Case Study

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The Dell corporation is one of the, if not the largest, supplier of prebuilt computers in the USA. It reached this high point not only through hard work and systematization, but also through good customer support and customer satisfaction. In the latest move to increase customer satisfaction, the Dell corporation created several full time Twitter positions.

Currently Dell officially has at least 32 business and news accounts on Twitter (which you can see here) and even more individual personalized accounts. The official accounts are primarily for news, updates and deals.

In an InformationWeek post it was reported that Dell has earned over $3 million just from sales through Twitter, and that article was published back in June 2009. Imagine how much that has increased since then!

The personalized profiles are on a level of their own and do not bring in profit directly. They deal mostly with current customers and customer loyalty. The personal Twitter profiles of employees aren’t in the limelight today, but the unofficial tech support Twitter profiles are. These are a few customer service personnel from Dell on Twitter usually with the suffice “atDell”. These great people help people solve the problems which for whatever reasons cannot be fixed through normal channels.

This creates so much customer loyalty that is is almost mind boggling. Add this customer loyalty to the huge following Dell has on all of it’s other profiles, and this gives Dell a very powerful marketing advantage.

Why You Should Use Twitter For Your Business

If the large corporations think Twitter is a good business venue, it’s a sure bet that it is also something you want to do. Today’s society is online most of the time and Twitter will help you get known.

Whether your business is a small brick and mortar store or a website, it can greatly benefit from Twitter. Imagine if you owned a small local flower shop, and you were the first one in your neighborhood to jump on Twitter. You could find local businesses to connect with or even find people in your area who are searching for flowers. You could then send them messages about awesome deals or just list promotions you are running. For an online business there are even more possibilities since anyone who talks about a particular topic is a possible customer. All that is left is for you to connect with them.

How To Use Twitter For Your Business

The most common way of using Twitter for business is to use it to post updates. Most likely your business has some sort of blog, so it’s easily possible to automatically send Twitter updates with each new blog post by using Twitter Tools (if it’s a WordPress blog). Even if your business does not have a blog, you can post:

Business updates
Daily/Weekly/Monthly Promotions
Sales updates
Deal of the Day/Month/Week
Website News
Local Niche news
General niche information or news

Another great use for your business is communication. Find other businesses in your niche and connect with them. Talk to them, get your name out and be friendly. There are two simple ways to find people in your niche. The first is to search using the Twitter Search function.

Here you can search for specific terms or keywords such as “flower shop” or even “#flowers”. You are bound to find people talking about your topic. It’s also possible to use the advanced localized searches.

Another great way to search Twitter is to use the People Search feature.

Search for a topic name, such a “flowers” and you are bound to find someone with a ‘flower’ in their name or description.

Another great source of niche information for Twitter is a Twitter Directory. This is a directory of users who have registered themselves in such directories under those specific topics and niches. This is a great way to find people in a specific niche and even by location.

All of this will help you not only connect with others with like minds, but it will also help you create a brand following. The more people whom you interact with and help, the more they will follow you and see you as an authority on your niche. Don’t just put information ‘out there’ though, listen to what people are saying and try to solve their problems. The more you listen and the more you help others, the more they will trust you and will be more likely to recommend you and your business to their friends.

So go out and make Twitter friends. It’s bound to give you one of the best ROIs around, especially since Twitter is a completely free tool!

15 Free Twitter Tools That Work For You!

by The Web Squeeze on July 14, 2010 in Articles with No comments

Twitter is probably something you use both in work and private. This free service has made a revolution in the world of Social Media since it’s birth back in 2006. Twitter can be so easy, but can also get a bit complicated once you start handling several accounts, thousands of followers and so on.

In this article I’ve rounded up 15 of my favorite Twitter-tools to help you get more out of this service. I am personally on Twitter daily, connecting with potential clients, friends, promoting articles and so on. All of this quickly takes up a lot of your time, but it can pay you back in many ways.

