When it comes to designing a new website, the process can be overwhelming for business owners and startup companies. In order to create a site that accurately represents your brand and meets your needs, you need to start with an effective web design brief.
The website design brief will outline your goals, requirements, and expectations for your new website. To help get you started, we’ve created a free web design brief template that you can use to create your own brief. Keep reading to learn more!
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What Is a Website Design Brief?
A web design brief is a document that outlines the goals, and expected outcomes of a website design project. This document serves as a guide for designers as they create your website.
By clearly defining your objectives from the start, you can avoid costly revisions and changes down the road.
Plus, having a well-crafted brief will save you time by helping you articulate what you want from your website.
Who Should Wire a Website Design Brief?
Ideally, the web design brief should be created by the business owner or decision-maker. However, if you’re working with a marketing agency or website development company, they may also help you put together this document.
For example, at Pruve Web Agency, our web design team works closely with our clients to understand their needs before starting any project. This helps us ensure that we’re on the same page from the start and avoids any misunderstandings further down the line.
What to Include in Your Website Design Brief?
Every website design brief will be different, but there are 10 key elements that should be included in every one.
1. Company Profile
2. Project Overview
3. Project Goals
4. Target Audience
5. Competitors
6. Design Requirements
7. Project Timeline/Schedule
8. Web Design Budget
9. Project Deliverables
10. Hosting and Maintenance
How to Create a Web Design Brief
A web design brief is a process that starts with an idea, continues through development, and ends up as website content. A web designer should have his/her client’s goals in mind at all times throughout this creative endeavor to ensure that they are providing them not only what’s necessary but also something enjoyable for both parties involved!
Here’s how to create a web design brief.
As the name suggests, it is used for designing a new website and other online content such as blogs or social media pages; however, there are some important tips that will help you produce high-quality work without getting lost along your journey!
1. What is a Company Profile?
A company profile is a brief description of your business that includes its history, services, and products. It should also include your company’s Mission and Vision Statements. This section will help the designer understand your business and what it stands for.
How to write a Company Profile?
To write a company profile, start by giving a brief overview of your business, including its history and any relevant information about it. Then, describe the products or services you offer. Finally, include your company’s Mission and Vision Statements.
This is key in any brief, helping the entire design team become familiar with your brand and its values, mission, and vision – all of which determine the direction for project goals & success! A brief should also have a list of core stakeholders so that you know who responds if issues arise during the progress on this particular task; it can help move projects forward more smoothly by ensuring contact info has been collected from each person.
Future growth is an expected part of any company’s profile, and it should be included in the website brief. This way we can set a foundation for how changes will affect our designs moving forward!
DesignCap is our favourite tool that also offers a free tool to create your company profile.
2. Write a detailed Project Overview
A project overview is a brief description of the website design project. It should include the goals of the project, the customers, and the expected outcomes. This section will help the designer understand what you want to achieve with your website.
The scope of your project is the key to its success. If you don’t know what it takes from the start, then there will be problems downline with getting everything done on time and on a budget! It’s important that everyone working understands every last detail about how their part in the website brief.
The project overview should include a brief description of the project, as well as your goals and objectives. Be sure to include any relevant information about your customers and competitors.
A website is a living, breathing piece of content. You’ll want to detail the tone and voice that will be used on your site as well as any specific branding elements like color palettes or typefaces so clients can see what they’re getting themselves into before investing time/money in design aspects that may not align with their goals for success
The most important thing you need when designing an online presence isn’t just creativity but also honesty showing off everything about yourself without holding back because it’s too much work!
You’ll need to determine what makes your design a winner in your website brief. This might include call-to-action buttons, social media integration, or even just contact information on the site for people who are interested in learning more about you and how they can get involved with all aspects of marketing through email campaigns.
How to write a Project Overview?
To write a project overview, start by describing the goals of the web design project. Make sure to include any relevant information about the project that will help the designer understand what you want to achieve in the website brief.
3. What are project goals?
Once you have a good understanding of what your project entails, the next step is to find out how it will solve people’s problems in your website brief.
Project goals are the objectives that you want to achieve with your new web design project. They should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. This section will help the designer understand what you want to achieve with your website. It’s really important to have detailed information about your project goals in your website brief.
Some website design goals could be:
Increase website traffic by XX% in the next 6 months
Generate X number of leads from the website in the next year
Improve website conversion rate by XX% in the next 3 months
When writing a new website brief, it is important to consider what your existing website looked like and how you can improve upon that. If there are any aspects of the current site which did not work well then these problems should also be addressed in order for them to continue being successful with their marketing strategy moving forward
How to write Project Goals?
To write project goals, start by brainstorming a list of objectives that you want to achieve with your website design project. Then, choose specific goals that are measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Finally, include a timeline for achieving these goals.
4. What is a target audience?
A target audience is the group of people who you want to reach with your website design project. This section will help the designer understand who you are trying to reach with your website.
The goal of user research is to understand who your customers are and what they like so you can create a website tailored for them. To do this, it’s important that we know our clients’ demographics (age/gender), psychographics (job title) as well as media consumption habits all things which may help us design the perfect end-user experience!
How to find your Target Audience?
To find your target audience, start by thinking about who your ideal customer is. Consider their age, gender, location, interests, and income level. Once you have a good understanding of who your target customer is, you can begin to think about how to reach them.
