design& development

briefing

why?

why.

Your website can only be as good as the brief you worked from.

why.

The best projects are born from briefs that are open enough to inspire ideas, while being

specific enough to feel workable.

what?

briefing.

The basics

• Basic project information

• (Marketing) objectives

• Format

• Budget and schedule

• What do you provide the designer/developer

• Description of target audience

• Message objectives

• Where to look for inspiration

• What not to do

briefing.

(Marketing) objectives

• What do you want to achieve with the community/website

• In what form do you want to incorporate this into the project

briefing.

Budget and schedule

• Setup a functional and realistic schedule to accommodate;

• Concept development

• Design

• Development

• Testing

• User feedback

• Consultations

briefing.

Budget and schedule (tips)

• Make use of great online applications for time tracking and

• project management

• Basecamp (www.basecamphq.com)

• Lighthouse App (www.lighthouseapp.com)

• Tickspot (www.tickspot.com)

briefing.

What do you provide the designer/developer

• Screenshots, photos, sitemap, wireframes, sketches, doodles, logo,

• color schemes

• Everything you can possible think

briefing.

Description of target audience

• Occupation, gender ratio, average age, nationality/location,

• psychological demographic, lifestyle preferences.

• Highlight information important for the designer/developer

briefing.

Message objectives

• How/what are you going to communicate to your user base

• Which content is most important to achieve this objective

• Call to actions

• Product samples

briefing.

Where to look for inspiration

• Search the web

• Let the designer/developer know which websites you do like and

• be very specific what you like about it

• Let the designer/developer know which websites you don’t like and

• be very specific what you dislike about it

• TIP make a moodboard

inspiration.

Where to look for inspiration (tips)

• WebbyAwards

• Cannes Lions

• CSSMania

• The Daily Slurp

briefing.

What not to do

• Don’t do the work of the designer

how?

how.

Conversation & Collaboration

• Work together with the designer and developer

• Stay on top

• Answer questions before they become questions

• When in doubt, ask!

how.Structure & Content

• Keep the website structure clearly separate from the initial content

• Structuur

• Sitemap

• Wireframes

• Content

• Call to actions

• Text content

explore.Open source CMS

• Joomla!

• Wordpress

explore.Literature / Reference

• Getting Real by 37Signals.com

• Cleardesign.uk

Wireframes & Moodboard

• ImageSpark

• Wireframe examples

Inspiration• CSSMania

• Colorschemer

questions?