17 Excellent Feedback Tools For Web Designers

Most of the developers avoid getting third-party feedback on their work, as they think it is frustrating and time consuming. However in actuality, feed-back is one of the most important part of a project and is the first step in improving your overall service and knowledge. This article includes some great feedback tools for web designers.

When you organize and gather feedback from users and experienced web designers around the web, it helps you develop new ideas, validate design selections and remove issues. Getting a fresh outside perspective, acts as quality assurance that can bring your projects to the next level.

There are different ways of getting feedback, from emailing back and forth to crowdsourcing, but they are very time consuming. Fortunately, there are a lot of tools which can help you get an outside perspective on your project from others easily.
In this article, we’ve arranged a collection of online tools and software, which will help you in receiving feedbacks about projects. These tools offer free design critiques as well as services related to usability testing. Some of these tools have extensive features but others are very simple and easy. Select the tool, which works well with your requirements and provides you well-organized feedbacks efficiently.

Please Critique Me / pleasecritiqueme.com

Please Critique Me, a web resource provided by web development firm OnWired, works for both web design projects and print design projects. It includes a panel of critics who are also designers. One of its design critics offers free design critiques. Members of its critics team include well known names like Sarah Parmenter, Chris Spooner, Grace Smith (a famous writer of Mashable),  and more.

This website offers a form, which allows you to submit your project URL along with comments you want to share. Then, your submission goes to one of its critics for a thorough review. After that, a comprehensive feedback is provided by them to the users, which they can use to improve their design. This website also provides valuable web design principles via reading a collection of critiques.

Five Second Test / fivesecondtest.com

As the name explains, it is fun and very easy to use. Five Second Test gives random reviewers the chance to evaluate the screen capture of your web design in five seconds. This evaluation can be completed in two ways: Click Test and Memory Test. Click Test allows reviewers to click on the most important stuff on the web page within five seconds, while Memory Test allows users to look at your web layout for five seconds, and then asks them to list whatever they could remember from the first impression. The main purpose of FST is to see how much memorable, prominent and visible design elements your user interface has.

Though, this tool is absolutely free, but is limited to only 5 tests. Paid options are also available that ranges between $20-200, provide designers the ability to add custom instructions when their design is presented to reviewers. Free tests are given lower priority, while paying tests are placed in the highest priority in the testing queue. Registered users are rewarded by karma points, which they can use later to promote their own tests.

Concept Feedback / conceptfeedback.com

Concept Feedback is a free web-based feedback community designed especially for small and medium entrepreneurs, business marketers, web developers and graphic designers. It requires members to post a concept like a logo, website, advertisement or any other, specify a purpose and start gathering positive and quality feedback on your projects from other members.

Each concept is rated on the basis of four points: Design, Originality, Purpose, and Engagement. All members are encouraged to offer high-quality constructive feedback via game mechanics like reputation points and achieving different ranks such as Titan or Elite. You can also upload sensitive concepts privately for co-worker or client review. Generally, feedback is sent within two working days, but it may be as fast as few hours depending on the type of concept posted for review.

Though, this service is free to join, but you’ve to review at least five other concepts before you can post your own. Premium services are also provided that costs up to $100 per month, which allows you upload your concept immediately and also promote it on Twitter.

UserTesting / usertesting.com

For $49, UserTesting.com allows you to gather feedback about your web design by conducting remote trials in a cost-effective way. It provides an excellent opportunity to find out the sticky areas on your site where your users may leave and identify the way to improve them.

Visitors go through your site via a video, and then they provide written reviews of the issues they have faced, while they visited your site. You can also select your users from targeted demographics, provide them a task list or set your questions, observe their screen activity as they navigate through your site and hear their voice about their experiences. You’ll get written answers to the questions and a usability test video, within one hour. Additionally, you can ask users follow-up questions you set.

Usabilla / usabilla.com

Usabilla is another web-based usability testing tool that provides visual feedback on your web pages, sketches, wireframes, mock-ups, or any other images. It is specifically designed to improve user experience and increase conversion on your site, either through visual surveys or feedback on a live website at any stage of the designing.

Usabilla uses a built-in annotation tool or other feature like feedback button in order to collect feedback from your visitors and measure the performance of specific tasks. It allows you know the on-screen activities of your visitors and also records the time the user takes to complete a particular task. You can use fully customized feedback button on your site by adding a small snippet of code, so people can rate an item on your site effectively.

Usabilla offers 14 days free trial, only for one web page that lets you add up to fifty members per test. Premium services charge between $49-199 per month and offers you the ability to use Usabilla on more than one page and add more participants.

Feedback Army / feedbackarmy.com

Feedback Army is a website usability testing service, which allows you to get feedback about your project in two minutes. Once you’ve submitted questions that you would like to be answered about your site, you’ll get 10 responses (with an option to increase up to 50) from their reviewers. Each review creates a new URL, which is used to see your results. Your link and questions are publicly available, as long as it takes for the experts to evaluate your design. After your site starts getting a specific number of responses, your link and questions are pulled. Generally, feedback requests are posted for 8 days, but you’ll typically able to view responses within 1-3 hours.