Some questions to consider when finding your customers:
– Who is your ideal customer?
– What are their demographics?
– What are their interests?
– How can you reach them?
What is a Competitor Analysis?
What are competitors?
5. Take a look at your competitors.
Researching your competition is an important part of any website design brief project. By understanding what your competitors are doing, you can make sure that your website stands out from the crowd.
It’s important to know your client’s competitors because this can help you set the new website apart. You should start by examining their sites and take note of what they’re doing right or wrong so that nothing is unclear in terms of content for yours, but also remember not all consumers read reviews before buying something online which means it might be worth including links (to other sites) throughout any text written about one competitor alongside notes referring readers back here if there are issues with accuracy/completeness.
When researching your competitors, look at their website design, content, and overall online presence. Consider what you like and don’t like about their website. Take note of any website design trends that you see.
Some questions IN YOUR WEBSITE BRIEF to consider when researching your competition:
– Who are your main competitors?
– What do you like and don’t like about their website?
– What website design trends are they using?
– How can you make your website better than theirs?
6. List all your Design Process Requirements and specs
In this section, you will want to list all of the design requirements and specifications for your website. This will include things like the website’s purpose, color scheme, style, and tone.
Including all the relevant technical requirements and specifications in your website brief can save you several rounds of revisions in the future. This helps avoid scope creep, which is something we know clients don’t want to happen!
Plus it saves them money – not to mention how much time that’ll save us as designers or developers working on this project together with our client partners across different platforms like web development & mobile apps.
Be as specific as possible in this section so that the designer can create a website that meets all of your expectations.
Some questions to include in your website brief when creating a website:
– What is the website’s purpose?
– What kind of color scheme do you want?
– What style do you want the website to have?
– What tone should the website have?
Make sure to check out The 7 Most Important Steps to the Web Design Process to get a better understanding of the design process you need to include in your web design brief template.
Download the FREE website brief Template
7. Create a Project Timeline or Schedule
In this section, you will want to create a project timeline or schedule. This will help the designer understand your deadlines and expectations.
Setting a realistic timeline for your project is vital to making sure that you don’t over-track and underestimate how much work needs to be done.
It’s also important not only during development but before too! Setting an accurate schedule will help with planning resources, as well as fine-tuning any dates or deadlines if needed.
Be sure to include dates for when you would like the website to be completed as well as any milestones along the way.
Some questions to consider when creating your project timeline:
– When do you need the website to be completed?
– Are there any milestones along the way?
– What is the budget for this project?
– What are the deliverables?
8. Determine your Web Design Budget
By elaborating on your budget, you will help the web design team to understand what you are willing to spend on this project. Be sure to include a range for your budget so that the designer can create a website that meets your needs and budget.
The cost of building a website is an important addition to the brief. It influences several aspects, including what kinds of tools will be used and the overall scope of the projects.
For instance, if your budget lacks then it may become necessary for you to use basic templates with Content Management Systems (CMS) or website Builders but this doesn’t mean that high-end services like custom-built solutions cannot also play into their future success.
Some questions to consider when determining your budget:
– What is your budget for the new website?
– What are your expectations of the new website?
– What is the timeframe for this project?
9. Specify the project deliverables
One of the most essential objectives in designing a website is to ensure that everyone on your team understands what they are expected. This means you should include all agreed-upon deliverables, like sites or content such as blog posts and case studies; any delays here can cause problems for launch time! It’s also important who will take care of writing copy/content etc., so there isn’t confusion later down the road when reaching out early about deadlines, etc…
Be specific about the details or what you expect to receive from the designer. This could include things like website mockups, a website prototype, or the final website itself. Be sure to include any deadlines for these deliverables so that the designer can plan accordingly.
Some questions to consider when thinking about project deliverables:
– What website mockups do you want to receive?
– When do you need to receive these website mockups?
– What are the features of my new web design?
– What website prototype do you want to receive?
– When do you need to receive the web design?
– What is the final website that you expect to receive?
– When do you need to receive the final website?
– What is the scope of work?
10. Request Hosting and Maintenance Services from your web agency
You will want to mention if you need hosting and maintenance services for your website. This could include things like website hosting, website updates, security patches, and more. Be sure to mention any specific needs that you have so that the designer can plan accordingly.
Some questions to consider when thinking about hosting and maintenance services
– What happens if anything technical goes wrong with the website?
– Is the hosting and domain name included?
The Only Website Brief Template You’ll Ever Need for Creating Perfect Web Designs
Now that you know how to create a design brief, it’s time for your own! We have an easy downloadable website brief template so there are no excuses not to get started. Download the document now and fill in all of the necessary information.
Download The Website design brief template
There are many benefits to using a design brief template, one of which is that it helps you stay on budget and within scope. It also ensures everyone involved has a clear vision for what they expect from the project; giving them an opportunity at identifying potential pitfalls before too much time or money is wasted!
To avoid any unnecessary back and forth, a website brief needs to be as comprehensive and detailed as possible. Some items that could help with this include an overview of the business you’re working for or your project’s goals; what kind of audience will use it (e..g., professionals only).
Thank you for taking the time to read this website design brief template. I hope that it will help you create a well-organized and effective website design project. If you have any questions leave them in the comment section and we will answer them as soon as possible.