Week 1: MailChimp

when it comes to design, what makes people happy is feeling connected, smart, and creative. Illustration has that power to evoke people’s emotions and deliver that message. It can turn an average product into something unique that create a memorable style that will live long in the memory of the users.

MailChimp has an unapologetically wild visual style. The works they produce create an emotional connection between the user and their brand. Aim to establish a memorable human connection, not just a business partnership.

You can find more illustrations from Illustration UI, curated with love by BetterDesign. Thank you so much for reading. Enjoy your day!

We recently redesigned our Create a poll form. You can upload up to 10 designs to create an image poll, or simply create a text poll without images. It only takes 3 steps:

Step 1: Add a poll questions

Step 2: Add instruction (optional)

Step 3: Add images or text in the Option field

That’s it! You can set up the poll length or make it a private poll if you want, they are optional. You can find them in the “More Options” link.

How did we make this design decision?

We were exploring the best way for creating a new poll. We came with many different versions of design, the 2 designs below are the two that we couldn’t decide which one is better. So we created a poll: The winner is the one with outline.

Here are some comments from BetterDesign community:

“I way prefer the outline due to the fact that it looks like editable field. I just want to see how it is going to look like if a user uploads an image per option. Also, the label for “More Option” needs to be changed to something else so it won’t conflict with the design options” — Nirvaniar

“Option B is nice, but the outlined bullet points made me think they were radio buttons initially.” — Marshallbaltzell

“I think Option B Underline is a better approach because as the user starts to type in those form fields, the hint text moves up and becomes the title of that particular form field, whereas in option A as the user starts typing the hint text vanishes and we force the user to recall from his memomy what field is s/he filling” — Shadsahm

There is always room for us to improve the design. Shadsahm’s comment totally makes sense. We will take it into consideration.

If you’re an UI/UX designer that has difficulty to decide which design is better, feel free to create a poll with BetterDesign to test it and get feedback. Send an email to contact@betterdesign.io if you have any questions. Thank you so much for reading.

Any effective web design process needs to consist of testing, feedback and fine-tuning till the result meets all the set-out design goals. Online survey tools help to make sure that the feedback you receive is appropriate and also from an audience that can give you useful information.

Here are the eight of the best survey tools that we have chalked out for you that will meet your demands. Their results are reliable and fast, plus they offer a lot of functionality even in free versions.

Google form

Google keeps developing more tools to help developers, graphic designs and all technology professionals. Google Form is a free tool that is gaining a lot of popularity that allows you to create forms, quizzes etc. It lets you share a topic and allows others to participate in the topic. Not only that, it collects all the responses in a spreadsheet and allows summaries of the collected data using charts and graphs. You can easily use Google form through your personal Google account or with Google apps.

Survey Monkey

Survey monkey is well-known in the world of surveys and offers both free and paid plans. However, the features may differ according to the plan. Its paid plan contains a robust set of features and starts from $25 monthly.

It provides survey templates and skips logic. Its answers are validated with customizable survey links and design themes. It easily lets you export results to MS-Excel and pdf and allows custom branding. You can easily target the concerned people through this tool. It also provides an option to automatically collect customer words with permission to publish it. It also gives an option of employee reviews and lets you know in what page they are.

BetterDesign

It’s a new tool which as the name implies, helps you to make better design decisions and getting feedback using polls in the community. You can upload 2 to 4 designs to create an image poll, or simply create a text poll. Right now, BetterDesign is free-to-use tool.

It conducts surveys through polling. It has two poll options, one public and the other private. The public polling option allows anyone in the community to see the results and participate as long as they have an account. However, private polling allows only people with the given link or allowed to participate in it. Private polls are important when sharing a poll with a specific audience or team members.

Type form

TypeForm’s interface is well-designed and beautiful, reflecting the company’s slogan, “Asking questions should be easy, human, and beautiful.” It offers both free and paid services. Its paid plan starts from $25/ month to $240/ year. Its free plan allows unlimited questions and answering. It lets you design your own themes or templates and provides lots of pop-up options. It also lets you export data with basic reporting. It offers surveys, quizzes, order forms and lead generation.

Iterate

It mainly focuses on product feedbacks whether you are launching a test product or want to review an existing one. It gives the option to email your surveys to the intended audience. It offers three pricing plan, one is free and the other two are lite and pro starting from $9.99/month to $99/month respectively. It also offers custom pricing plan featuring multiple users, white label, and custom email domains.

Its free plan offers unlimited surveys with 1000 responses per month. Its design is customizable and lets you export data after analyzing results. It also lets you add images to your questions. It quickly labels and filters your results so you can see what trend it falls in when reviewing.

UsabilityHub

It offers four plans. Free, Basic, Pro and team. Free plan cost zero (of course) while basic, pro and team cost $79, $199 and $396 monthly, respectively. Its free plan offers individual access and UH branded test.

It offers different tests such as five-second test, click test, question test, navigation test and preference test. It easily lets the user choose the type of test which best suits their needs.

It also offers their own testers which cost $2.50 per tester while if you use yours, it’s free. It completely fulfills orders in few hours with classic designs. Their automated question answer and manual review ensure high-quality survey responses.

