“It’s time, my child,” your boss tells you. You nod. Yes, it’s time to embark on a journey that’ll change your life. Again.
The goal? Creating a design the client likes.
You brace yourself. This unpredictable design review process is your oldest nemesis and you have the scars to prove it. But while you know how to beat it, there’s always a group of hydras that fight each other, never agreeing on something.
Fortunately, the design review process doesn’t have to be a heroic quest. Or feel like you’re diving into uncharted waters.
So, put aside your sword. We’ll teach you how to create better design review processes, how to avoid the most common challenges, and the best way to communicate feedback.
Table of Contents
What is a design review process?
7 steps of the design review process
How to communicate feedback with your design team
Common challenges you may face during the design review process
What is a design review process?
A design review process is a step-by-step strategy for collecting feedback on a product design.
It goes like this.
Designers present their ideas in a weekly design meeting. Or use a Slack channel. Or have a short survey. You name it. Team members provide feedback on it, find challenges, and suggest improvements.
After the meeting, designers work on the feedback. And apply it.
It’s easy! Like catching Pokemon (but with feedback).
But why should you use it? Because you want to test a new site. See if the users can breeze through the design. Or if a new functionality works.
The purpose of the review and approval process is to find problems in the current design or prototype. And fix them before launch.
It’s great for all design stages, from start to finish. And an important element of the product development process.
But, just like Pokemon, there are different types of design review processes. Let’s check the Pokedex.
Design review types
Alright. You want to test your product. Great! But how should you proceed? 🤔
Should you invite your team to dinner? Seems kinda informal…You’d mostly eat rather than talk. But you don’t want to do it in Slack, either.
What you’ll do depends on your company, your objectives, and the stage of your design project.
You have three types of product design reviews:
- Stakeholder design review—This type of review involves stakeholders, such as marketing teams, business leaders, art directors, etc. They’re mostly people who have an interest in the project and their purpose is to evaluate the design.
If you forget about them…
Yikes! Don’t wanna think about it.
Their review is necessary before publishing anything. Why? Because the design has to meet the expectations and requirements of all the stakeholders since it might influence the funding or direction of the project.
- Peer design review—You know the saying, You should never meet your heroes. In this case, you should! Like a pupil looking up at their sensei, ask the opinion of other designers.
Other designers, even if they’re not involved in the project, can provide valuable insight since they have the relevant expertise.
By sharing a kernel of their infinite wisdom, you can get an outsider view of your design, so it meets project standards, best practices, and requirements. It also helps you catch errors, identify improvements, and make sure the design is high quality.
It’s totally optional, though! And be careful of bias.
- Customer design review—Who better to show you what’s what than your customers? These people will give honest feedback. Be prepared to take it, as they can review anything, from marketing headlines to whether they can easily find the menu.
Basically, this process involves asking feedback from clients and making sure the design aligns with their expectations. Aspects people care about are functionality, usability, and aesthetics. The purpose is to identify and address any potential issues early on to create the perfect design.
Picking people’s brains will ensure your design aligns with your goals and milestones.
But enough of the bla bla. Let’s get physical!
7 steps of the design review process
Getting feedback is key to improving your design, but it can get overwhelming without the right structure.
While it’s great to gather different opinions, managing and organizing feedback is essential. Too many conflicting comments can derail your review process and cause confusion.
To avoid this scenario, use a structured approach to collect feedback. Here’s how to streamline the process and stay on track:
1. Define scope and objectives
Every quest in a video game has a purpose.
You must rescue a princess. You have to avenge your surrogate father during a zombie apocalypse. Or you’re just a friendly neighborhood spider trying to save a city from bad guys.
Your design review process should have an objective, too. Think about what you’re trying to achieve. Which aspects of your design do you want to test? And why?
You can start by thinking about the type of feedback you want to gather.
Do you want to improve the user workflow? Then, ask your fellow peers. But if you want to see how people reach a certain page, ask your customers.
2. Select review team
You know that one scene in the movie Avengers: Endgame? Where Captain America yelled, “Avengers, assemble!”. And everyone came to fight Thanos?
It’s your time to shine. You’re the Captain America of your review team. And you should gather your superheroes in one place.
Now it’s time to think about who needs to see the design and who approves the final draft.
Your team should have people with different skills. There are the designers, of course, people who draft the design and add visual elements that make it great. But you also have web developers who bring your project to life by coding and publishing it live. Or usability experts who make sure your site is easy to use by navigating every nook and cranny and ensuring it’s accessible to everyone.
Oh, and don’t forget about the stakeholders, such as project managers, who fund the project and have the final say.
You must also include any external reviewer, such as other designers, as they can give an objective view of the project and identify errors or improvement areas.
3. Prepare for the review
You’re one step away from the actual meeting. And you’re nervous. Your palms are sweaty. Mom’s spaghetti. Yada yada.
But you shouldn’t be anxious. You got this in the bag! 😉
To boost your confidence, take a few moments to prepare:
- Gather materials: Ensure you have all the necessary materials ready. Are your files working correctly? Avoid any technical mishaps during the meeting.
- Check the cookies: Just kidding! But make sure everything you need is in place.
- Review your info: Double-check the project timeline and your goals. Make sure your presentation includes background info, user personas, the site plan, and other essential details.
By taking these steps, you’ll be well-prepared and ready to impress in your review meeting.
4. Conduct group review and collect feedback
Come on! Don’t just stand there! Everyone’s looking at you. Say something!
But you’re disheartened. Not everyone joined the meeting. The reason? They don’t have the time to attend in person.
You wanted everyone to get excited about your design.
