Web · 6 min
A good brief states the commercial outcome, the audiences and their tasks, the constraints that are real, and what will be judged at the end. It does not specify pages, because that is the answer rather than the question.
How it works
'We need more qualified enquiries from mid-market manufacturers' gives a supplier something to design against. 'We need a modern website' gives them nothing, and produces proposals that compete on visual taste.
What does each need to do, and what do they need to believe before doing it? A site is a set of tasks completed, and briefs that describe visitors without describing their tasks lead to sites that look right and convert badly.
Constraints discovered mid-project are what turn a fixed price into a change request.
Which current pages earn traffic and enquiries, and what must not be lost. Briefs that omit this get proposals that would discard the pages doing the work.
Named measures, checked at a named point after launch. A brief with no success criterion produces a project that ends when everyone is tired rather than when it has worked.
Usually not. The structure is part of what you are commissioning; specifying it up front locks in your current mental model and removes the value of the supplier's information architecture work.
A range, once the outcome is stated. It lets suppliers propose something realistic. Giving the number first tends to produce a plan built to fit it.
A good brief states the commercial outcome, the audiences and their tasks, the constraints that are real, and what will be judged at the end. It does not specify pages, because that is the answer rather than the question.
You have read what we think. If you want to know what it means for your case specifically, describe it and we will tell you which parts of how to write a website brief actually apply — and which do not.
