A website brief should say who the site serves and what they need to decide. List their questions, hesitations and intended next actions. These details make page planning more useful than beginning with colours or animation references.
Define the visitor’s decision
Begin by documenting the current situation, the intended outcome and the constraints. A shared baseline helps the team choose actions that fit the business instead of copying another brand’s approach.
Gather the real inputs
Collect your logo, service details, accurate contact information and approved evidence of past work. Identify who will review content and who owns decisions. Missing inputs tend to become placeholders, so resolve the important ones early.
Agree what success looks like
Describe the interactions that must work: inquiries, navigation, reading, booking or checkout. Agree the device priorities and launch requirements. A visually strong website should also be easy to understand and practical to maintain.
A practical next step
Pick one area of your current activity and write down what is working, what remains unclear and what evidence would help you decide. Turn that into a focused brief with an owner, a review point and a defined outcome.
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Map the pages to customer decisions
List the pages you need and the question each page will answer. The home page introduces the positioning and next step. A service page explains suitability and scope. An about page establishes context. The contact page makes reaching out straightforward. This simple exercise prevents a navigation menu from becoming a collection of labels with no clear purpose.
For every page, identify its primary action and the information needed before someone can take it. If visitors are expected to request a proposal, they need enough detail to understand whether your services fit. If the action is booking a call, explain whether the form requests a conversation or reserves a confirmed time.
Describe interactions as behaviours
“Modern and interactive” is a useful visual direction, but a build brief also needs concrete behaviours. Specify what the service menu does on hover, keyboard focus and mobile tap. Explain what happens after a form is submitted, where the information goes and how errors appear. Decide how motion behaves for visitors who prefer reduced animation.
Think about the smaller screen early. Long text may need clearer sections and cards; the menu needs comfortable tap targets; the most important content should appear without excessive introductory space. A desktop screenshot alone cannot confirm that these decisions work on a phone.
Prepare a launch checklist with owners
Assign ownership of content approval, legal pages, analytics decisions, lead routing, domain access and ongoing updates. Agree who receives inquiries and how the team will recognise a successful submission. Keep third-party subscriptions and recurring costs visible in the brief. A visually polished site still needs an operational owner after launch.
Before release, review internal links, page titles, image loading, form validation, contact actions and mobile overflow. Use real content and representative devices where possible. Record any remaining limitations clearly. After launch, make improvements from observed visitor needs rather than redesigning every page simply because a new visual trend appears.