Whenever web designers are hired by business clients, one of the first things that they request is a website design brief. A website design brief is what clients need to create so that the web designer knows what the client is looking for and expects from their new website. However, given that a website design brief is something that a business owner might only ever consider once or twice at most, it is fair to say not every website design brief achieves its objective.

Whenever web designers are hired by business clients, one of the first things that they request is a website design brief. A website design brief is what clients need to create so that the web designer knows what the client is looking for and expects from their new website. However, given that a website design brief is something that a business owner might only ever consider once or twice at most, it is fair to say not every website design brief achieves its objective.

By that, we do not mean that the website fails, but rather that the website design brief fails to properly outline the client’s wishes. It is akin to a construction company being given the job of designing and building a house but the specifications for that house are vague and give them little upon which to base the house’s dimensions, features, or construction materials.

As for designing and creating a website, a web designer could quite easily do so with zero guidelines and simply build a website that suits them. However, the website in question here is for a business and thus it needs to align with that business’s objectives.

For that to occur, the business owner needs to create a website design brief so that the web designer has a conceptual foundation and is aware of what the website’s objectives should be. Below we have outlined five simple steps to ensure that the website design brief you provide to your web designer is sufficiently effective that it allows the web designer to design and create the desired website.

Give Plenty Of Insights Into Your Business and the Project

Designing and creating websites is about more than just code and programming, so when web designers build websites for businesses the more they know about a business’s history, its owners, its employees, its challenges, and achievements, the better their feel will be for exactly what the website should look like.

You can also include information such as:

• The products or services that your business offers
• Your company’s values, mission, and vision
• Brand positioning
• Market positioning
• How you want to stand out from your competitors
• Tone or voice you want for the images and text

At the same time, it’s important to provide your web designer with an outline of the project’s timeline and other specifications like:

• Due date for the proposal
• Amount of time it will take to review the proposal
• Start date for the project
• Target launch date or target dates for specific project phases
• Web design budget
• Project deliverables
• Domain name, hosting, and maintenance
• The decision-makers for the project
• The project manager or points of contact
• Update frequency

Make sure that the budget is realistic for what your project requires. That said, you can always work with the web designer to find ways to work with a tight budget. For example, instead of creating an e-commerce site from scratch, you can use Shopify instead since its backend is already built.

It’s also important to indicate what you expect in terms of housekeeping in the future. Do you have someone to do this for you or do you want the web designer to handle future glitches, error pages, coding issues, speed problems, and bad URL creation? If yes, do you expect daily or weekly reports or do you prefer to raise a ticket yourself and wait for a reply when an issue pops up?

Explain What Audience You Want To Target

Remember, the website is built for a business’s audience, not its owners and staff. So, give your web designer as much information and analysis as you can about your target audience that might shed light on what kind of design will resonate with them the most.

Web designers would want to know:

• Who do you want your website to appeal to the most?
• What sectors do your target audience operate in?
• Where are they located?
• What are your target audience’s demographics? This includes age, gender, income, and so on.
• What are your target audience’s psychographics? This includes values, lifestyles, interests, hobbies, and behaviour.
• What pain points are you offering to solve for them? Why should your website appeal to its viewers?
• If any, can your target audience be divided according to their needs?
• What kind of user activity are you expecting? Do you want your visitors to buy your products, sign up for a newsletter, schedule an appointment, sign up for webinars, or access your resources?

To further enhance your web designer’s understanding of your audience, consider conducting market research or surveys. Customer feedback, competitor analysis, and website analytics from previous digital platforms can provide useful data on what works best for your audience.

Outline In Detail What The Main Goals Of Your New Website Are

Each business sector and each business within that sector will operate differently, so the goals of their respective business websites will differ. Depending on what your business does, let your web designer know what its website’s main objectives and goals should be, such as inquiries and lead generation, email capture, highlighting special offers, making direct sales, improved brand awareness, building a community, becoming a source of trustworthy information, improving your search engine rankings, and so on.

Clearly defining these goals ensures that the website is designed with purpose and aligns with your broader business strategy. Additionally, consider user experience elements that contribute to these goals, such as intuitive navigation, clear calls to action, and mobile responsiveness.

Your web designer will also expect you to indicate what metrics you want to use to measure the website’s success. Choose specific and relevant metrics that are measurable and attainable as well. Some examples are:

• Google Analytics user metrics
• Number of subscribers and how long or how much they use your site
• Monthly increase in leads
• Website rankings
• Conversion rates from landing pages
• Engagement levels on key content pages

Identify Successful Websites Of Your Competitors

If you know of websites owned by your competitors and other related businesses that you know are successful, then let your web designer know. Not that they will blatantly copy those websites, but it will give them an indication as to what sorts of features work well in your niche when strategizing for the project.
You can also include a list of their selling points and other things you like and dislike from each of your competitor’s websites. Pay attention to elements such as design layout, content structure, user engagement strategies, and overall functionality. Noting any unique features—like interactive tools, customer testimonials, or seamless e-commerce integrations—can help refine your own website’s direction.
If you have an existing or previous website, you can add what worked and what didn’t for your business as well and why you decided to change it. If the website is still up, your web designer can check it out for technicalities you might have missed, like mobile-friendliness, poor user experience, broken pages, poor structure, and image and media malfunction. Additionally, analyzing past website performance metrics, such as bounce rates and conversion rates, can provide further insight into what areas need improvement.

Specify The Look, Feel, And Features That You Would Like In Your Website

Ultimately, you may want your new website to look as close to how you imagine it as possible but that can only happen if your web designer knows your preferences. This means you need to be specific in your website design brief about features, colours, layout, content, and graphics.

You should also give your web designer a rough draft of the navigation structure of your prospective website and a list of the key features that you require such as:

• User registration management
• Log in credentials
• Interface for managing site members
• E-commerce platforms such as Shopify and Squarespace
• Product categories and variations
• Online billing and payment methods
• Online bookings
• Search functionality
• Contact form
• Social media sharing and feed
• Call to action buttons
• Help desk
• Live Chat
• News or blog section
• Comment section
• Location map
• Interactive elements
• Specific versions for other languages
• Gamification

At the same time, you’ll need to indicate whether you will be providing or relying on the web designer to source brand guidelines (font and colour), content, imagery and photos, translations if you want a multilingual website, and so on.

Finally, you need to let the web designer know what kind of deliverables you’re expecting at the end of the project. This can include things like the required file formats, associated copy documents, image assets, asset dimensions and resolutions, and screen sizes.

Final Words

Overall, a detailed website design brief will clarify what the project’s details are, saving time and money. Its key elements include the project deliverables, budget and timelines, target audience, design goal and objectives, project scope and overview, brand overview, and competitor analysis.

An effective website brief will enable the web designer to stay organised, avoid and eliminate roadblocks early on, and stay on track with clear objectives and expected outcomes. The more detail the web design brief includes, the more it will benefit you as a client.