Asking for feedback

Sketches like the Mitchell & Webb one above resonate with many designers. At some point in your career you’ve had a moment where you proudly present the result of many months work, only to hear “Well blue isn’t really a favourite colour of mine, can we try something stronger?” or “Just putting this out there: our competitors uses five dropdowns and we only have three…“.

Those pesky clients, it’s as if they don’t know the type of feedback us designers want. You’d swear that this was the first in-depth design project they’d ever worked on, right? Have they forgotten everything they learned in design school?

Good feedback is part of the job

It’s tempting to blame your client for getting useless feedback, but it’s not always correct. Clients aren’t naturally equipped to assess whether a given wireframe, or photoshop composition meets their needs, especially not if this is their first significant design project.

Every time in my career that I’ve gotten useless feedback it has always been because I hadn’t asked for anything more. Attaching a file to an email and asking for any thoughts the client may have is a sure way to get any thoughts that the client may have.

Explaining yourself

It can be quite frustrating, but you simply have to explain your process to clients. There has been a lot of discussion about whether clients should have to understand the processes, I believe it they do. A client is not equipped to critique a deliverable unless they understand what it shows, what assumptions you’re making, why you designed it that way, and what influence this deliverable has in the next steps in the process.

This cuts both ways. If a client approves things with only a cursory glance, it’s a sure sign that they either don’t understand the deliverable, or they don’t understand their own business and its goals. Either way, you will pay the price at some point, and changes will cost a lot more then.

Yes, there are truly irrational people you can’t help, who will stomp their feet and pout until they get three sidebars and 4 shades of red, but they are the exception.

Successful projects rely on good feedback, and part of the process is making sure you get it.