The Art of the Perfect Design Brief
Aligning Visions: The Foundation of Collaboration
In the heart of every Founder lies a vision. This vision is more than an idea; it's a map guiding every project.
Yet, as part of this project passes to an external partner, the translation often falters, lost in translation.
Clarity dims. Frustration mounts. Revisions never end. Collaboration spirals into chaos.
Time, resources, and innovative visions are lost. Almost 50% of Freelancers say clients don’t know how to work with Freelancers.1
Enter the protagonist of this story: the design brief.
Far from a simple document, it's the cornerstone that will guide the external partner, ensuring every step is in harmony with your vision.
In this article, we'll dissect the anatomy of an impeccable design brief and give you a template for your next design collaborations.
It’s time to master the craft of the perfect design brief, your first step towards design excellence.
Common mistakes to avoid
When writing a design brief for a digital project, several common mistakes should be avoided to ensure the brief is effective and sets the project up for success:
1. Unclear goals
Having unclear goals or trying to achieve too many goals can confuse the external partner and detract from the main objective. It's important to thoroughly assess your business goals and long-term plan to focus on what's important.
⚠️ Unclear goal: "We want our website to be more modern and engaging, with some new features that will make us stand out."
Precise goal: “Increase website conversion rate by 15% within the next quarter through a redesigned checkout process that simplifies user flow.”
It’s ok to have discovery calls with designers without a clear brief.
Starting a mission with a designer without a clear brief is not okay.
If you’re unsure, let a senior designer help you.
2. Being too wide or restrictive
⚠️ Being overly broad may lead to a lack of focus, decision-making difficulties, and wasted resources.
⚠️ Restrictive briefs can stifle creativity, prevent innovative solutions, and create frustration due to limited freedom.
Balancing Precision and Openness
The key is to balance clarity in objectives with openness to creative exploration. This involves setting clear goals while encouraging innovative approaches and allowing for an iterative process where ideas can be developed and refined. This balance ensures that designers have direction and the freedom to effectively utilize their creativity and expertise.
3. Omitting deadlines and milestones
⚠️ Not including clear deadlines can lead to frustration and mismanagement of the project's timeline.
Deadlines are essential milestones that help organize the workflow, prioritize tasks, and maintain momentum in the collaboration.
They ensure all parties understand the project timeline, facilitating better planning, resource allocation, and proper handoff. Establishing clear deadlines is crucial for keeping the project on track and ensuring a smooth and efficient collaboration process.
4. Using Jargon or not enough context
Providing a brief filled with jargon and meaningless information can add confusion. Information should be relevant and easy to understand to ensure the external partner can execute the vision without delays.
To mitigate this, the information provided in the brief must be concise, relevant, and articulated in plain language that is easily understandable by everyone, regardless of their technical expertise. If jargon needs to be understood, provide complementary resources and account for extra time to digest and integrate those.
This approach ensures that the external partner can quickly grasp the project's goals and requirements without multiple rounds of clarification or misinterpretation.
Anatomy of an impeccable design brief
A well-crafted design brief in the digital world is essential for guiding projects towards successful outcomes. It is a vertebral column for the external partner and all internal stakeholders. Ensuring everyone is aligned on the project's goals, scope, and constraints.
A great design brief should have clear boundaries and help anyone project themselves into potential solutions while reading it.
The following are the must-have elements of a design brief in the digital realm.
Part 1: Get on the same page
Project Overview
Provide a concise summary of the project, including its background, purpose, and expected outcome.
Objectives and Goals
Clearly outline what the project aims to achieve. These should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). If you don’t know how to write SMART goals, talk with GPT like this.
Scope of work
Detail the specific deliverables expected from the project.
This helps manage expectations and prevent scope creep by outlining the project's boundaries.
Clarifying what’s not in scope is also an easy way to add clarity and help you focus on the most meaningful work.
Deliverables
List all expected deliverables, such as website pages, logos, or other design elements. Be specific about the formats and versions needed. This ensures that both parties agree on what will be delivered upon project completion.
Feedback and Revision Process
Describe the process for reviewing designs, providing feedback, and making revisions. This helps in managing expectations and ensuring a smooth workflow. This will help the external partner understand how you work and what you value in the collaboration.
Timeline
Include a high-level timeline with key milestones and potential deadlines. If this is not a strong deadline, make it clear. This helps the external partner ensure timeframes for deliverables are viable.
Budget
Outline the project budget, including any constraints or considerations. A clear budget helps the external partner understand the financial boundaries and allocate resources efficiently.
Decision owner & contact
Provide contact information for the person or team overseeing the project. Effective communication is key to the success of any project, and having a designated point of contact facilitates this.
Provide clear decision ownership for the external partner to understand your internal working methods. How will be taking the lead when decisions are harder to make? This will help you clarify who’s the true person involved in your project.
Part 2: Get setup for success
At this point, the external partner should know if he wants to work on this project. What’s next is the additional context for him to do great work. This list is non-exhaustive and should be adjusted based on the project.
The usual sections include:
Target audience
Define who the end-users are, including demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and any relevant user personas. Understanding the audience is crucial for tailoring the design to meet their needs and preferences.
Brand guidelines and style preferences
If applicable, include brand standards that the design should adhere to, such as logos, color schemes, typography, tone of voice, or a complete Design System. This ensures the design aligns with the brand's identity and meets the client's aesthetic expectations
Competitor analysis
Include insights into competitors, highlighting what works and what doesn't in the marketplace. This helps in positioning the project uniquely and effectively against the competition
Technical requirements
Describe the functionality that the product must have. This could range from user interaction features to backend processes that support the user experience.
Include technical constraints or requirements, such as platforms, devices, browsers, resolution, and third-party integrations.
Content Requirements
Specify the type of content needed (text, images, videos, etc.), who will provide it, and how it should be structured or presented.
Duplicate the template to reuse on your next collaboration
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Article of the month
In his last article, Peter Smart, founder of a world-class design agency, Fantasy, discusses the paradigm shift we’re starting to live in user interface design, emphasizing that the future of UI will heavily rely on words rather than traditional physical forms.
It highlights the increasing importance of natural language input in controlling products and services and envisioning a future where our linguistic skills and understanding of conversation design will be crucial in crafting intuitive, AI-powered tools.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonyounger/2021/10/26/what-we-learned-from-the-global-survey-on-freelancing/?sh=28fbe046392f