Web design brief template

Design only or design and build, who edits it afterwards, and the obligations that come with a contact form.

Start this briefAbout 90 seconds. No account.

A web design brief has to answer a question most briefers do not know is being asked: is this design only, or design and build? Everything downstream depends on it. Design only means the deliverable is files and a specification, and the platform, hosting and functionality questions belong to someone else. Design and build means one team owns the live site and every one of those questions is in scope. Leaving it open invites both sides to assume the other is doing the hard part.

Templates, then pages

The single most common cause of a wrong web quote is a brief that counts pages when the designer counts templates. Forty case studies are one template. A home page is one template that will only ever be one page. Put a count next to the page types that repeat and the distinction becomes visible: "five templates, around ninety pages" tells the designer what they are designing and the developer what they are building.

Who edits it afterwards

A site edited weekly by a marketing team needs a visual editor, training and documentation. A site nobody touches after launch can be static, fast and cheap to host. A site a developer maintains sits in between. This question decides the content management system, and the content management system decides a large share of the build.

Copy is the schedule

Designers can lay out a page with placeholder text and cannot finish one. A site briefed with "copy to follow" has a launch date that has already moved. Say whether the words exist, and if they do not, who is writing them and when; if the answer is "we need help", that is a copywriting line item and it belongs in the brief.

Functionality carries obligations

A contact form collects personal data, and with it cookie consent, a privacy policy and a data-processing note. Payments and accounts imply a backend. Integrations imply a discovery phase before they can be priced. Multiple languages mean every template is built twice. None of this is difficult; all of it is invisible to someone who wants "a form on the contact page", and a brief that names the functionality lets the estimate include it.

Accessibility is a decision, not a feature

Public-sector sites have carried the obligation for years, and shops and services sold in the EU now fall under the European Accessibility Act. Almost nobody volunteers this in a brief, and it changes the contrast constraints, the testing and the deliverables. Ask it as a plain question with four answers and record the answer.

One verb

Buy, get in touch, book, sign up, download, understand, trust, apply. The site is judged by whether a visitor does the one thing you want them to do. A brief that lists all eight has chosen none. This template asks it as cards, then checks the answer against the pages and functionality you picked and says so when the objective has nowhere to happen.

The one thing that must not be got wrong

On a web project it is often a performance or device constraint: works on a phone with one hand, loads on a bad connection, never asks for a login before showing the price. Put it at the top, in a box.

The questions, and what goes wrong without them

  1. Scope
    What are you making?
    A landing page and a shop are different jobs with different questions. Naming which removes half the tree.
  2. Scope
    Which pages?only when it applies
    The difference between a template and a page is invisible to most briefers and is the main reason web quotes are wrong.
  3. Scope
    Who builds it?
    "Design only" removes platform, hosting, integration and performance questions. Left open, everyone assumes the other side is building it.
  4. Craft
    Platform, and who edits itonly when it applies
    The platform decides whether a CMS comes for free, whether custom development is implied, and what the handover looks like.
  5. Craft
    Who edits the content afterwards?only when it applies
    Who edits afterwards decides CMS complexity, editor training and whether a visual page builder is required.
  6. Craft
    What does it need to do, and how accessible must it be?
    Forms and payments carry legal obligations and imply a backend. Accessibility is a commercial requirement in the EU that almost no briefer volunteers.
  7. Look
    Pick what you like
    People are unreliable at describing taste and reliable at recognising it. Five picks say more than a paragraph of adjectives.
  8. Look
    Your picks pull two ways. Which is closer?only when it applies
    When the references contradict each other, the designer has to pick a side. Better that you do.
  9. Look
    What already exists?
    Copy is the single biggest hidden cost in web projects. Every unticked asset is a line in the estimate.
  10. Look
    What should they do, and who are they?
    One verb is the hardest question in the set and the one most often dodged in a text field, which is exactly why it is cards. Who it is for makes the verb specific.
  11. Practicalities
    Budget range
    A band is a signal about which kind of job is on the table, not a commitment. Without one the designer guesses.
  12. Practicalities
    When does it need to be live?
    A date only means something next to the minimum production window. If they do not fit, better to know now.
  13. Practicalities
    Who signs it off?
    The number of approvers, with a named tiebreak, predicts revision rounds better than anything else in the brief.
  14. Practicalities
    The one thing that must not be got wrong
    Every project has one. It is rarely written down because it feels obvious to the person who knows it.
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