When it comes to clients for actually managing Twitter itself, the options are many. My favorite is the adobe air-based TweetDeck that I’ve used for over a year now. The options are many though, so you should check out a few of them to see which one you feel fits your style the best. What’s best for me, doesn’t have to be what’s best for you. To help you get started, here are some of the more known ones: TweetDeck, Hootsuite, Twhirl, Twitterrific, Tweetie, Seesmic.

Now, let’s get started with the Tools I wanted to show you!

1. Twitterfeed

It’s probably no coincidence that over 2000 Twitter users sign up for this service on a daily basis. This tool helps you publish your RSS Feed to Twitter or Facebook. How your feed appears is highly customizable – and it all takes only a minute or two to set up. Many people think this is the best way to combine RSS with Twitter. It’s a great tool for making sure your new posts get out there or even add the feed to your favorite news site. Many options. Big plus for all the options on how to customize.

Check it out to see if you agree!

2. Friend or follow

Once you start getting a decent amount of followers, it can be easy to loose track of things. This tool let’s you manage your contacts a lot easier. It’s really easy: enter your screen name and find out who’s following you that you don’t follow back – and vice versa.

3. Twit cleaner

A bit similar to the previous one, but this takes it all a step further if needed. See who appears to be spammers, bots and so on. This tool digs through all you’re following and gives you a report. Very useful to clean up your stream of tweets to focus on the info you actually want to get.

4. TweetStats

Considered one of the top analytic tools. Shows various stats related to the frequency of your tweeting. If you’re just a “normal” tweeter it won’t be groundbreaking but if you want to see some actual stats and use them – this is a good choice!

5. BackTweets

Great tool to search for links. Find out who’s actually linked to your website/posts. Can prove useful for bloggers and business owners.

6. UnTweeps

Find out which of the people you follow that haven’t updated for a long time and get rid of them with a click. BUT be aware that it can only be used 3 times a month for free. Still quite valuable if you have many users and want to drop the dead weight.

7. Tweepi

Great free tool to find the most interactive people to follow plus unfollow those that don’t interact or spam and so on. Find those who best match your interests. Clean up your account and refresh it with some new users. The tool is currently “very much a beta” but seems to work really well currently.

8. DoesFollow

If you want to see if one specific person follows another specific person, this is the tool to use. Easy and simple – just like it should be!

9. StopTweet

Great one to get spammers and bots out of your time-line.

10. Topify

If you use Twitter a lot, this one could come in handy for you. Manage followers, reply to direct messages and follow people back – all from your email! These are features that many people think should have been included in Twitter to begin, with but they’re not.

11. TwitPay

TwitPay uses Twitter and your PayPal account to pay someone. Maybe not the type of payment that you’d be comfortable paying for anything with (as it sends out a message), but it’s great for fundraisers. A campaign to have people tweet to give money for Haiti, raised millions.

12. Qwitter

Twitter let’s you know when you’ve gained new followers – but not when you’ve lost any. That’s where this tool comes in handy. In the long run it could be interesting to know after which of your tweets people stop following you. This tool will notify you of that via a mail-address of your choice.

13. TweetCube

This let’s you share files of max 10mb on Twitter and is quite handy for many people. Images, videos or an mp3 of you singing along to your favorite song? It’s all possible with TweetCube.

14. Twittermail (by twittercounter)

E-mail your secret TwitterMail address. The body of the message will be published in your profile. If anyone send you a @reply it will be sent to your email address. You can also post images via mail.

15. Twuffer

Compose a list of future tweets and schedule them. Can be very handy if you want to schedule #FollowFriday, birthday greetings or any other tweets.

Those were our 15 picks. There are hundreds of other free tools out there to make your Twitter-life a bit easier. We hope these can help you get a better view of what’s going on and save you some time in a busy schedule.

We’d also love to hear your comments, or maybe you have some other good tools to share with us?