A valuable aspect of your website is how well people respond to the site and remember it later. One of the best ways to distinguish how well your site accomplishes these important attributes and more is a critique. While it is great to have your mom, significant other and BFF take a look at your site and provide feedback, it is unlikely that any of your favorite people will be as honest and free with their critique as a total stranger. Not to mention, it is likely that those closest to you have inside knowledge about your company and/or website and will view the site with a well-intentioned but unavoidably biased eye. Lucky for us, there are a number of websites that offer solutions to this dilemma.
Pleasecritiqueme.com is a site run by a team of designers in North Carolina. They began critiquing sites via Twitter, but the 140 character limit soon became cumbersome and lead them to create this site. The designers have put together a careful list of critique guidelines, and each critique is made public on their blog. The critiques themselves are very well thought out and helpful; each one offers both positive feedback and constructive criticism, as well as any first impressions or general notes about the site. In addition to website critiques, Please Critique Me offers reviews of print designs as well.
Fivesecondtest.com offers “simple usability tests that help you measure the effectiveness of your designs.” The concept is simple and effective; when you visit the site you can make either a memory test or a click test. In a memory test the subject will spend five seconds viewing a screenshot of your design and when time is up write down five things that they remember. With a click test the subject will have five seconds to click on different areas of the site and when time is up label each area that they clicked on. Non-paying visitors to the site can receive up to five responses to each test. There are varying payment options as well, which allow you to see more results from your test.
In addition to creating tests with your designs, you can also earn ‘karma points’ by taking others’ tests. Karma points allow you to view more results on your own tests. Want to see the site in action? Take our test here! There is also a sister site to fivesecondtest.com, Navflow. Navflow.com “helps you improve your conversion rates by analysing how people navigate around your websites and applications.” Both sites are great resources for designers and business owners who want to see how their sites are perceived by others.
*Note: According to Angry Monkeys, the creators of fivesecondtest.com and navflow.com, significant changes to the two sites will be occurring at the end of July. Check out their blog for more info.
Not pixel perfect yet is a group of web designers from Czechoslovakia who have created a Facebook page where they conduct public website reviews. You simply submit your site via email and if chosen, the team will review your design and post their critique on the Facebook page. The advantage to this method of critique is the presence of not only the Czech team of web designers, but any other Facebook users who frequent the page as well. Community discussion can be a valuable tool when seeking an accurate perception of your design.
*Note: An obvious limitation here for those of us not well-versed in Czech is the language barrier. However Google Translate or the Chrome web browser will quickly eliminate this issue.
Constructive criticism and feedback are vital aspects of creating a well received and easy to use design. In addition to receiving helpful advice, critiquing others is also a great way to learn how you can improve your own work. This article cites several elements of a successful critique, including what not to do when providing feedback. By navigating and understanding the work of others, you can learn to look at your own designs with more objectivity and obtain a better understanding of your viewers’ experience.
You can also try out http://www.conceptfeedback.com – a website review community with public, private and expert feedback options.
Thanks Andrew, that looks like a great resource. I will definitely keep it in mind for future projects.