The Website Design Process Begins With You!

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Why The Best Website Design Process Starts With A Website Design Brief

In my time as a website designer for brands and businesses, I have had countless clients come to me and simply say, “I need you to make me a website!”

My immediate response usually catches them by surprise: “Ok, great! What else?”

Once the confused look fades, I can dig in a bit deeper with the fundamental questions that good website design requires:

Why do they want a website?
What are their expectations for their unique website?
What is their target audience?
How will their website help them achieve their company goals and expectations?

Here’s the truth: Even the best website designers aren’t mind-readers.

The best website ever designed will still fail to produce results if there isn’t a foundational framework of purpose and direction that guides the site’s development.

Simply put, if your website isn’t designed purposefully, then you can’t expect it to produce the results you need!

So how do you build a compelling website? The process starts with asking the right questions – and those questions can be answered with a website design brief.

What Is A Website Brief, & Why Do I Need One?

If you are in the market for a new website, it is essential to plan how you create the right one for your brand or company.

When you are building a brand-new house, sitting down with a skilled contractor to go over blueprints can save you time and money – and ensure you end up with precisely what you want!

Your website design brief is a document that you and your website design team will create before any fingers hit the keyboard. The website brief will outline the purpose, goals, and target audience for your site through consultation with your designer.

While you may balk at the idea of spending time writing up a design brief, just remember: “A good plan today saves time and money tomorrow.”

You may not know how to answer these questions now but answering them with a website design team’s help before your website build begins can save you and your team many headaches!

How Does A Website Brief Help?

In general, a well-built website design brief helps both a website designer and a brand or business client discover a few essential items prior to development:

Discover the goals and expectations of your new website.

If you are coming to the table with a website designer, it is important that you both know what the goals of your website are. There might be certain expectations – such as getting customers to buy more products or encouraging them to sign up for newsletters.

The goals of your site will directly impact the design.

Know how your company or brand works and who’s involved in the process.

It can be quite eye-opening for both you and your designer to put pen to paper and spend time explaining what your company does and who is in charge. This includes identifying the various departments that have a stake in website development and ongoing updates.

The brief will help you keep everyone in the process in the loop – even if they can’t be at the initial meeting.

Get a better idea of how long it may take to build your site.

If you don’t have a live website in today’s digital world, you are missing out on potential revenue. So, time is of the essence when creating your new site. Your website brief can help give your designer a clear plan for how to build the site and how long it might take to get the site built.
Part of the website brief process will include outlining when you need your site completed. This will help the designer offer an estimate of the cost and timeline to complete the project.
Discover your website’s target audience.
It is important to know who your website design will appeal to. The designers of your site need this information in order to be able to create a website that will make sure the right traffic reaches the right parts of the site with as little difficulty as possible.

With a good website brief in hand, you can make sure everyone is on the same page about where they want the new website to go – and the path you will journey together to get there.

What Can I Expect In A Website Brief?

The best way to get this information contained in the website brief is by sitting down with your clients and begin asking them a set of predetermined questions that will help them know the real purpose of creating a website.

Every website design brief is as unique as the client and the website that they need have built.

However, a typical website design brief will likely include several questions that you can start thinking of right now as you prepare for your first design consultation:

● What are your top three goals for this particular website?
● Who is the audience you’re trying to reach with this site?
● How would you define success for this website project, and what metrics will we use together to measure that success?
● Do you have any examples of designs or features from other websites that you like?
● Do you have colors, fonts and image ideas for your website?
● Do you have a logo?
● Do you have a website design direction in mind?
● What are the top three keywords that you would use to describe your site’s content, products, and services?
● How many pages do you want on this website, and what will they be about?

Even a tiny bit of time invested in answering these key questions can be a gamechanger when it comes time for development.

With a website design brief in hand, your website designer can work even faster with better knowledge of precisely what you need to have created.

Why You Should Work With A Professional Website Designer Like Shaka Web Design Services

It can be hard to know what you want or where to start when it comes to website design. The best next step to take may be to contact a professional website designer and developer.

A professional website designer will work with you every step of the way – from inception through design and development and all the way up until launch day.

Your designer will work with you to build a strong website design brief and then guide you in taking those ideas and turning them into your new website.

If you want to learn more about the website design process and how to set up a consultation for a website brief, contact Shaka Web Design Services! Our team of experienced web designers and developers will work with you to create a website that is creative, functional, and meets your business needs.

Every website design project begins with a website design brief – ensuring that your new site exceeds your expectations.