How to brief your web design agency properly

And we get it. Sometimes you don’t know what you need until someone asks the right questions. But if you want a project that doesn’t spiral into weeks of back-and-forth, ballooning budgets, and “can we just…” chaos, you’ve got to brief better.

No matter how hard we try, we aren’t mind readers. We’re strategic thinkers. Give us a proper brief, and we’ll give you a website that’s actually worth launching.

Tell us what’s broken

Why are we doing this? What’s not working? “It feels dated” is a cop-out. Are users getting lost? Is your team too scared to update the CMS? Is it just not delivering leads? Say it out loud.

We’re not here to give your homepage a new outfit, we’re here to fix the whole experience. But we can’t do that unless you show us the cracks.

Define what “better” actually means

Everyone wants their site to be “clean” and “modern.” That’s not a goal – it’s a default setting. What does success look like for you? More conversions? Easier edits? A site your sales team isn’t embarrassed to share? If we know what good looks like to you, we can design it to hit it, not take a wild guess.

Own what you don’t know

Look, no client of ours has ever shown up with a wireframe, because UX design isn’t their speciality. If you don’t know what platform you want, what structure it needs to take, or whether your 34 blog posts from 2018 are still relevant, just tell us. We’re not here to judge, we’re here to help. Saying “I don’t know” is a power move, not a weakness.

Hand over the chaos

Give us the wonky sitemap. The “please fix” list from your Teams chat. That 42-page PDF of random analytics screenshots (Robyn loves that stuff). We’ll take it. You don’t need to make it neat, it just needs to be honest. The more real-world mess we see, the sharper the end result.

Be blunt about budget and timelines

We’re not playing games. If you’ve got £10k, tell us. If you’ve got £50k… also tell us. We aren’t going spend it on expensive holidays disguised as business meetings, we’re going to recommend the best approach for what you’ve got. And while we’re here: “ASAP” isn’t helpful. What’s the actual deadline? What’s driving it? Help us help you!

The bottom line

A strong brief sets the tone for everything. It’s not about being polished – it’s about being honest. Give us a bit of detail, and we’ll give you a website that actually hits the mark. So if you’ve got an idea, then get in touch – let’s make something that doesn’t just tick boxes, but turns heads.