A website design brief is a short written document that, before the project starts, makes your business, the site's goal, your audience, the pages and features you need, your budget and your timeline clear to the designer. A good brief makes the quotes you get from different designers comparable, means the designer has less to guess, and prevents the mid-project "that wasn't part of the deal" argument. If you'd rather answer a few questions than fill in a template, the website design brief generator asks you for these same sections step by step.
In this guide we go through the sections of a complete brief one by one, explain how to fill in a brief form a designer has sent you, and finish with a website design brief template you can copy.
What is a website design brief and why do you need one before getting a quote?
A "brief" is a summary of the assignment. In website design, the brief is your written answer to one question: what site, for whom, and to achieve what result? A brief doesn't need to be technical. It is written in the language of your business, and turning it into technical specifications is the designer's job.
Why write a brief:
- Comparable quotes: When you give several designers the same brief, you can genuinely put their proposals side by side. Without a brief, each of them has priced a different site in their head.
- Saving time and money: A need such as a multilingual site or online payment that gets added after the design is done usually means rework and higher cost.
- Preventing disputes: The brief is the basis for the scope of work in the quote and the contract. Anything that isn't written down becomes a point of argument later.
- Clarifying your own thinking: Writing a brief forces you to think about questions like "How will we measure the site's success?"
Who should write the website design brief?
The client writes the brief, which means you, because only you know your business, your customers and your priorities up close. But you don't have to write it alone:
- In a company, it's best to make one person responsible for the brief and have them collect input from sales, marketing and support, the teams with the most customer contact.
- Many designers have a ready-made brief form or hold a briefing session to fill the gaps with their questions. The outcome of that session should also be written down and approved by you.
- Based on the brief, the designer prepares a proposed solution, a sitemap and a price estimate. If someone gives you a fixed price without asking a single question, they have probably priced a different site.
What sections does a website design brief have? From your business to your competitors
A complete brief covers three groups of information: understanding the business, the scope of work and the delivery conditions. The first group tells the designer why the site is being built at all.
About your business
What do you sell, to whom, and in which city or market? List your main services or products in order of importance. Two or three sentences on why customers choose you are more useful than a page of company history.
Site goal and success metric
Choose one main goal: online sales, consultation or contact requests, brand presentation and credibility, recruiting resellers, or hiring. Then write how you will measure success, for example the number of form submissions, calls or orders per month. A site that targets everything at once usually does none of it well.
Audience
Who is your main customer, what questions do they ask before buying, and what earns their trust? "Everyone" is not an audience. A sentence like "Our audience is procurement managers at factories who want technical specifications and certificates before they get in touch" tells the designer which pages are needed and in what tone.
Competitors and reference sites
Name three to five main competitors. Then list sites you like and dislike, with the reason: "its simple menu", "the specification table on the product page", "its dark colors don't suit our business". A link without an explanation may be read the opposite way. A reference site doesn't have to be in your industry.
How do you describe pages, features and content in a brief?
Pages you need (initial sitemap)
A simple list is enough: home, about us, services, portfolio, blog, FAQ and contact. Say whether each service gets its own page or whether they all sit on one page. This decision affects both cost and SEO, because a service with its own page is more easily found in searches for that service. For an online store, also give the approximate number of products and categories.
Features and functionality
Describe each feature with its practical details, not just its name:
- Forms: Which forms you need and where messages should go: email, SMS or a dashboard.
- Booking and appointments: Working hours, the capacity of each slot, and whether confirmation is automatic or manual.
- Online payment: What is sold online, and whether you already have a payment gateway or need to get one. Requirements for getting a gateway can change; read the payment gateway guide for background.
- Multilingual: Which languages (for example Arabic and English)? Who handles the translation?
- User or admin panel: Who logs in, and what each of them does.
- Integration with other systems: SMS service, CRM (customer relationship management software), accounting or inventory.
Next to each feature, write "essential in version one" or "later". This simple label is your best tool for managing the budget.
