TL;DR
- A good web design brief gives the agency everything they need to scope and price your project accurately and to design something that fits your actual business.
- Without a proper brief, projects run over scope, miss the mark on design direction, and require expensive rework.
- The brief does not need to be long. It needs to be specific. Five focused paragraphs are more useful than ten pages of vague aspirations.
- This post gives you a template with 15 questions and explains why each one matters.
Most clients start a web design project by reaching out to an agency with a rough description of what they want. Something like: we need a new website, it should look modern and professional, we are a B2B software company. This is a starting point, not a brief.
A proper brief saves everyone time. It gives the agency the information they need to scope accurately, prevents misalignment at the design stage, and gives you a reference point if the project drifts from what you originally wanted.
Here is the template.
The 15-question web design brief template
1. What does your business do?
Describe it in two or three sentences as if you are explaining it to someone with no industry knowledge. Avoid jargon. What do you sell, who do you sell it to, and how does it help them?
2. Who is your target audience?
Be as specific as possible. Not just B2B companies but mid-sized Finnish manufacturing companies with 50 to 200 employees whose operations manager is the primary decision-maker. The more specific you are, the better the design can be tailored to resonate with the right people.
3. What are the primary goals of this website?
What should the site make visitors do? Generate enquiry form submissions? Book a demo? Call a number? Drive traffic to a physical location? Rank for specific search terms? List your top two or three goals in order of priority.
4. What do you want visitors to do first?
If a visitor lands on your homepage and does only one thing, what should it be? This is your primary call to action and it should be clear in the brief before a single page is designed.
5. What does your current website do well?
If you have an existing site, what do you want to keep? Good content structure, strong testimonials, a specific page that converts well? Knowing what works prevents removing things that should stay.
6. What does your current website do badly?
Be honest. Slow load times, confusing navigation, no mobile optimisation, outdated design, content that no longer reflects the business? This list informs the priorities for the new build.
7. What is your brand identity?
Do you have brand guidelines? A defined color palette? A preferred font? A logo in all required formats? If yes, share them. If not, note that brand identity work is needed before design can begin.
8. What visual direction do you want?
Share three to five websites that you like the look and feel of, with a short note on what specifically you like about each one. This is more useful than trying to describe aesthetics in words. You do not need to share competitor sites. Inspiration from outside your industry is often more useful.
9. What pages does the site need?
List every page you can think of: homepage, about, services (with sub-pages for each service if relevant), case studies, blog, contact, pricing, terms, privacy policy. Do not worry about completeness at this stage, but a rough page list helps the agency estimate scope.
10. What content already exists?
Do you have existing copy, photography, and video that can be used? Is there anything that needs to be written, shot, or produced before the site can launch? Content gaps are one of the most common causes of project delays.
11. Are there any technical requirements?
Does the site need to integrate with a CRM, a booking system, a payment gateway, or any other third-party tool? Does it need to support multiple languages? Are there any specific functionality requirements beyond a standard marketing site?
12. What are your competitors doing?
Share three competitor websites. Note what they do well that you want to match or exceed, and what they do badly that you want to avoid. Competitive context helps the agency understand the visual and functional standards in your market.
13. What is your budget?
You do not need to give a specific number, but a range is genuinely useful. It allows the agency to tell you honestly whether the scope you want is achievable within your budget, rather than quoting a scope that does not match your expectations. Hiding the budget does not get you a better price. It wastes everyone's time.
14. What is your timeline?
Do you have a hard launch deadline? Is there an event, a campaign, or a business milestone the site needs to be ready for? Knowing this upfront lets the agency tell you whether the timeline is realistic and what would need to change to meet it.
15. Who are the key stakeholders?
Who needs to approve design decisions? Who is the day-to-day contact? Are there any stakeholders whose approval will be required at specific stages? Clarity on decision-making early prevents delays at review stages.
How to use this template
You do not need to answer every question perfectly. Incomplete or uncertain answers are fine. What matters is making your current thinking explicit so the agency can ask the right follow-up questions.
Share this as a document before your first scoping call. It will make the conversation significantly more productive and the resulting proposal significantly more accurate.
For context on what makes a good agency relationship from the agency side, read our post on how to not get burned by a web design agency. And when you are ready to start a conversation about your project, get in touch with this brief filled in and we will come prepared to the call.
