ARQIL / Practical field note · General planning guidance
A website brief does not need to begin with colors or animations. Start with the decisions that affect whether the site will be useful to your business.
1. Who needs to use it?
Describe the main visitor in plain language. What do they need to know before contacting you? A clinic patient, a procurement manager, and a homeowner are likely to have different questions.
2. What should they understand?
List the services, what each one includes, and the information people regularly ask you for. Decide what you can explain publicly and what belongs in an individual quotation.
3. What should happen next?
Choose the action the site should make easier: a relevant enquiry, a consultation request, or a purchase. Keep that action distinct from the eventual business outcome. A button click alone is not a new customer.
4. What material can you provide?
Gather your logo, accurate contact details, service information, approved photographs, and any work you have permission to publish. Do not let a missing testimonial become a reason to invent one.
5. Who will maintain it?
Decide who updates the content, owns the hosting and domain, manages licenses, and handles backups. Include editing requirements in the brief so the technology supports the people using it.
A better way to compare quotations
Compare deliverables, assumptions, responsibilities, third-party costs, revision stages, testing, handover, and support. A number without a scope is difficult to evaluate.