It also provides full control over your responses, with the facility to reject responses or request a new one. This feature is available only for 48 hours, because after that responses get approved automatically. For $20, you get 10 responses within one to three hours, that’s very good for quick feedbacks on your project.

Creattica /creattica.com

Creattica, a creation of the “Envato” network, is a great design gallery and inspirational imagery. It’s a community of top-notch designers who want to share a broad range of design projects and users who are seeking designers having different projects like graphics, logos, and photography.

It provides opportunity for creative design professionals to showcase their work. Anyone can submit their work for consideration, but not everyone will be accepted, as it doesn’t promote any particular submitter. Those who are chosen for their excellent work will be displayed as “featured” in the design gallery, which receives a lot of visitors daily. Featured items along with links to their sites will be available for view and voting on items is open to everyone. It may take a few days to display your work as featured, depending on the volume of designs submitted.

To submit your work for consideration or vote on other people’s work, you’ve to simply sign up for an account and then upload your work via Submit Form. Participation and Membership is absolutely free.

 Notable / notableapp.com

Notable is an excellent web-based feedback app designed specifically for a team of web developers. It allows you take any sketch, screenshot or wireframe and share notes on particular details with your team members. You can quickly provide feedback or suggest a better idea about the specific web pages.

Feedback can be visual or code-based. In visual feedback, the reviewer highlights a part of the web page and leaves a note attached to that specific part. While code based feedback asks the user to press the code key in order to bring up the source code for the page, and allow the reviewer to leave notes on any piece of code.

In addition, Notable also offers a plug-in for Firefox, by which you can give or receive feedback on any application or website without leaving the browser. Registration is required to use the Notable site. A free trial for 30 days allows up to 3 users, 1 workspace and up to 1GB of storage. Three types of paid plans – Basic, Plus, and Premium – are also offered by Notable, pricing $19, $49, and $99 per month respectively.

ProofHQ / proofhq.com

This ProofHQ is an online proofing tool dedicated towards professional designers that helps them to make more efficient the process of project proofing. It allows users to upload a concept like web design, print, or email and share it with team members, colleagues and clients, using a user-friendly markup interface.

It supports files of up to 1.3GB, so user can create a high-quality proof and large file previews with a few clicks, without attempting to share them on an FTP server or email them. It also features discussion threads, which allows users to have a continuous discussion on a particular issue.

ProofHQ provides free trial for 14 days. It also offers five paid plans – Micro, Duo, Team, Plus and Pro – pricing $17, $29, $49, $99 and $149 per month correspondingly.

ConceptShare / conceptshare.com

ConceptShare is a web-based collaboration tool for getting feedback from colleagues, team members and clients on projects. It’s a COM (Creative Operations Management) platform, which streamlines and structures review and approval workflows for creative teams, enterprise marketers and external stakeholders.

To gather feedback, users need to upload concepts that can be in the form of an image, video or flash file, a DWG file or a PDF file, comment on them, and mark them up. Every concept has a dedicated workspace, which is accessible only by authorized team members or clients related to the project.

The browser-based workspace application consists four items: the concept, a comments section, a chat box and a list of the team members. It also offers basic drawing tools for commenting and highlighting a particular portion of the project.
A 15 days free trial is offered by ConceptShare. Three paid membership options – Project, Group and Professional – are also available pricing $5, $25 and $50 respectively.

 Silverback / silverbackapp.com

Silverback, created by famous design consultancy “Clearleft”, is a guerrilla usability testing software built for developers and designers. It allows you capture screen activity, video the tester’s face and record their voice. You can also watch sessions within Silverback, control recording with the remote, set tasks and mark notable moments within a session, save selected tasks, sessions and highlights, and export them easily to QuickTime.

Silverback is a perfect choice for small business, as it is quick and inexpensive. It requires no setup, using hardware already in your Mac. It runs on Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Leopard, Mountain Lion and Lion with a built-in “iSight” webcam or some other option.

Silverback offers free 30 days trial of the software and charges $69.95 to upgrade it.

Verify / verifyapp.com

Verify, an application created by “Zurb”, lets you create tests, collect and analyze user feedback on screens or mockups. With the help this app, you can see how people feel about your design, what they remember after visiting your project, where they click on your website and much more. You can set up a Verify test on a screenshot, in less than three minutes.

Using one of numerous tests, you can gather specific, great-looking, actionable reports, and sort them by demographics. It also lets you download helpful, valuable and intuitive insights on your users’ expectations and reactions to your websites or apps. You can share your tests quickly with a public or a private link on Facebook or Twitter. Using the correct data provided by this application, your team members can make informed design decisions to increase user conversion on your site.

Verify provides eight ways to survey your apps and websites including linked test, annotate test, memory test, preference test, click test and more. It offers free 30 day trial with limited demographics and raw data. After 30 days have passed, the user has to upgrade for either Plus Plan ($9/month) or Premium Plan ($29/month).

Try My UI / trymyui.com

Try My UI lets you watch videos of genuine users who are using your site, to find out how you can improve your site. You can also hear what users think, what annoys or confuses them, and what they like, dislike or love about your site. It offers a simple, quick and economical usability testing service, using OpenHallway’s API.

