Writing your Website Brief
Preparation and time invested in formulating your ideas into a formal website development brief or plan will save you time and money in the long run.
Many companies, both large and small, approach us to design and develop their new company website. However it’s clear from the outset after talking to many of these companies, that little or no preparation has been undertaken before they pick up the phone to an agency such as us.
This is a real shame for everyone concerned, let me explain why.
The development of website for any organisation is generally a significant investment of time and money. Depending upon the objectives of the website required, its performance can significantly influence the financial performance of a business or at the very least can effect the ‘perception’ of a business to its customers and prospects online.
So, realising how important a website can be a company, we find it very surprising how little time and effort some businesses put into the planning of their website before they approach an agency to develop it for them. After all, you wouldn’t spend a large amount of money in purchasing some new production machinery/vehicles/IT equipment etc without first sitting down and planning what and why you want it for and how much money you can allocate to it, would you? (We hope you wouldn’t anyway).
To do otherwise could result in wasted money and time for your organisation.
It’s the same for a website and can be summarised in the motto “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail” which has been proven to ring true many a time where little preparation has been made into an important and complex project.
Ultimately the lack of planning results in a project that takes longer than anticipated and costs more than initially budgeted for.
Write a Brief for your Website Project
So before any company picks up the phone to an agency to discuss the development of their new website, it makes sense to do some homework first and prepare a Website Development Briefing document which contains their thoughts and requirements for their new website.
The article posted on this website, offers some useful guidance.
Furthermore, the writing of a comprehensive website development briefing document will enable the agencies that are approached for costing purposes; to work on a ‘level playing field’ and in effect, offer a quotation that can be accurately compared to one from another agency by the client on a ‘like for like’ basis (lots of buzzwords in that sentence huh?).
Different agencies may approach the same project in different ways, but at least a briefing document offers all the agencies the same information which then in turn allows you to make a more informed choice on which agency to choose for the development of your new site.
You can download an example Website Design and Development Brief (PDF format) which you may find helpful when writing you own company’s website development briefing document, by following this link. (Opens in a new browser window).
The company is fictitious, but is based upon a real project example for a real company.
We hope you find it useful.
Tags: design brief, design briefing documents, how to write a design brief for a website, how to write a website development brief, website costing brief, website design and development brief, website design brief, website functionality brief
