How to Incorporate User Feedback into Your Design Process

Nothing helps UX designers more than constructive feedback. It helps them to highlight the areas that need improvement. When designers have been working on a project for far too long, they can develop an oversight of the flaws! Feedback helps them keep their progress in check!

User reviews and feedback assist with the user’s business goals, improve the user experience and improve usability and business value. Incorporating feedback can encourage more outcomes and user-focused designs.

Understanding Feedback

It is essential to understand the reviews and feedback you are receiving and from whom it is it relevant.

This will help you better understand between positive and negative feedback and what details and information you are going to use to make decisions.

Techniques for Eliminating Great Design Feedback

Asking the right stakeholder questions

Asking the correct questions is essential when trying to get input from people. Rather than asking broad questions such as “What do you think of this design?” Ask more detailed questions about your design objectives to help your reviewers.

For example, asking, “Do you think we have prioritized the primary and secondary navigation appropriately?” or “Does the color scheme evoke the emotions we’re aiming for in our target audience?”
These pointed questions will encourage more targeted, actionable responses that you can incorporate into your designs.

Using open-ended questions

Asking open-ended questions can be an effective way to get input from and users. Open-ended questions encourage users to communicate their thoughts, feelings, and ideas in detail, compared to closed questions that only accept yes or no answers.

For instance, you may inquire, “How does this feature X help you?” as opposed to, “Do you like feature X?” You may improve your design by learning more about users’ requirements and experiences by letting them openly share their opinions.

Setting clear expectations

When designers set out their objectives and goals clearly, input is more valuable. Ensure that you are clear about the type of feedback you need and when you need it.

Addressing something like, “I’m looking for feedback on the overall layout and color scheme by the close of business the next day,” might be suitable if you’re just beginning the design process.

Reviewers are therefore better equipped to respond more thoughtfully and promptly as they are aware of the scope and urgency of the comments.

Design Feedback Framework

Here is a basic design feedback framework that designers can apply to users and stakeholders.

Step 1: Set your feedback goal

First, it is important to identify the goal and the purpose before you start. Which features of your design are you focusing on? Is it aesthetic, functional, or usable? Are you interested in how well your design matches your targeted consumer’s expectations?

By creating clear feedback goals, you can guide the direction, ask the right questions, and make sure your responses are actionable and meaningful.

Step 2: Determine who you should ask for feedback

It’s important to choose the right audience for your feedback session.

For instance, you would have to ask members of a particular user group to participate in a usability question, whereas an engineering participant would be needed to provide feedback on a technical question.

In certain cases, you might require a range of feedback to make sure your solution satisfies a variety of objectives.

Finding the right people to talk to and questions to ask is crucial to getting input that can advance your project and help you achieve user and commercial objectives.

Step 3: Collect feedback

It’s time to gather feedback once you’ve defined your objectives and target audience. One-on-one interviews, group workshops, or digital technologies like remote feedback collecting can all be used to accomplish this.

Remember to provide an inviting platform for consumers and other interested parties to voice their opinions, whether it be in person or virtually. Make sure your questions have the flexibility to promote thoughtful responses.

Step 4: Organize responses

After a feedback session, you’ll frequently have a ton of data and UX assets.

For instance, a single 30-minute interview will result in multiple transcript pages, a report, a video, and notes. To make it simple for team members to retrieve and examine the data, you must arrange and store it.

You must arrange and classify the input into areas such as functionality, ease of use, design, technical, etc. to make sense of it all.

You will find it easier to evaluate and order the feedback after completing this step.

Condens, Dovetail, and Productboard are a few examples of systems that UX researchers frequently utilize as asset repositories to distribute and organize data.

Step 5: Evaluate

After the feedback has been arranged, it’s time to conduct a fair examination of the data.

Pay attention to understanding the underlying ideas or issues that drive the shared experiences of users and stakeholders.

Seek out frequent issues or common themes as these can point out areas that need to be given priority.

Step 6: Prioritize

You might make a few changes after evaluating the feedback, but they are not all that significant.