To create a test, you’ve to sign up and provide a set of tasks you want users to perform on your website. After that, you’ll receive a narrated video of every user navigating your site, within one hour. Then you can see their screen, keystrokes and mouse movements and also hear what they read, view, do or think about your site. It also provides written answers to your questionnaire that you’ve created for your users, while starting the usability test.

Criticue / criticue.com

Criticue, a recently launched platform, helps you improve your existing as well as a new website or design concept by exchanging feedback. Your website has peer-reviewed by an intelligent community of startup founders, usability experts, entrepreneurs, and web designers. It provides a confidential and free service, which is based on one-for-one feedback exchange. In order to receive a review of your site, you need to review another site.

To submit your site, you’ve to enter your site URL. Criticue captures a snapshot of your web page automatically. You can also upload your own snapshot, if you captured it manually. Then review another website or design, and provide a brief feedback and tips related to optimization and usability. After that, you’ll get feedback on your design from your peers. You can use the ideas, suggestions and tips to improve your site, refine design concepts or boost traffic.

Userlytics / userlytics.com

Userlytics provides user insight using in-depth interviews and usability testing. It lets you monitor your customers, who are navigating on your website, concept or prototype in real time. You can find out what your customers think, what and why they do, how they interact and react to your website. It also offers Remote User Experience Testing, by which you can know why your users don’t convert the way you like, how they find you or your competition, how they respond to your landing page and advertisements.

To start up your test, you need to provide a list of tasks and questions. You can start your test either by creating your own template or using a number of pre-defined templates. Then Userlytics will supply you participants from their panel, according to your specific demographic requirements. You can also hire participants yourself, by using the Userlytics customizable invitation widget, by using Mechanical Turk, TaskRabbit or Craigslist, by posting a link they give you on twitter or other websites, or by using a third party participant panel provider. After that, you’ll start receiving results within a few hours, which you can download or share with your colleagues.

Userlytics monthly subscription starts from $39 that includes one free test per month and up to 10 post recording survey questions per test.

UserVoice / uservoice.com

UserVoice is a feedback application, which helps website owners understand their users and stay in touch with them. It’s a great tool to improve communication between business owners and their customers.

It has three core product components: Feedback Forums, Support Ticket System, and a Knowledge Base. Feedback Forums are used to understand the ideas of customers, Support Ticket System is used to track and react to customer support requests, while Knowledge Base help users find the information they require to answer common questions.

You can obtain feedback about your website or design by adding UserVoice to your site and allowing users to vote on existing ideas and post new ideas. This application also provides an efficient help desk, through which customers can submit tickets if they face any problem related to any service or product.

UserVoice provides a free plan which contains only essential tools to get started. It also offers three types of paid plans: Standard ($20/month), Enhanced ($55/month) and Pro ($95/month). You can try any of these three paid plans free for 30 days.

NoteBox / noteboxapp.com

NoteBox, created by KC Web Design, is an online application developed especially for designers to request and manage feedback on their designs from the users, clients and experts. To gather feedback about your website or design, you need to upload a GIF, JPEG, PNG, PDF or any other graphics file and add notes to your design. Once you’ve uploaded your image, you’ll get a link from NoteBox, which you can share with your clients. Invited clients will be able to review your design and add their suggestions in the form of notes. Each time, when a note is added, the users will receive an email notification regarding checking the updates.

A free 30 days trial of this service is available for the new users. After 30 days have passed, they must choose one of these two membership plans: Notebox Lite ($5 per month) and Notebox Stacked ($10 per month).

Tool	Type	Trial	Free	Paid Plan
Please Critique Me	Web Based	x	yes	x
Five Second Test	Web Based	x	Limited to only five tests	Ranges between $20-200
Concept Feedback	Web Based	x	yes	Costs up to $100 per month
UserTesting	Web Based	x	x	Starts from $49
Usabilla	Web Based	14 days, only for one web page	x	Charges between $49-199
Feedback Army	Web Based	x	x	Costs $20 for 10 responses
Creattica	Web Based	x	yes	x
Notable	Web Based	30 days	x	Costs between $19-99
ProofHQ	Web Based	14 days	x	Pricing between $17-149
ConceptShare	Web Based	15 days	x	Costs between $5-50
Silverback	Runs on Mac OS X	30 days	x	Costs 69.95 to upgrade
Verify	Web Based	30 days	x	Costs between $9-29 per month
Try My UI	Web Based	x	For first user test	Costs $35 per test result
Criticue	Web Based	x	yes	x
Userlytics	Web Based	x	x	Monthly subscription starts from $39
UserVoice	Web Based	30 days, for paid plans	yes	Pricing between $20-95
NoteBox	Web Based	30 days	x	Costs between $5-10

Hope, you’ll find above list of 20 feedback tools very helpful. Try these tools to improve your project, whether you are going to create a brand new concept or have an existing website. Using these tools, you’ll get a much more user-friendly and successful project on your hands.

If you have any idea, suggestion or any other tool related to feedback and usability testing, please share them in the comments section given below.