A jargon-free guide to creating a website brief

Having a good, clear brief at the beginning of a website design project makes things easier for everyone involved and, more importantly, gives the client a greater level of control over proceedings. 

However, most clients feel they don’t know enough about website design to create a brief that is meaningful to those sophisticated animals known as website designers.  The trick is to recognize that what we need here is guidance, not technical direction.

For this reason, we created a set of ten simple questions, the responses to which will tell us everything we need to know to start a meaningful discussion about your new website.  Importantly they don’t require any technical website knowledge whatsoever to answer!

1.  Why do you feel you need a new website?

2.  What do you want your new website to do? (For example, get found in searches, take bookings, sell products, be a resource for technical information, capture enquiries, highlight your brand values etc)

3.  What works well about your current site and why?

4.  Who will the website be aiming to attract?

5.  Why would a prospective new customer visit your website?

6.  How do you want your website to “feel”? (give us some adjectives… like fresh, funky, professional, serious, cool, informative etc)

7.  How big do you think the website needs to be to do justice to your business?

8.  What are your competitors’ websites like?

9.  Which websites in your industry particularly impress you and why?

10. If we were to be celebrating a successful website strategy in 12-months’ time, how would that be measured?

Click here to download our handy guide as a PDF