Content readiness
Who writes the page copy? Do you have real photos of your products, team and workplace, or does a photo shoot need to happen? Is the product information ready, and who will enter it? Unprepared content is one of the common reasons projects fall behind, so describe its status honestly.
Visual identity
Your logo as a vector file (such as SVG or PDF), brand colors and fonts, and brand guidelines, if you have them. If you have none of these, say so, so that logo or visual identity design can be estimated separately.
How do you cover technical details, SEO, budget and approvals in a brief?
Technical details
Is the domain registered? In whose name? Do you have hosting, and until when is it paid for? If you have a current site, do you yourself hold the access to the dashboard, the hosting control panel and the domain panel? The domain should be owned in the name of the business itself; if anything here is unclear, read the domain and hosting guide. If you have no view on the platform, write down your needs and weigh the designer's reasoned recommendation with the help of our comparison of WordPress and custom development.
SEO needs
Write down the phrases you think customers search for to find you; even a rough list helps shape the page structure. Ask whether basic SEO, meaning the title and description of each page, the sitemap, speed and heading structure, is part of the job. If your current site gets traffic from Google, be sure to mention it; in that case the project is really a website redesign, and keeping URLs and setting up redirects must be part of the plan.
Budget and timeline
Write a range instead of a single number, and say which one is fixed: the budget or the timeline. Account separately for recurring costs such as domain and hosting renewal, licenses, support and monthly SEO. For a sense of price levels, see the website design pricing. For the deadline, give the reason too, such as an exhibition or the start of a sales season, and say which parts can be added after launch.
Decision-maker and approval process
Name one main point of contact, and write who makes the final decision and how many people need to approve the design. If your reply at each stage takes a week, the whole timeline slips by the same amount.
Support after handover
Who is responsible for dashboard training, updates and backups, bug fixing and content updates after handover? Ask this upfront, not after the first problem.
Website design brief example: a template to copy
Copy this template, paste it into a text or Word file and answer each item. If you don't know the answer to a question, write "don't know" or "need advice". Mark items that don't apply to you with "not needed" so it's clear they weren't missed.
1. Business
- Business name and field of activity:
- Main products or services, in order of importance:
- Target city, region or market:
- Your main advantage over competitors, in one sentence:
- Name and contact details of the project contact:
2. Goal and success metric
- Main goal of the site (only one): online sales / consultation or contact requests / brand presentation and credibility / recruiting resellers or partners / other:
- Secondary goals:
- How will you measure success? (forms, calls or orders per month):
- The most important thing a visitor should do on the site:
3. Audience
- Who is the main customer? (individual or organization, occupation, city):
- What questions do they ask before buying?
- What earns their trust? (portfolio, licenses, customer reviews, warranty):
- Language or languages of the audience:
4. Competitors and examples
- Three to five main competitors (name or website address):
- Sites you like, and exactly why:
- Sites you dislike, and why:
- The feeling the site should convey (formal, friendly, luxury, technical, …):
5. Pages
- Pages needed: home / about us / services (number: …) / products (approximate number: …) / portfolio / blog / FAQ / contact / other:
- Pages that can be added after launch:
6. Features (mark each: essential / later / not needed)
- Contact or consultation request form; where should messages go?
- Online booking or appointments:
- Online payment; do you have a payment gateway?
- Sign-up and user panel; who logs in and what do they do?
- Multilingual; which languages? Who handles translation?
- Integration with SMS, CRM, accounting or inventory:
- Other features:
7. Content
- Who writes the page copy? (us / the designer / a separate writer)
- Photos: we have real photos / a photo shoot is needed / stock images
- Is product information (specifications, prices, photos) ready? Who will enter it?
- Video, catalog or downloadable files:
8. Visual identity
- Logo as a vector file: we have it / we don't / needs designing
- Brand colors and fonts:
- Brand guidelines:
9. Technical details
- Domain: registered? In whose name?
- Hosting: do you have it? Where? Until what date?
- Current site: address, platform and the access you hold:
- Do you need email on your company domain?
- Platform preference: WordPress / custom development / no preference
10. SEO
- Phrases customers search for to find you:
- If you have a current site: do you have access to Search Console and analytics? Which pages get good traffic?
