Tools to test your design and get feedback
These days people have high expectations of digital products, so testing has never been more critical.
Feedback is essential for improving the quality of design in any project. To avoid miscommunication and meet clients' expectations and users' needs, designers must use precise and in-context comments and annotations.
This is where feedback tools come in handy, making it simple for reviewers to provide feedback on design files.
You may wonder why feedback is needed. Design is a process, not a solitary action. Only with multiple people's input can you ensure that a design serves its purpose and evolves into the best version. To achieve this high-quality standard, each design should go through at least one round of feedback and testing.
Feedback is a key tool that helps designers do their best job. But before diving into the tools, let's go over some of the core principles to keep in mind about design feedback.
Core principles of design feedback
Good design feedback points out how to fix the issue, improve the result, and avoid making the same mistake in future iterations.
Dig into the core of the problems in your decisions. If you don't get what the reviewer had in mind – ask more supporting questions until you understand why he gave such feedback and how you can apply it to your work.
Ask for the feedback yourself: in group chats, and design communities. Write a message or tweet to more experienced designers and genuinely ask them to comment on your work.
Feedback helps to shape reasonable expectations with the client. Before seeking the solution to the problem, dive into the client's business, ask a lot and clarify the details.
Before asking for feedback, give the reviewer more context. Ask to not only "look at the designs" but clarify what needs the most attention: typography, layout, colors, and interactions. This will make the feedback more direct.
Don't be afraid of feedback and criticism. Remember that the number of mistakes only tells about the effort you put in to find a solution to the problem and is not a characteristic of you as a person.
Tools to test your design and get feedback
Tools for design feedback make it easy for designers to share their work with reviewers and collect their inputs in one centralized place.
These platforms offer multiple features, including analytics and collaboration, that enable reviewers to leave precise feedback directly on the design.
Userback
Useback is created for designers, developers, PMs, and customer support teams to collect feedback and manage the progress of design tasks on the go.
A few of the core features are getting visual feedback on any web page, collecting video feedback from customers, tracking feedback, and enhanced commenting.
Helio
Hello is best known as a platform for managing users' feedback on design, product, and marketing. The platform provides quantitative and qualitative input generated by surveyed customers.
It's best for agencies and enterprises, has the demo account, and can uniquely target mobile and desktop users. It also has a very intuitive UI with ready-to-use features and offers funnel performance throughout filtering.
GoVisually
GoVisually is another feedback tool used mainly by designers and marketing teams. It allows uploading image files, PDFs, and even PSD files and is very affordable for freelancers.
It positions itself as a replacement for endless emails to help streamline creative content review and approval. You can share files with unlimited reviews and get feedback immediately. Each piece of feedback turns into a task list for the creator, which helps manage requests.
Sprig
Sprig helps ensure that every decision you make is research-informed. It allows teams to conduct research early and often throughout the product development process.
By targeting your actual users (based on who they are and what they do with your product), Sprig allows uncovering how your users really feel at every moment of their journey.
It's the best tool for designers because it connects seamlessly to Figma and allows for creating studies with your prototypes.
Maze
Maze allows you to test your prototypes with real users (using Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, and other design tools), gain insights and build better products with valuable feedback.
You can use it to run usability testing on Figma prototypes, create missions for users to complete, A/B test your designs to compare performance, and much more.
This is the best tool that suits all teams within an organization: from PMs and product designers to researchers and marketers.
Conclusion
Testing designs should not be a negotiable part of the product development journey. These days people have high expectations of digital products, so testing has never been more critical.
Each product might require a different set of features, so choose the best tool for your workflow. Hopefully, this list of options will help you find the perfect fit.