In the design world, the struggle involved with making website changes has always been real. With the endless emails and screenshots, valuable information and discussions get buried into long threads and managing feedback on the live website becomes a nightmare for the design team.
Either the client is not able to convey the exact change or the designer is not able to interpret the exact requirement while working remotely.
In fact, the project manager and other stakeholders could be at different location and trying to keep everyone updated creating more chaos and confusion.
It could take forever this way for all people involved in the process to agree to the way their website looks and even one of them losing context leads to paying a big price.
Sounds like making even a single design change in your website could be such an ordeal doesn’t it?
Well traditionally it maybe so, but with increasing number of parallel projects running, design teams really need a website feedback collaboration tool. In fact, you might be using one right now- may be as traditional as screenshot and email. With new tools coming into the UX market, there’s been remarkable improvement in efficiency and a whole lot of time saved when collaborating over website feedback.
If you are a designer working on web based projects, you should definitely check out these 5 website feedback collaboration tools:
1. Usersnap
Usersnap has more than 20 integrations. It provides visual and annotated feedback through screenshots of the current browser and delivers it to the project management tool or bug tracker.
Apart from integrating with several project management tools, it also integrates with web development tools like wordpress,Intercom, Zendesk etc. Just like TrackDuck you can insert code snippet or use it as a browser extension. Its extensive integration options has made it one of the most reliable tools, from Google to Facebook it has converted the biggest names into customers.
Price: free trial, 69$ upto 329$ / month
Platform: websites, mockups
2. Visual Inspector
The Visual Inspector is popular free chrome plugin for designers to make temporary edit on live webpage, add comments and invite stakeholders to review changes.
Last month alone, 32,000 designers around the world used Visual Inspector to collaborate website feedback on over 1.7 Million web pages.
Designers can inspect and change design properties and text without any coding required.
A URL of the changed page is directly generated to be shared with stakeholders. You can also annotate and comment at the point where the change is made so that the rest of the team can view these comments and reply to them. It is chrome extension and real-time feedback is provided.
Here’s 1-minute video on how quick & easy website collaboration becomes with Visual Inspector.
A fairly intuitive and powerful tool for web development and designing companies. Absolutely no third party tool is required to view the changes or anything else.
Pro-tip: Visual Inspector also lets you inspect/edit design and text changes, annotate changes and collaborate with stakeholders to fix design issues faster.
Price: 5$/month
Platform: websites, web apps
3. TrackDuck
Yet another visual feedback and tracking solution,
TrackDuck has an extension option for Chrome, Firefox and Safari. You can make annotations using one of these extensions or embed a code snippet into the website. Hierarchical roles can be assigned to the collaborators of the project like administrator, contributor or reporter. Recording of snapshots and technical details of the feedback provided. Feedback ranges from mockups to live websites. Numerous integrations like JIRA, Asana etc.
Price: 0$-29$/month
Platform: websites, mockups
4. zipBoard
zipBoard is a bug tracking and visual feedback tool. It is like a whiteboard on your website. Used to annotate, comment and share feedback remotely. You can use it to either build a new product or iterate over an existing one to add features. You can send screenshots and assign tasks while developing webpage/webapp. zipBoard is a big hit with the E-learning community since they can upload their SCORM files keep track on them using annotations. It integrates with JIRA and Slack.
Price: 0–59$ /month
Platform: website, web-app,E-learning
5. PojectHuddle
ProjectHuddle is a premium wordpress plugin to easily get client feedback and project approval directly on your live project. You can customize projects to match your brands and it’s a great platform to get opinion on mockups, photography, branding, ads etc. After you create a new project just upload any image and start annotating and receiving feedback on it. It provides multiple image scrolling for comparison.It is best for those who work with multiple clients and work with projects that constantly change and need active approval. This plugin is essentially a twofold, it helps one create and build a mockup project or get feedback and make changes.
Price: Lite version- 59$ unlimited. (all features except approval and
versions)
Pro version- 89$ unlimited
Platform: website, webapps, mockup projects.
Summing up
Design companies who do not leverage feedback collaboration tools could be suffering from considerable amount of redundancy and frustration.
And this without even acknowledging the alternatives.
Not only do these tools help you come out of the vicious cycle of never ending iterations of making changes, they also help you deliver your website/project in a fast and efficient manner.
TLDR; Compare top 5 tools available in the market:
Saving time only leads to completing more projects in a lesser time-span and increasing your productivity. It’s a win-win for you and for your clients.
I hope I have given you the best of feedback collaboration without feeding you too much exhaustive information.
Do a comparison by trying out the free versions of these tools and check for yourself which suits you best.
Also I may have missed out a few of your favorite tools. Do mention down below what works best for you and what are your favorite features.
If you find this blog helpful, share it with your friends.
See you in comments section.
Holidays are coming! Spread the good news with your friends on Twitter. Gift them this awesome tool. They are surely going to thank you for this.