Zoho survey

It is another survey platform that offers three pricing model. One is free while other two $ 19 and $35 monthly. In the free version, it allows you unlimited surveys with 15 question and 150 responses for each survey.

You can easily share its results and allows email campaigns. You can also collect survey while offline and can easily upload them when you come live. It also allows surveys through mobile and lets the respondent be active anywhere. It offers different templates with 30+ languages with customizable themes. Its features like branching and logic allow the users to add follow up questions for more insight.

Survey Planet

It is a simple yet powerful online survey tool. It’s a free tool that allows various services. It has the option of custom themes with different languages and allows uploading images to the themes. It offers 100’s of pre-written questions that allow the users to efficiently choose the best ones without having to fret over making their own. It also provides branching option to the question and gives users the opportunity of free and unlimited surveys and responses.

Its pro version is $15 a month and it offers a lot of other extra features. With pro version, you can easily remove survey plant brandings also including printable survey results and question images.

Now you have a lot of option when it comes to choosing a survey tool that totally fits your need. But choosing the right one is not that simple. You would have to realize the main purpose of your survey and then choose the one that is right for your objective. Each tool offers its own advantages so prioritize your needs.

You may not need more than a few survey tools for your design decisions but depending on how large your project is, then you can get a survey plan that works for you.

When working on a design project, there will always be a time where you need feedback to make design decisions. Do you have different design options for your project and cannot decide which one is the best? Are you trying to look for a tool online and you cannot seem to find it?

Introducing BetterDesign Private Poll. This new feature allows you to test your design options using a private polling system with only those whose opinions matter to you; your team and audience. Private Poll will help you eliminate noise and skewing misleading opinions, ensuring that every opinion matters and you receive real feedback that counts. Testing your design with your team and creative audience just got a whole lot easier!

Private Poll comes with a lot of features designed to help simplify the process of making high quality and confident polls for your project decision-making process. These features include:

1. One poll can test up to four designs at once

2. Only specific people with the link can view, vote & comment

3. No sign-in required

4. Unlimited polls

5. Unlimited testers

6. Detailed poll feedback and result presentation

7. Completely free to use.

How it works

Private Poll let you make confident design decisions with your team and audience

1. Upload up to 4 images

You can upload 2 to 4 designs to create an image poll, or simply create a text poll. The UI will ask you to enter other details such as a poll question which states the opinion being asked for, the description of the poll being created to help people understand the context. After uploading up to 4 images to the poll, you confirm how long you want the poll to run for also. You can also add tags to make it easier to find your poll on the website.

2. Share link with your team or your users

Once your poll is completed, you can copy the link for your poll post which you can then share via different channels such as email, social media or just send to your friends and audience.

Only people with the link can view, vote & comment on your poll. No sign-in is required before a person can participate in the poll.

3. We present your results

We compile the vote results with detailed comments about user engagement, most popular opinion and other information. This poll results can be downloaded or viewed online.

How can I use Private Polls?

You can test logos, fonts, colors, icon, illustrations, layouts and more. Get feedback from other designers from your team or your users. Most of all, have some fun.

Visit BetterDesign and create your very first private poll today. Share with the people that you want to get feedback. We hope you will find it helpful.

BetterDesign is a social community where you can test all your design elements and get real-time opinions via polls and comments for free.

If you’re an UI/UX designer like us, you probably have to consistent make design decisions. Red or blue? Button one or Button two? Sometimes you need more than just your guts to let you know which design options work best for you. That’s where BetterDesign comes in. Imagine a community that helps you decide which of your idea works best.

Using simple and easy-to-create polls, you can fill in a form detailing what you want an opinion on. You can upload up to 4 images, copy or design elements you want the audience to view and give you feedback on. Publish and watch the reviews pour in in seconds.

Here are examples of polls created on BetterDesign and how they have helped users become better designers.

Test icons

Test logos

Test buttons

Test colors

Test layout

Test copy

There are countless factors that go into design. It’s difficult to make good design decisions purely based on gut feeling. Try to test as much as you can so you can make the best version of your work possible. Start testing your design today and have fun🤗!

There are three elements must converge at the same moment for an action to occur according to the BJ Fogg Behavior Model:

(1) Motivation: How much do you want to do it?

(2) Ability: How easy is it?

(3) Trigger: Is it the right moment?

Good Example 1: Post images on Facebook

Many people are addicted to Facebook without acknowledging it, that’s how good the Facebook design is. They know how to keep people stay and trigger people to create new content.

Motivation: Low. Either I forgot or I don’t want to post the images.

Ability: Easy to do. Facebook made it very easy to post images

Trigger: Facebook exposes the images that I took today right in my face. It encourages me to share with my friends and family online. I would be very like to do it if I just forget that I took these images today, or if I realized how easy it is to post it.

Good Example 2: Keep in touch with LinkedIn

Personally I’m not a big fan of LinkedIn design, however I really like this feature that they have.

Motivation: Medium. These people are not that close to me. I don’t really care so much when they get a new job or have a work anniversary. However I want to maintain a good professional relationship with them.

