The Commentor – Speed Up the Feedback Process

What’s the point in having coworkers if you can’t get their advice and feedback on major projects and assignments? That’s the idea behind The Commentor, an application that makes it easy for users to share their sketches with others online and collect feedback on anything that should be changed before the end result is reached. Instead of passing around a photocopy of an important design project and asking for feedback, professionals using The Commentor can upload their image files to the cloud-based application and watch as colleagues leave annotated notes directly on the sketches themselves—including written comments, freehand doodles, and even replies to the comments that other colleagues have left.

Get started with The Commentor by choosing a subdomain where your work will be posted, and creating your first project. Once you’ve named the project, you can choose any JPG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, PSD, or PDF file to upload as your first sketch. Multiple sketches can be uploaded under each project, and you can add tags to each sketch to help stay organized and find the sketch more easily in the future. Colleagues who then sign on to the site can check out your new image and use the tools located on the left side of the page to tell you what they think. Similar to a basic paint application, The Commentor offers users writing, drawing, and shape tools that can be placed onto the sketch or deleted at any time.

Once your colleagues have all been able to share their opinions and comment on your design, you can download the annotated sketch or print it out directly from the site. You can also see the sketch without all the annotations, by clicking the “Hide Comments” button on the bottom of the screen. Despite the ubiquity of applications designed to facilitate collaboration on word files and text documents, The Commentor is one of the few true collaboration tools for professionals in the art and design industry. Because of this, it is definitely an application that anyone in a design-related field should check out.