A practical checklist for testimonial sections
The advice here is unglamorous, which is probably why it gets skipped. Run through this the next time testimonial sections comes up.
The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.
The checklist
- A specific quote beats five vague ones
- Names, roles, and companies make quotes credible
- Unattributed praise reads as invented
- Someone is named as the owner
- There is a date to review it again
What it costs to ignore
A specific quote beats five vague ones. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. If it only works because one person remembers to do something, it does not work yet.
What this looks like day to day
Consistency is the quiet half of design work: it rarely gets complimented, and its absence is noticed immediately. Three things worth confirming about testimonial sections before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Unattributed praise reads as invented — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
If you want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.