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How to give useful website feedback

By the HTMLAnnotate team14 November 20263 min read

Someone has sent you a website to review. This guide is for you, the reviewer. Five minutes of reading turns notes like "make it pop" into comments a designer can fix the same day. Agencies: send it along with your review links.

Before you start

• Know what this round is for. A first round is about structure and content. A late round is about polish. Ask if you aren't sure, so you don't spend an hour on wording that is still a first draft.
• Set aside one sitting. Feedback sent in one batch is easier to act on than ten emails over a week.
• Look at it the way a visitor would. Start at the top of the home page and click through like a first-time customer, then go back and look closely.

1. Point at the exact thing

"The section near the bottom" can mean three different things. If your review link lets you click the page to comment, click the heading, button or photo you mean and type there. The comment stays attached to it, so nobody has to guess.

2. One point per comment

A comment that says "fix the font, swap the photo and the phone number is wrong" is three jobs in one. Split it into three comments. Each can then be fixed, checked and marked done on its own, and nothing gets lost.

3. Say what you see, why it matters, and what you want

This is the whole trick. Most unclear feedback is missing one of the three.

4. Write the words you want

If the wording is wrong, suggest the exact new wording. Your designer can paste it in, and you get what you meant. Some review tools let you suggest a text edit right on the page, which shows the old and new words side by side.

5. Check it on your phone

Most visitors will see the site on a phone, and the layout there is different: menus fold away, columns stack and images crop. Open the review link on your phone, or switch the review page to its phone view, and leave those comments there so they don't get mixed up with desktop notes.

6. Mark what must change

Not every note is equal. Say which comments must be fixed before launch and which are ideas for later. "Must fix: the phone number is wrong" gets done first. "Nice to have: a photo of the team here" can wait.

7. Separate taste from facts

A wrong price, a broken link or a typo is a fact. A colour you don't love is taste, and that is fine to say, as long as you say why. If several people in your company are reviewing, agree among yourselves first, so the designer doesn't get two opposite instructions.

8. Approve it when you are happy

When the page is right, say so clearly. If your review link has an Approve button, press it. A clear approval lets the team move on, and it means everyone agrees which version went live.

A checklist for every review

• Click through the whole site once like a visitor before commenting.
• Every comment points at one exact thing.
• Each comment says what you see, why, and what you want.
• Wording changes include the new words.
• Prices, phone numbers, addresses and opening hours are checked.
• Every link and button goes where you expect.
• The site is checked on a phone.
• Must-fix comments are marked.
• You approved it, or said what is left.

For agencies: send this with your review links

Clients rarely know what good feedback looks like, and few were ever told. Link this page in the email that goes with your review link, or paste the checklist in. For the email itself, see how to get feedback on a website, and for the final step, getting client sign-off.

Questions