The Web Design Brief: Important Questions To Ask Before Starting a Project

So all of your efforts have finally paid off. You have just secured another web design project, yay! In the meeting with your client, you made promises that you will get the ball rolling right away, even promised some impossible deadlines because you want to make a great impression. Sounds all familiar right? Many web designers and agencies have found themselves in this position more often than not.

While it’s so easy to be caught up in the excitement of a new project, it’s always important to avoid scope creep. What do I mean by this? This is where projects go over their estimated timeframe and important objectives are missed. We find ourselves committing our time and energy to a project, only to discover that the clients’ expectations are growing far beyond the initial requirements. New ideas are thrown in, with endless revisions.  You eventually lose interest and start focusing on other projects. That being said, you are most likely to run into the same predicament if you don’t have a well-structured web design process in place. In this article, we look at the importance of having a website design brief before taking on a web design project.

The most important thing in a web design project is for a client to be clear of what they want. The web designer must be fully transparent about his/her capabilities and resources. If certain elements need to be outsourced, the client needs to know.

By asking all the relevant questions early on, you can minimise the risk of project scope creep. With this in mind, I have generated a list of questions that we use to help us determine the scope of any new web design project, also known as the website design brief. This is what we use at Akio before any taking on any web design project.

You can find our list of questions here.

A clear design brief ensures that the project scope is clearly defined, realistic timelines and accurate cost estimates are set.

Final Thoughts

If you are looking to design your website soon, this should give you a basic idea of what is required to have a well-optimised website.  Addressing these questions before commencing on the project ensures that the client’s final product is exactly what they want and that there are no surprises. Defining the project scope and managing expectations from the onset is essential as it makes it easier to stick to timelines and budgets.

If you are looking to build an online presence for your company, be sure to get in touch with us. Our creative team would be more than happy to assist you with design and development, tailored specifically for you. #AkioDigital