Ability: Easy to do. Only 1 click to “Like” and 2 clicks to send a message (The “Congrats on the work anniversary!” message is prefilled)

Trigger: LinkedIn displays the notifications right in the homepage with 2 big blue buttons. It’s so easy that I would click “Like” to all the people that are not so close to me, and “Message” to all the people that I really care about.

Good Example 3: FoundersKit 50% off Promotion

Motivation: Medium. As I work on my side project BetterDesign, I was looking for tools that could help me work better. I found FoundersKit offers great deals for a lot of tools that I might need. the membership is $59 per year which is not that bad but I am not excited enough to buy.

Ability: Medium. I need to go to Pricing page, create an account and add my credit card information.

Trigger: The “Want 50% off” button on the bottom right corner got my attention immediately. I clicked on it without any hesitation. It asked me to fill a form and I did it with pleasure. They successfully sold the deal to me.

We designers can identify what stops people from taking actions that we seek using this behavior model. Why is the sign up rate low? Probably the sign up process is too long? Why are not many people purchased the products? Probably they are not motivated enough?

PS: You might find spelling or grammar issue in this post as English is my second language. I try not to let this stop me from writing on Medium. Thanks for your time.

Our product BetterDesign got featured on BetaList last week and We were surprised how good results we got. BetterDesign is a social platform for designers to test their design&copy and get real results for free.

The story

We started BetterDesign as a side project 3 months ago. Iddar and I were working on it together. I created all the designs, he worked on the frontend and backend. One day, we realized the project was close to being finished, but we were stumped: how were we gonna launch it?

We set up a landing page. We did some research online and decided to give Betalist a try.

What’s BetaList?

BetaList is the place for early adopters to discover upcoming internet startups, and for startup founders to share their startup with the world and get early user feedback.

Their requirements

Not all startups qualify to get featured on BetaList. Please review the checklist below before proceeding to submit your startup for review.

What to expect

The number of visitors and sign ups your startup will receive depends on a lot of factors including your target demographics. Expect a couple of hundred visitors and anywhere between 50 and 500 sign ups.

This is how we start

I submitted BetterDesign on Friday, May 27, 2016, and received confirmation the next Wednesday that BetterDesign had qualified to be featured on Betalist. However, it’s about a month waiting time.

I knew I could not afford to wait for one month. After a few days struggling, I paid the expedite fee on Sunday, June 4th. When I woke up the next day, I found BetterDesign was the No.1 trending product on Betalist!

I started to receive emails from people. I am so grateful that I got a lot of people writing to give me feedbacks and suggestions. I wrote back to each person who wrote to us. Special thanks to Gabby, Kelsy Gagnebin, lancelot lachartre, john quirke, Sean Greenhow, Arman Nobari, adam, Edgar Catalán, Javier, Steve Crow, Rosina Pissaco, Sylvia Bargellini, Max Deutsch and many more…

The result

Here we go! We got 149 shares and 12 likes on Twitter…

During the 2 days when we were featured, we got about 400 sessions per day, 1298 sessions total in 5 days!

In just 5 days, we had more than 300 people sign up for beta testing.

One interesting find was a majority of the people who signed up were located in the United States. The most popular age bracket was 25–44 years old and the most popular web browsers were Chrome, Safari and Firefox. 88.41% of visitors were new visitors and 11.59% of them were returning users.

Some surprises came along while BetterDesign was featured on Betalist. When I was checking the Google Analytics, I found I got a lot of attractions from WebDesignerNews.

So I went to WebDesignerNews.com and found somebody had posted BetterDesign there. It had received 56 upvotes and 19 shares. A big thanks to whoever posted it.

When I opened the newsletter from UX Design Weekly (Issue 89), I found BetterDesign in the Tools & Resources section next to UXPin 3.0. A big thanks to Kenny Chen.

I also posted BetterDesign on Betapage, LaunchingNext (still waiting in queue), BetaBound, DesignerNews and HackerNews. I know the more exposure that I want to get, the harder that I need to work.

I also want to thank to Chris Liu and Jonathan Shariat from Design Review who recorded Designing a product launch and more! After I requested more coverage, I learned a lot about what it took to get your product out there.

Would I recommend BetaList

Yes. I would definitely recommend BetaList. Thanks to Rabia who guided me through every step and Marc Köhlbrugge who create such a great platform. BetaList definitely made our launch more successful, and for that it was worth every penny.

What I could have done better

I created an email to send to people who would sign up on betterdesign.io. I made two mistakes:

1. I didn’t test it with anyone. People were confused and looking for places to sign up. They thought the website was ready to test.
2. I didn’t test it after the developer implemented it. There were words that misspelled.

I want to apologize for the confusion. I will send another email this coming Monday to apologize and announce the release date for all our beta testers. Thanks to all who participate in this journey.

If you are interested in joining our private beta, feel free to sign up here. You can also reach us on Facebook and Twitter:).

Special thanks to Jesus Cagide who always encouraged and supported me on this project and of course, thank you to Iddar who worked with me to make this project real.