How to create design brief for your website?

Building a website project requires undoubtedly the drafting of detailed specifications.
A task which proves to be crucial and must be done correctly in order to optimize the project costs as well as to put in place a solid foundation. The specifications are also considered as a collaborative tool that binds the company to its professional agency and which allows it to grasp the different means and the business environment within the framework of which it will develop the website. The company for its part must be able to clearly and precisely define the objectives related to the creation of its website.

What is meant by design brief and what does it contain?

It is basically a tool represented as a document which expresses the different elements related to the creation of a website. The specifications reflect the objectives set by the company which wants to set up its website as well as the list of the various technical, functional, or even aesthetic constraints that relate to the website development project.

In addition, this document contains other elements such as referencing and web-design. Drafting the specifications means having good visibility as to what the company wants and expects of a website as well as of developers who will take care of it. Moreover, it is possible to hire a professional web development agency in order to be able to have a reference document. The specifications of a website are supposed to address at different levels a certain number of the project’s elements such as:

✥ Le contexte du projet de création de site Internet
✥The context of the creation of a website project
✥ The expected structure of the website
✥The Layout of web pages
✥ The graphic charter relating to the website and its design
✥Hosting and integrations
✥The design of the mobile version of the website.
✥Type of a website (e-commerce site, showcase site, etc.)
✥Products

Why draft a design brief of a website?

This document consists of a clear list of all the needs and objectives related to the creation of a web project. When it comes to creating a website, Specification stands out as an essential document which makes it possible to precisely define the needs of the company and even to be able to rigorously supervise the team of web developers in charge of carrying out the project. Thus, the specifications represent a security guarantee not just for the company as to the fact that it does not necessarily have the required technical skills, but also for the web agency which can make a precise estimate of the delays relative to carrying out the project.

Through the signature of the specifications, the web provider undertakes to carry out the elements prescribed in this document within specified deadlines and at a predefined cost. In the event that the client company formulates additional requests after drafting the specifications, the web development agency can prove that these requests had not been provided for from the start and may therefore be the subject of further reflection.

How to draft the design brief for a website?

According to practice in this field, the responsibility of drafting specifications rests with the computer service delivery agency. To do this, the latter talks on numerous occasions with the client company through a dedicated team with the aim of first being able to understand the objective targeted by the realization of the web project. During these discussions, the service provider will start by asking the main questions in order to meet essentially the various technical constraints even to be able to identify the basic needs related to the proper execution of the web project.

If for example, it is a matter of designing a showcase site the specifications can then be drafted in a very short time, about two hours and this due to the fact that the needs related to this type of website are quite quick to identify. If, on the contrary, it is about drafting specifications relating to the establishment of a web application, it will then be a question of a task of several days of work. Moreover, we should know that the drafting of this document depends essentially on the elements it contains. Those relating to a showcase site are neither numerous nor complex ; hence the need for a very short drafting time. On the other hand, when it is a matter of a more technical web development project, like an institutional site , our e-commerce site, it necessarily requires many more functionalities to integrate which are more specific to this project. Indeed, the latter will require a more personal and customized development.

What is the cost of drafting design brief for a website?

In the same line of thought, the cost of the contract document (specifications) depends on the elements it contains and on the time needed to draft it as well as the number of meetings that will have to be held to finalize all the document components. For example, the showcase site which does not require multiple interviews and whose specifications can be drafted in two hours, the cost will be substantial and therefore not very high. It will therefore be the complexity and specification of the web project which will determine the final cost of drafting the related specifications.

As this is a more complex and moreover more technical project, there are different methods to fix the cost of drafting the specifications:

➔ Method of facturation /invoicing for the time spent : According to the available different elements of the project, the provider of computing service can make an estimate of the time needed to draft it and issue an invoice. According to this method, if the service provider exceeds the estimated execution time, the client company will not have to pay the price difference.
➔ Method of facturation/invoicing for the time spent : In this case, the computing service delivery agency provides its hourly rate in a quote sent to the client and establishes at the end of the project an invoice that lists the time spent drafting the specifications (document contract).
➔ Package method : According to this method, the service provider invoices according to a predefined tariff which is applied in accordance with the type of the project web to develop namely: institutional site, e-commerce site, showcase site or web application. A specification for a website is an essential document for the proper execution of this project. That it is a simple site such as a showcase site or a more complex site, specific and technical such as an e-commerce site or a web application, the company has every interest to draft its specifications, in this case by getting help from a specialized computing service delivery agency.