But it flopped…
It’s gonna be okay, though. You know better now.
Besides, doing a live meeting takes a loooot of time. Sharing your screen. Walking people through the design. The Q&A session. Collecting feedback from everyone. The discussions…
It’s time-consuming. But if it’s your cup of tea, go for it!
Although we do have a better solution. MarkUp.io.
You need a centralized place to gather client, user, and peer feedback. It’s easier for everyone to discuss issues and agree on a final design. So, simply upload the content on the platform and invite users to leave their comments on the design.
With MarkUp’s newest features (status, sign-off, and approval), the process is even easier than before. Since everyone clearly sees your project’s status, you’ll have a smoother transition from feedback to final approval. But it also adds an extra layer of accountability for your team.
In a nutshell, you foster collaboration and bring your teams together. But we’ll chat more about MarkUp.io later.
Promise. 🤞
5. Conduct usability testing (if applicable)
You have the best design ever. With the cutest animations. The perfect color harmony. Riveting text that attracts users.
It has every ingredient for a good website.
Yet no one stays more than a couple of seconds on it. You try to understand why.
Another designer points out the problem. You forgot to think about the user experience. And it’s usability. The result? Your site is hard to navigate. No one can understand what’s going on.
Next time, evaluate your product or service through a usability test. During it, the test participants complete tasks like reaching a specific page.
Meanwhile, a moderator watches and takes notes.
You have three usability testing methods:
- Quantitative or qualitative: This relates to the type of data you can collect.
Quantitative is about numbers. It evaluates how a product performs. Example: the percentage of users misclicking a button.
Qualitative data focuses on why users performed that action. It helps understand their behavior.
- In-person or remote: This concerns the test venue.
In-person means having the test in an environment you control. You collect more in-depth feedback.
Remote testing goes where the tester is. It’s more convenient, flexible, and relaxed.
- Moderated or unmoderated: Do you want people observing the test or not?
Moderated testing means having a person observe the users. And help them complete tasks.
Unmoderated testing leaves participants to test the product at their own pace.
Tip: Make sure you create the best designs by ticking all the boxes on this usability testing checklist.
6. Implement changes
Something’s missing. But I don’t know what.
It’s not what I had in mind.
It needs to POP!
Make it better.
You’ve heard feedback like this before. And it’s disheartening. You thought the client would like your design. But hearing it like this…
There’s a difference between constructive criticism and plain bad feedback. The second one is vague and directionless. How can you act on it?
You might not get such comments all the time. Sometimes, you get good, actionable feedback. During this step, you have to resolve both types.
Assign the tasks to different people in your team. So you can tackle the issues from all sides.
Then, you can send the draft for a final design review session.
💡Tip: Arrange the items by urgency and priority. Focus on the big stuff. And leave the small issues for later.
7. Document the final design
If you’re naturally disorganized, we have bad news for you. 😬
The final step of any design review process is to keep your files organized. And document every change you (and others) make.
This also means keeping track of your versions. It’s slightly challenging to do. Why? Because the project involves many people. And each makes revisions when they feel like it.
As a result, you have a new version every time someone resolves a comment.
Use approval-workflow software to make your life easier. Like Zapier. These tools usually give users notifications when someone changes something.
Archive the documentation for future reference. And voila! You’re done!
Tip: Track the progress of your design with this template.
***
Following these review guidelines will help you craft high-quality designs.
But people communicate differently. Let’s show you the secrets for keeping everyone in the loop.
How to communicate feedback with your design team
During a design feedback process, your communication should be as clear as day. That’s why you need a good feedback tool — a single place where your review team can leave their thoughts.
We hope you didn’t forget about your friend, MarkUp.io.
Simply go to our homepage. Click the signup button in the top right corner like so.
Have you created your account? Good! From the main dashboard, enter your file’s URL. Drag and drop it. Or upload it directly from your media library.
The next step is to click on the file. And open it.
Share your file with the team. All they need to do to leave a comment is click wherever they like.
It’s that easy!
Curious to try it?
Sign up for a free 30-day trial today. We have cookies. 😉
But as with any quest, you have obstacles to overcome. Monsters to slay.
Let’s see what these enemies are in the design review process.
Common challenges you may face during the design review process
Your worst enemies have a name.
The first one is keeping track of your feedback. When you involve too many people in the project, it gets messy. People have different opinions about anything. And they’re not always worth listening to.
It leads to confusion. And most importantly, delays. MarkUp.io can help you with this.
Another enemy is adding new features. It doesn’t sound like a bad thing. But we’re talking about unplanned changes. Your team never agreed upon them at the beginning.
It results in increased costs and complexity. And your project will stretch into an endless back-and-forth. Try to stick to your guns.
Last but not least, it’s subjectivity. We know how tempting it is to correct a glaring issue in the design.
But you’re not the target audience. You shouldn’t just state your opinion. Base your criticism on design guidelines and principles.
Aurora Harley, Senior UX Specialist at NNgroup, tells it best in this video.
Paying attention to these aspects will take your design review process to new heights. 🚀
Ready to level up your design reviews?
Done and done! 👏
You’re ready to draft your design now. And host your first preliminary design review session. For real, this time.
Grab your whiteboard. And create your battle plan.
Remember to take MarkUp.io on this adventure. What if Frodo forgot to take Sam on his journey to Mordor? Middle-earth would be doomed.
Plus, MarkUp.io supports over 30 different file formats. Websites, images, PDFs. Even videos.
We have everything you need in our Hobbit bag. Even the second breakfast.
As long as Sméagol doesn’t tempt you, you can overcome any obstacle in your way.
So, what do you say? Sign up for this adventure today.
