The dream: writing a website brief so good that you get the exact design you want. The reality: what the hell do I put in the damn brief?!
How would it feel to give a website designer a brief and get EXACTLY WHAT YOU WERE EXPECTING?
No wasted time, money or tears.
Just the exact design you were hoping for so you can get on with your project (and life).
The art of writing a website brief that lands
The website you get is only ever as good as the website brief you give.
Read that again.
You will make or break your website project long before a single page is designed or developed.
The reason?
Your direction counts for so much more than you might realise.
A website designer is a professional who knows what works and what doesn’t but tailoring that know-how so it specifically suits your brand, your message and your product or services – that’s where they need help.
Think of yourself as the person leading an expedition to find buried treasure.
You know where the gold is, even if you don’t know exactly what it will look like.
The devil of a website brief is really in the detail
When it comes to website briefs, the more detail you give, the better the outcome will be for you.
This includes everything from:
- The type of website – is it a brochure site? An eCommerce store? An interactive resource?
- The purpose of the website – do you want to display information beautifully, generate leads, or sell on site?
- Do you have a website platform preference? Custom Built (e.g. WordPress), website builder (e.g. Shopify, Squarespace) and enterprise platforms (e.g. Kentico, Drupal) all have different requirements and limitations to consider!
- Do you have existing brand assets?
- What integrations do you need the site to have – payments, shipping, invoicing, stock levels?
- How many different kinds of pages do you need? e.g. homepage, services page, product page, contact, about page…
- Will you be rewriting all your content? Or will it be the same as an old site you already have?
- Will stock images need to be purchased? Or are custom images where you’re at?
Coming through with the content goods is the number one way you can help get your website project over the line and looking exactly how you pictured.
Example sites are the most important part of your brief
You might surprised to find that the most important part of your brief isn’t what you think it is.
The most important elements you can include are links to other sites you really like.
That’s right, sample sites that show the style, spacing, fonts and layouts that you love are so incredibly helpful for a designer to ensure they come up with a design you really love.
Website projects are complex things, and sometimes they’re hard to get right – but a rock solid brief is always the absolute best place to start to make sure you’re going in the right direction from the get-go.
