Website feedback examples: good, bad and vague, with the fix for each

What makes feedback usable

Feedback you can act on has three parts, and the best clients give them without being asked.

• A location. Which page, which element. "The second heading" is a location. "The top bit" is nearly one. "The site" is not.
• An observation. What is there now, in the client's words. "The photo is of an office, not a warehouse."
• A reason or a wish. Why it matters or what they would prefer. "Our customers are warehouse managers and they will not see themselves in it."

Most feedback arrives with one of the three. The job of the reply is to get the other two, without making the client feel they did it wrong.

Good website feedback examples

These are the ones you want more of. Say thank you for them, specifically, and the client learns to send more.

1. "On the home page, the headline says 'end-to-end solutions.' We never say that. We say 'we pick, pack and ship.'" Location, observation, the fix in their own words. This is the gold standard.
2. "The photo at the top of the About page is a stock office. Our team is in high-vis in a warehouse. Can we use one of ours?" A wish with a reason, and an offer of the asset.
3. "On my phone the menu button is behind the chat widget, so I can't open it." A bug, with the device and the exact collision. Reproducible in one try.
4. "The pricing page lists the Studio plan first. Most people buy Starter; can Starter go first?" A business reason attached to a layout request.
5. "The contact form asks for a phone number before an email. Our customers hate giving phone numbers." Observation plus a reason you could not have known.
6. "The green on the buttons is lighter than the green in our logo. Logo is #1f7a4c." Specific, with the value. Takes two minutes to fix.
7. "Service page, third paragraph: this describes what we used to do. We stopped offering installs in 2024." A content correction with the fact.
8. "The testimonials are all from 2019. We have newer ones; I'll send three by Friday." A gap, a promise, a date.
9. "The footer says 'Auckland and Wellington.' We closed Wellington." Small, exact, done.
10. "I like it. The only thing I'd change is the hero image; it reads as a bank, not a bakery." Praise and one change, with the reason.

What they share: a noun. The photo, the headline, the menu button, the green. Feedback with a noun in it can be built.

Vague feedback, and what it usually means

Vague feedback is real feedback without a location. The client has a reaction and no word for it yet. The reply is a question that gives them one.

11. "Make it pop." Usually means contrast: the page reads flat to them. Reply: "Which part feels flat, the top of the home page or further down? And is it the colors or the size of things?" Nine times in ten the answer is the hero.
12. "It doesn't feel like us." Usually about photography or tone of voice, not layout. Reply: "Is it the pictures, the words, or the colors that feel off? Point me at one spot and I'll fix the pattern."
13. "Can it be more modern?" Usually means more white space, bigger type, fewer boxes. Reply: "Send me two sites you think of as modern and I'll show you what they have in common."
14. "It looks busy." Usually one section with too much in it. Reply: "Which section would you cut first if you had to?"
15. "Something's off on the About page." A real signal with no handle. Reply: "Read it out loud and tell me where you stumble." It works surprisingly often.
16. "The colors are wrong." Usually one color, not all of them. Reply: "Which one, and where do you see it most?"
17. "It needs to be more professional." Usually a font or a photo. Reply: "Is there a competitor's site that feels professional to you? I'll compare them side by side."
18. "I'm not sure about the layout." Usually the order of sections. Reply: "What do you want people to see first, second and third?"
19. "Can we make the logo bigger?" The famous one. Usually means the brand feels buried, not that the logo is small. Reply: "Let me try two things: the logo bigger, and the logo the same size with more space around it. You pick."
20. "Looks good, just a few tweaks." Followed by nothing. Reply: "Great. Pin the tweaks on the link so I don't guess, and I'll have them done by Thursday."

The pattern in every reply: narrow the location, offer a choice of two, name a date.

Off-target feedback, and how to steer it

Off-target feedback is about something the design cannot fix, or something that was decided earlier. It is still useful; it just belongs somewhere else.

21. "Our competitor has a chatbot. Can we have a chatbot?" A scope request dressed as feedback. Reply: "Happy to quote that as an add-on. For this round, is there anything on the pages as they are?"
22. "I showed it to my husband and he thinks the whole thing should be blue." A new reviewer arriving late with a new direction. Reply: "Blue is a bigger change than this round; let's note it for the next project. Is there anything you'd change yourself?"
23. "The site is slow." Often the staging server, or their office Wi-Fi. Reply: "Staging is on a slow box; the live site will be on a fast one. If a specific page feels slow, tell me which and I'll check it."
24. "I can't see it properly." Often an old browser or a tiny laptop. Reply: "What device are you on? Send me a screenshot and I'll see what you're seeing."
25. "Can we change the brief? I think we're targeting the wrong people." The most important thing they will say all project, and the design cannot answer it. Reply: "Yes, and that's a conversation, not a comment. Can we do twenty minutes tomorrow?"
26. "My brother-in-law does websites and he says WordPress is better." Reply: "He might be right for some sites. For yours we chose X because Y. Happy to walk through it on a call."
27. "I don't like the font." Sometimes about the brand font they approved in the logo. Reply: "That's your brand typeface from the guidelines. Is it the size, the weight, or the face itself?"
28. "Can you add our Instagram feed, a newsletter pop-up, a video on the home page and a blog?" Four scope items. Reply: "All possible. Which one matters most for launch? The rest go on the list for phase two."
29. "Just copy what [big brand] does." Reply: "Which part of it? Their hero, their menu, their checkout? I'll take the pattern, not the page."
30. "This isn't what I expected." The hardest one, and usually a gap between the brief and the design that nobody saw. Reply: "Tell me what you pictured, and I'll show you where we went a different way and why. Then we decide together."

How to get more of the good kind

The difference between the first ten examples and the rest is not the client. It is the container they were given.

• Review on the thing itself. When the client clicks the headline and types, the location comes for free. The email is where "make it pop" lives.
• Ask for a number. "Pin anything you'd change. Five pins is a great round." Permission to be brief is permission to be honest.
• Give a deadline, not an open window. "By Friday" gets the quick, specific pass. An open window gets the essay.
• Send the reviewer guide with the first link. One page on how to give feedback does more than any amount of coaching on a call. Ours is at For clients.
• Thank the specific ones. "That note about the warehouse photo was exactly right" is how clients learn what good looks like.

Questions people ask