How to brief a web designer so you get the site you actually want

When a website project drifts, goes over budget, or lands looking nothing like what the owner imagined, the cause is almost never the designer's talent. It's the brief. A vague starting point leads to guesswork, guesswork leads to revisions, and revisions cost time and money. The good news is that a genuinely useful brief doesn't need to be long or formal. It just needs to answer the right questions.

Start with the goal, not the pages

Most people begin by listing pages: home, about, services, contact. That's the easy part, and it comes later. Start instead with what the site is for. Is it meant to bring in enquiries, sell products, take bookings, or simply look credible so a referral checks out? A designer who knows the goal can shape everything around it. Without it, they're decorating, not building.

Describe who it's for

A site aimed at busy tradespeople should feel different from one aimed at corporate buyers or nervous first-time customers. Tell the designer who you're trying to reach, what they care about, and what might make them hesitate. That single piece of context changes the tone, the layout, the words and the images, and it's the sort of thing only you can provide.

Say what "good" looks like

Point to two or three websites you like, and, just as usefully, one or two you don't, and say why in plain terms. "Clean and calm, not cluttered." "Feels trustworthy." "Too corporate." You don't need design language. Concrete reactions to real examples tell a designer more than a page of adjectives ever could.

Be honest about content

Here's the quiet truth of nearly every web project: the hold-up is rarely the building, it's the content. Text, photos, logos, product details. If you have them ready, things move fast. If you don't, be upfront, because a good designer can help you plan or write it rather than have the whole project stall waiting on a folder of photos that never arrives.

A brief in five lines

You don't need a document. If you can answer these, you've briefed better than most:

• What should the website achieve for the business?
• Who is it for, and what do they care about?
• What do you want visitors to do on it?
• A couple of sites you like, and why.
• What content you already have, and what you still need.

A clear brief isn't extra work you do for the designer. It's the fastest, cheapest way to get the website you actually wanted the first time.

The way we work, that conversation is the first thing we have, so the build is aimed correctly from day one rather than corrected later. If you're thinking about a new site and aren't sure how to explain what you need, that's fine, start the conversation and we'll ask the right questions.