- Plans for content or a blog after launch:
11. Budget and timeline
- Design budget range (from … to …):
- Monthly budget for support, SEO or advertising, if any:
- Preferred launch date and the reason for it:
- Your priority: is the budget fixed, or the timeline?
12. Approval and support
- Final decision-maker:
- Who needs to approve the design?
- After handover, who is responsible for training, support, backups and content updates?
How do you fill in a website design brief form?
If the designer has sent you their own brief form, fill that in and keep these points in mind:
- Be honest, not complete: A guessed answer turns into a wrong decision later; "don't know" is better.
- Be specific: Adjectives like "stylish" and "professional" mean something different to everyone; give examples and reasons.
- Prioritize: Separate "essential" from "nice to have".
- Attach files: Logo, catalog, photos and links to reference sites.
- Let one person finalize it: If several people fill in the form, have one person make the answers consistent.
| Section | Vague answer | Useful answer |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | "We want a professional website" | "Business customers fill in the quote request form" |
| Examples | "Like the big sites" | "Product search and filters like the first reference site, but a cleaner home page" |
| Features | "It should have everything" | "Version one: consultation form and online payment; multilingual in phase two" |
| Content | "We'll send the copy later" | "We'll send the services copy two weeks after signing; the designer handles the home page copy" |
| Budget | "Whatever it costs" | "Between … and …; if it goes over, let's phase the features" |
| Timeline | "As soon as possible" | "Ready before the exhibition; the blog can be added later" |
Common mistakes when writing a website design brief
- A feature list with no goal: Features should come from the site's goal, not from a competitor's site.
- Hiding the budget: Without a budget range, the designer doesn't know whether to propose a simple solution or a comprehensive one.
- Copying a competitor's site wholesale: Taking inspiration is useful, but a site that looks like a competitor's gives no reason to choose you.
- Assuming the content is ready: "We have the copy" is not the same as "The copy is in our heads".
- Not knowing who holds access: A domain registered in a previous designer's name can delay the start of the project.
- Changing the brief verbally mid-project: Every change should be written down, with its effect on time and cost agreed in advance.
How do the brief, the quote and the contract relate to each other?
These three documents are created one after another, and each builds on the previous one:
| Document | Who prepares it? | What does it define? |
|---|---|---|
| Brief | The client, with the help of the designer's form or briefing session | Needs, goal, audience, features, budget and preferred timeline |
| Proposal and quote | The designer or agency | Solution, scope of work, price, timeline and payment stages |
| Contract | Both parties | Obligations, deliverables, revision rounds, acceptance criteria, ownership and support |
When comparing proposals, check that each one covers every item in the brief; a cheaper proposal has sometimes simply left out a few features. Once you've chosen, attach the final brief to the contract or write the scope of work in the contract based on it. Read about the key clauses in our article on the website design contract.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a website design brief be?
As long as the project requires. For a simple company website, two or three pages that answer every section of the template above are enough; one precise sentence is more useful than a vague paragraph.
What should I write in the brief if I don't know my budget?
Write an approximate range, or a ceiling you don't want to exceed. Looking at designers' published pricing helps you choose a realistic range; without any number, the designer can only guess.
What is a briefing session, and how is it different from a brief form?
A briefing session is a conversation in which the designer clarifies your needs through questions; a brief form asks the same questions in writing. The best approach is to combine the two: fill in the form first, then resolve the open points in a session and put the answers in writing.
What is the difference between a brief and a proposal?
The client writes the brief and says "what we want". The designer writes the proposal, or technical offer, and says "how, when and at what cost we will do it". A good proposal answers the brief point by point.
Do I need a brief for a website redesign too?
Yes, and it matters even more. In a redesign, besides the usual sections, you should write what works well on the current site and must not be lost, what problems it has, and whether you have access to its Search Console and analytics data.
If your brief is ready, or you'd like to complete it step by step, MyTarh's online order form collects the key information of this brief from you stage by stage, so the first conversation starts with a clear picture. You can also see the types of sites we build and how we work on the website design services page.