Pinned screenshot feedback: the fastest way to brief your designer

Most website feedback dies in translation. A client looks at a draft and tries to describe what's bothering them: "The hero feels a bit cluttered… maybe the button on the right is too close to the heading? Or the heading is too long? Actually, can we just chat about it?"

The designer reads this three times, picks one possible meaning, makes a change, and sends it back. The client says "no, I meant the other thing." Round two.

Pinned screenshot feedback kills this loop. You drop a pin on the exact pixel that's bothering you and type a sentence about it. The designer sees what you see. They make one change, not three.

This post is short, practical advice on giving feedback that gets you to a finished site faster.

How pins work (if you've never used them)

You're looking at a screenshot of your site in a shared workspace. You click anywhere on the image. A pin drops — a numbered dot. A little comment box opens. You write what you want changed. You hit save.

The designer sees a list of pins, each with an exact location and a comment. They work through them, mark each one "resolved" when done, and you can re-open any you're not happy with.

That's the whole system. It's not new — design tools have had it for years — but most freelance designers don't offer it. Most clients have only ever given feedback in email or on calls. Once you've tried pins, going back to either feels miserable.

Three rules for good pin feedback

1. One pin, one thing

A pin that says "I don't love this section, can we rework the whole thing?" is a call disguised as a pin. Break it apart: pin the heading ("too long, can we trim?"), pin the image ("can we try a photo of a person here?"), pin the button ("change colour to match the navy in the rest of the site").

Each pin becomes a small, resolvable thing. Big vague pins become a back-and-forth that's no better than email.

2. Say what you want, not what's wrong

"This feels off" gives the designer nothing. "Can the heading be one line instead of two?" or "I want this button to feel more urgent — bigger, brighter, maybe red?" gives them a direction.

You don't need to know the right answer. You just need to say what you'd like to try. The designer will tell you if it'll break the layout or if there's a better option.

3. Resolve as you go

When a pin is done and you're happy, mark it resolved. This stops the project from accumulating a long ghost list of "we addressed this two weeks ago but it's still there in red".

If a designer marks something resolved and you disagree, re-open it with a follow-up — don't make a new pin. That way the whole conversation about that specific change lives in one place.

What pins are bad for

Pins are great for specific, localised feedback. They're bad for:

• Big direction changes. "I think we need to start over with the whole homepage" is not a pin; that's a conversation that should go in the project messages, with the designer.
• Cross-page concerns. "The site doesn't feel consistent" needs a wider discussion, not 40 pins.
• Personal taste vs. business reasons. Pins are good for the latter. "Change this to red" is fine; "I just don't like it" leaves the designer guessing.

For everything in between — "this paragraph is too long", "this image is the wrong one", "this button should say 'Get started' not 'Submit'" — pins are unbeatable.

A bonus benefit: future-you can read them

Pinned feedback is documented by default. Six months from now, when you want to remember why a particular section is laid out the way it is, you can scroll back through the pins. "Oh right, we tried it the other way and decided this version was better."

Calls don't leave that trail. Emails leave a trail no one can find. Pins are the only feedback format that's both fast to give and easy to look up later.

If your designer doesn't offer pins

Ask. Most modern web design tools — Figma, Marker, Notion's image comments — support some version of this. If your designer is sending you screenshots over email or DM, you can usually use one of these tools for free, send them the link, and ask them to read your pins from there.

Or pick a designer whose portal has pinning built in. It's increasingly a baseline expectation, not a luxury.