You've determined that you need a new website design, or to develop your current site, but you don’t know where to start? We've put together a helpful brief and specification guide to assist you for success. This will help you communicate your objectives to the web design company you're working with and ease the full process.
- Creating a brand new web design
- Developing an existing web design
Considerations for your web design?
Your brief is an important element for any successful design. It acts like an architecural plan and blueprint. If you were to build a house, you would certainly want to convey the number of rooms, the room sizes and the additional features you want. In a similar way, the web design brief will set out the structure, the prioritiy areas and give some indication as to the level of scope in terms of size. The gulf between house specifications can be small and big and and this is no exception for a website design which can also vary considerably.
The importance of a web design brief is clear, but your designer will and should help you plan and define it. For the best assistance, you should simply convey to them the main objectives and aims and their suggestions should reinforce this goal. Would you like more sales, would you like more sign-ups, would you like to raise or re-position your brand profile?
Careful and considered planning can help you to define a clear and precise web design brief. In turn, this can eliminate ambiguity and keep your web design costs down.
Objectives
Summarise what it is you would like to achieve into a few short points. Here's a helpful example:
- Raise website sales.
- Integrate with third parties like Amazon and eBay.
- Present a web design that sets my business apart from my competitors.
Inspiration and Influences
Indicate your market
The design and aesthetic will often be driven by the tastes of your target market. What do they relate to best? Explain to your designer about the age/sex demographics and any other personal characteristics your target market might have to impact the design. You're best suited to fully understand this group.
Structure
How many sections will your new website have and what are the categories likely to be? To help you visualise, draw out a small diagram for each section like this example.
