“Can you just make it pop?”
I hear that sentence, or something close to it, a lot. “It feels a bit flat.” “Can it look more modern?” “I’ll know it when I see it.” “Can the button be more… you know?”
None of that is bad feedback. The person saying it has noticed something real. They’ve looked at their shop and something isn’t working for them. The trouble is I can’t build “pop”. I can’t write code for “more modern”. If I guess, I’ll often guess wrong, and then we go round again, and every round costs us both time and a bit of patience.
So I’ve stopped guessing. I treat vague website design feedback as the start of a short conversation, and I don’t touch the site until that conversation has turned it into a list of changes I can actually make.
Vague feedback is a symptom, not a spec
When someone says “make it pop”, they’re usually describing how the page feels, not what’s causing it. Something on the page isn’t getting noticed, or the page feels busy, or it looks dated next to a competitor they’ve been browsing.
My job is to find out which. These are the kinds of things that sit behind “make it pop” on a WooCommerce shop:
- The Add to basket button blends in. It’s the same colour as everything else, so it doesn’t look like the thing to press.
- Nothing stands out. The product title, price, description and badges are all a similar size and weight, so the eye has nowhere to land.
- The product photos don’t match. Different backgrounds, crops and sizes make the shop page look messy, even if each photo is fine on its own.
- There’s too much going on. Banners, sale badges, sliders and pop-ups all shouting at once. In that case “pop” actually means taking things away.
- It’s hard to read on a phone. Small or pale text that looks fine on a big screen and disappears on a small one.
Each of those has a different fix. That’s why I ask before I build.
The questions I ask
I keep it to a handful, and I keep them plain:
- Which page, and which bit of it? “The site” is too big. I want the one page that bothers them most, and ideally the part of it they look at first.
- What should someone notice first? If the answer is the product photo and the Add to basket button, that tells me what to make clearer and what to calm down.
- Is there a site you like? Not to copy, just to point at. “I like their buttons” or “I like how much space there is” is worth more than any adjective.
- What don’t you like about it now? People often find it easier to say what’s wrong than what they want. That’s fine. It’s still a lead.
- Phone or computer? A lot of “it looks off” turns out to be one screen size. Plenty of shoppers are on their phone, so that’s often where I start.
I ask for screenshots too. A screenshot with a rough circle drawn round the problem saves a lot of back and forth.
Turning the answers into a change list
Once I have the answers, I write them back as a short list of specific changes. Something like this:
- Product page: make the Add to basket button the brand colour, a bit larger, and full width on mobile.
- Product page: bigger product title, with the SKU and category text smaller and lighter underneath.
- Shop page: the same square crop and plain background on every product photo.
- Home page: remove the second slider and the pop-up that appears as soon as someone arrives.
Each line is something I can build, and something the shop owner can check. They can read the list and say “yes, that’s it” or “leave the slider, I like the slider” before I’ve changed anything. That’s one quick reply instead of another round of revisions.
The list also becomes the definition of done. When every line is ticked off, the job’s finished, and we both know it.
Show it, don’t describe it
For anything bigger than a button colour, I’d rather show than describe. I make the changes on a staging copy of the shop and send a link, or a before-and-after screenshot of the same page. People are far better at reacting to something they can see than to a paragraph about it.
If the shop doesn’t have a staging site, that’s worth sorting first. I wrote about why in The Staging Site Nobody Ever Uses. Design changes are exactly the kind of thing you want to try out somewhere customers can’t see.
Keep the rounds small
I’d rather do a few small rounds than one big reveal. Change the product page first and get a yes. Then do the shop page. If the first round showed me the owner likes a softer colour than I’d have picked, the next round starts from there instead of from another guess.
Small rounds also stop a tidy-up quietly turning into a redesign. If a new idea comes up halfway through, it goes on the list for later, not into the current round. That matters even more this time of year. With Black Friday close, I’d keep design changes small and finished well before the sale, for the reasons in Feature Freeze Before Black Friday.
What helps if you’re the one asking
If you’re about to ask a developer to make your shop pop, you can save both of you a round or two:
- Pick the one page that bothers you most.
- Say what you want people to notice first on it.
- Send a screenshot with the problem circled.
- Send a link to a site you like, and say what you like about it.
- Say whether you’ve seen it on your phone, your computer, or both.
You don’t need the right design words. “This bit looks cheap” with a circle round it is plenty to go on.
Wrap Up
“Make it pop” is a perfectly good place to start a conversation. It just isn’t a place to start building. A few plain questions, a short written list of changes, a staging link to look at, and small rounds turn a feeling into something I can build and you can check.
If your WooCommerce shop feels flat and you’re not sure why, book a quick call and we’ll work out what “pop” means for your shop.
Written by Connie, an AI, from Neil Matthews’ notes, archive, and direction. Neil directed and edited this piece. He did not write these words. Augmented publishing by Neil Matthews.