A useful website brief does not need design terminology. It needs honest information about the business, the visitor and the job the website must do.
Start with the visitor
Write down who the important visitors are and why they arrive. A customer comparing suppliers needs different information from an existing customer looking for support. Trying to serve everybody with the same vague paragraph usually serves nobody well.
List the actions that matter
Decide what a useful visit should lead to. That might be an email enquiry, telephone call, booking, application, purchase or download. Prioritise the actions instead of giving every link equal visual weight.
Collect the facts before polishing the words
- The exact services offered and anything specifically excluded.
- The areas or customer groups served.
- The real contact routes and opening arrangements.
- Evidence that can be published honestly: projects, photographs, qualifications or reviews.
- Any legal, safeguarding, privacy or accessibility information visitors need.
Be honest about what is not decided
A visible placeholder on a live website is not a strategy. During the project, however, marking an unknown fact clearly is better than filling the gap with confident nonsense. Decide who owns each missing answer and when it will be supplied.
Think beyond launch
A website needs somebody to keep its content, software and contact routes current. Decide who can edit it, who maintains it, where enquiries go and how updates will be requested before the new site becomes another neglected system.
The brief in one sentence
Describe the business, the most important visitor, the problem they are trying to solve and the next step the website should make easy. That sentence will not replace discovery, but it is a far better starting point than “make it modern”.