BRIEFING YOUR WEBSITE DESIGNER

Gary Hartley 7th November 2008
Gary Hartley

Creating a great website is a partnership between designer and client. The client has a vision and the designer's job is to bring that vision to life and make it meet their business goals.

To do this the designer needs a thorough brief, otherwise what do they have to go on? As a web designer I like to make sure I know everything before I sit down and plan a client's online strategy, so if it's your job to brief a designer, make sure you ask some questions first!

Company Profile

  1. What does your company do?
  2. How long have you been established?
  3. What is the overall message you want to convey?
  4. Aims and objectives (increase sales, brand awareness)?
  5. Tone of voice?
  6. Target audience demographic (age, sex, location, B2B, B2C)?
  7. Main competitors (include websites)?
  8. How do you want to differ?

Look & Feel

  1. Do you have an existing web presence? What works and what doesn't?
  2. Do you have an existing graphic identity?
  3. What is your logo / strapline / slogan?
  4. Are there any specific corporate colours (supply colour references if possible ie. Pantone, CMYK etc)?
  5. Websites liked?
  6. Websites disliked?
  7. Brands you most like?
  8. Assets
  9. Do you have any existing offline marketing material? Is this in digital format?
  10. Do you have a hi-res copy of your logo?
  11. Specific images or icons you want to use?

Copywriting

  1. Do you have copy text/content already?
  2. Do you have resources/skills to create and supply?
  3. Do you require our copywriting service?

Technical specifications

How do you want your website to be displayed:

  1. A fixed width website?
  2. Center aligned?
  3. To fit a minimum 1024px wide resolution?

Today's Moral

Failing to plan is like planning to fail, so do your homework, plan your objectives and make sure the right questions are asked before any designs are created. Initial planning and consultation is important at the outset to avoid redesigns and other potential issues arising further down the line. Good Luck!

ADD YOUR COMMENT

Are you human? (sorry to ask!)
Please answer this question in the box below:

OTHER ARTICLES

THINK TANK
  • Google comes good
    "Jamie - brilliantly diabolical for making me feel like Homer Simpson."
    BigEars
    HTML Emails & Outlook 2007
    "Your robot protection does nothing!"
    Commenteer
    Why invest in online marketing?
    "ha ha that sounds like my company. I'll leave a copy of your article on the bosses desk!"
    Gaynor
    How to Reindex Your Website Quickly in a Search Engine
    "Hi Cyndi You're going to find the same thing that a lot of people find when chasing rankings. Firstly, the hand-crafted jewellery market is very competitive because a lot of people are using the internet as their primary route to market - compared to selling at markets and craft fairs there's a potentially massive audience. That gives Google a big headache, because there are a million sites out there competing for its attention. Secondly, much of what determines their rankings comes from the history of the domain. If you've been going a long time, it says to Google that the business is well-established and therefore probably has a decent offering. Any brand new domain is going to struggle to get anywhere near the top of the rankings in the short term unfortunately. It's encouraging that Google is at least spidering and indexing your site, but you will have to do a *lot* of work in terms of content and link building to see returns in terms of rankings."
    Paul Carpenter
    How to Reindex Your Website Quickly in a Search Engine
    "I love reading al the information you have published for SEO. but....I have a question. I just started a handcrafted jewelry site www.cynfullyunique.com How do I know if it's being indexed. It appears, when I check my pages visited and people visisted that google bot has a lot of viists. I try to up-date it with new jewelry every two days. And is it good and what does it mean that google is visiting my pages often. My site is relatively new....2 months and I really need to get it ranked so I can sell some of my jewelry, etc."
    Cyndi
    HTML Emails & Outlook 2007
    "I simply don't understand why MS always tries to make everything so hard... Thanks for the workarounds, I actually thought no CSS worked at all."
    Esteban
    The Future of Google?
    "well, there is lot going on Google, its constantly changing itself like there is no other day.. http://www.linkbuilderz.com/linkbuilding"
    julie
    Beyond SEO: Online Advertising and Google in 2009
    "Cheers Richie! If there's any questions you've got about anything, feel free to drop us a line. I'm a bit hapless about replying to emails sometime but we're always happy to give pointers Oh - and merry christmas!"
    Paul Carpenter
    Beyond SEO: Online Advertising and Google in 2009
    "Great Read, Been looking into learning SEO lately. I’m a local sixth form student living locally and find your work inspiring. "
    Richie Jenkins
    Google's 10th Anniversary: A Decade of Change
    "Hi I received a email today from googles stating that I won three million dollars for your ten year birthday. This is a God send. I am a senior citizen trying to survive on eleven hundred and fifty dollars a month. I cannot pay all my bills and the saddest thing of all is I am about to lose my home of twenty eight years. Thank you so much. I am one happy lasy today,. Grace"
    Grace Cruz

Get in touch

View our portfolio