Setting priorities for these modifications by how they will impact the project’s objectives and the overall user experience—as determined by the objectives you established in Step 1—is crucial.

The non-essential items might be added to the list for the product.

Step 7: Implement

It’s time to put the required adjustments into action now that you’ve determined which ones to prioritize.

For instance, users have requested that designers increase conversions by making the CTA stand out more. To start testing, the design team has to create models based on the feedback.

Step 8: Iterate and improve

After the changes are put into effect, the process is not over. Testing and evaluating these modifications with users and stakeholders is the next stage to see if they have improved the design.

Gather input on these revised versions, evaluate them, and, if required, make more adjustments.

Every iteration of the design process brings you one step closer to a design that satisfies user needs and corporate objectives.

Where can you implement user feedback into your product design process the most effectively?

1. Identify your measurements and goals

You need to define your goals and your methods of evaluation before you can begin collecting feedback from users.

What are your main concerns or obstacles that you hope your product can tackle or address? What are the primary features or advantages you want to provide to your users? How will you be able to tell whether or not your service or good meets the needs and demands of your users?

2. Choose your methods and tools

User feedback can be gathered using a wide range of methods and assets, such as surveys, focus groups, interviews, analysis, usability testing, reviews, ratings, comments, and social media, by incorporating third-party modules such as the Prestashop Review Module.

Every technique and technology has benefits and drawbacks that vary based on your objectives, resources, target market, and budget.

Selecting the techniques and resources that can give you accurate, pertinent, and useful feedback in addition to meeting your needs and goals is a wise decision.

It is vital to contemplate the frequency and consistency of gathering user input, as well as the methods for storing and organizing it.

3. Analyze and prioritize user feedback

Following the collection of user input, it is necessary to evaluate and rank it. To enhance the functioning and design of your product, search for possibilities, trends, patterns, and insights.

It is advisable to classify and identify the feedback based on its significance, immediacy, practicability, and influence.

User feedback can be analyzed and prioritized using a variety of methods and frameworks, including affinity diagrams, SWOT analysis, the Moscow approach, and the Kano model.

It is advisable to cross-check and authenticate the input obtained from other data sources, including industry standards, benchmarking, or analytics.

4. Implement and test user feedback

You must put user feedback into practice and test it after you’ve prioritized and studied it. A strategy and a roadmap for integrating user feedback into your product design process should be created.

You should interact and work together with users, consumers, and other team members during the entire procedure.

MVP (minimum viable product) growth, wiring, and prototyping are examples of agile and iterative methods that you should use to quickly and effectively incorporate and test feedback from customers.

5. Iterate and improve user feedback

Ultimately, you need to modify and improve user input in light of the findings and effects of your implementation and experiment.

After gathering fresh user input, you should evaluate, rank, apply, and retest the changes until you achieve the required degree of quality and satisfaction.

You should also put your findings, lessons learned, and ideas in writing and share them with your team members, stakeholders, and users.

In addition to recognizing and fixing your challenges and errors, you also ought to recognize and express gratitude for your achievements.

How do you manage user feedback and incorporate it into the design process?

Make sure you have a clear process for collecting and organizing user feedback. This will help ensure that feedback is properly documented and can be easily accessed by the team.

Make sure to involve the entire team in reviewing user feedback. This will help ensure that everyone is on the same page and that all voices are heard.

Take the time to evaluate user feedback carefully. Not all feedback will be equally valuable, so it’s important to take the time to consider each piece of feedback and its potential impact on the project.

Be willing to adjust your plan in response to customer input. The intention is to produce the best possible user experience, thus be open to changing the design if doing so will enhance the user’s overall experience.

Engage users in regular communication to gather their opinions on the design. This will make sure that both the project’s direction and the design are going in the appropriate directions and that users are satisfied with it.

About the Author!

Alan Joe is a professional digital marketer with over five years of professional experience in the industry. I am currently working for a PrestaShop development company, FME Modules, and striving to deliver engaging content across diverse industries.