Reference
What is Project brief?
A project brief describes what a website must do, who does the content, what it integrates with and when it must launch. A clear one produces comparable quotes; an ambiguous one produces either padded prices or change requests later.
Also called: requirements document · web design brief
The sections that matter
- What the business does and what the site must achieve commercially
- Must-have functionality, separated explicitly from nice-to-have
- Who writes the copy and supplies photography, and by when
- What it must integrate with — payments, accounting, CRM, dispatch
- Timeline, any fixed date, and the reason for it
- Budget range, stated rather than hidden
State the budget
Hiding it in case a supplier "takes all of it" is understandable and counterproductive. Without a range the supplier must guess which of several very different projects you want, and the guess is usually wrong in whichever direction is worse for you.
The three ambiguities behind most disputes
"Responsive", "SEO included" and "content migration" mean different things to different people. Defining each in one sentence prevents more argument than any contract clause.
Where this is covered in depth
A definition can only go so far. Writing a website brief that gets you comparable quotes covers this properly — 3 minutes, free, no email required.
Who wrote this
Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan. These definitions come from client work rather than from a content brief — where an entry describes a mistake, it is usually one found on a real site. More about how I work.