The Website Design Brief is Critical to a Successful Small Business Website Project
An effective and appropriate website design brief is an important creative starting point for a successful web design project.
A website design brief outlines the web design process, initial requirements, and estimated timelines. Its purpose is to provide both parties with a clear understanding of what’s expected in terms of project workflow, deliverables, and post-launch service. A website design brief provides the opportunity to outline and document all of the immediately-understood and clearly necessary components of your project.
A Website Design Brief Is Not…
A website design brief is not a contract for services or a website project plan, although the brief often supports the development of the total plan. A website design brief fee should be included in the web design contract.
The Website Design Brief Keeps You on Mission and On Schedule
Starting a great small business website will simplify a complex and interactive project when working.
Without effective and appropriate planning and project management systems in place, you are “planning to fail”.
As a premium website design agency it’s critical to identify as many obstacles as possible, as soon as possible.
There must also be a consensus and clear documented understanding of the agreed-upon objectives, schedule, responsibilities, and the expected outcomes including key metrics.
By creating and implementing a website brief, you can achieve client goals and stay on budget… while avoiding “scope and mission creep” and managing inevitable changes and client expectations. Starting a great small business website will be a complex and interactive project when working with our team.
Without effective and appropriate planning and project management process and leadership in place, you are “planning to fail”. As a premium website design agency it’s critical to identify as many obstacles as possible, as soon as possible.
There must also be a consensus and clear documented understanding of the agreed-upon objectives, schedule, responsibilities, and the expected outcomes including key metrics. By creating and implementing a website brief, you can take the first important step to achieve client goals and stay on budget… while avoiding “scope and mission creep” and managing inevitable changes and client expectations.
Website Design Brief Template
1. About Your Business or Organization
- State the business or organization mission, mission statement
- Describe the services and products being offered
- Describe you businesses unique value proposition
2. Goals of the Website
- What are your goals and objectives for having a website?
- budget allocation – how much have you allocated for the development
3. Target Audience and Target Market
Be as specific as possible about defining the target audience and target market. Provide as accurate a breakdown of relevant demographics as possible.
- A target market is anyone who might be interested in your products or services.
- Your target audience is the group of people to whom you direct a specific marketing asset or ad.
4. Project Management
- CMS or static site needed?
- how issues are to be recorded
- primary contact
- deadlines?
5. Content
- Copy-writing website creation
- Media including photos, audio, video, and lotties
- Create a sitemap showing the structure of the main pages and sub-pages
- Content maintenance, content management system
6. Functionality
- Identify the functional elements that are to be included in the site.
- Describe in as much detail as possible how you envisage each function will work from the user’s perspective.
- Include the results or information you want and what track you want to be able to do when users access that functional element.
7. Graphic design and usability
- Detail your design criteria, logo, color scheme, ETC.
- usability – specify what page layout, navigation features (eg breadcrumbs) and helpful devices you want on the pages – provide a list of do’s and dont’s
- provide URLs of websites you regard as good examples of what you’re seeking
8. E-Commerce
- If you want users to be able to purchase products and/or services you need to describe the products and services which are to be offered
- Payment options, PayPal or merchant account
9. Technical
- Hosting and Web Server arrangements
- Metadata, provide the title for the site: keywords, website description
- Usage monitoring and analytics requirements
10. Training & Documentation
- documentation requirements – covering what and in what format eg online
- training in use of maintenance system – how many people need to be trained and if there are any special circumstances eg multiple locations.