Gathering Feedback from Clients and Potential Users

You should be collecting feedback at at least two points of the development process.

Firstly, once you have created an initial design, you should show this to the client(s) and a representative selection of users. This feedback should be used to improve the design.

Secondly, after you have created your product, you should consider this to be a beta product, and as such, there is likely to be room for improvement. Again, show this to the client(s) and a group of representative end-users, and collect their feedback. Based on this, you should then be able to make improvements to the product.

Methods of collecting feedback

The simplest way is to show the design or product, and construct a simple questionnaire. Your questionnaire should contain enough detail to be confident that you are verifying:

• Target audience has correctly been identified
• Required content is included
• Any specifications are incorporated
• Usability is considered at least adequate (at design stage; product should be fully usable after creation)

All feedback should be dated – and retained – so that it can be included in your final submissions. If this was a real-world project, the feedback would be vital in allowing a client to sign-off the project as complete (user acceptance).