What to Include in a Website Redesign Brief

The Brief Most People Write Is Backwards

Most redesign briefs start with a wish list: "we want a modern homepage, a new logo placement, a blog section, maybe video." That's a list of outputs, not a brief. A brief that actually leads to a good redesign starts with what's wrong and what you're trying to achieve — the pages and features fall out of that, not the other way around.

Start With What's Actually Broken

Before describing what you want, write down what isn't working about the current site. Be specific:

• Is traffic fine but conversions are low — people visit and leave without contacting you?
• Is the site outdated visually but functionally fine — it works, it just looks like it's from a decade ago?
• Is it hard for your own team to update, so content goes stale because nobody wants to fight the CMS?
• Is it slow, especially on mobile? See why slow websites kill sales if you're not sure whether this is actually costing you.
• Are visitors landing on the wrong pages or bouncing immediately — a sign the navigation or messaging doesn't match what they came looking for?

Naming the actual problem changes the whole redesign. A conversion problem might need a completely different homepage layout and clearer calls to action. A speed problem might need a rebuild on faster underlying technology more than it needs new visual design at all. A content-freshness problem might mean the real fix is a better CMS setup, not new pages.

Define Goals, Not Just Aesthetics

"Make it look modern" isn't a goal a designer can actually measure against. Useful goals look more like:

• Increase quote requests from the services pages
• Reduce mobile bounce rate on the homepage
• Make it possible for our marketing coordinator to publish a blog post without calling a developer
• Support online booking directly instead of routing everyone through a phone call

Concrete goals also make it possible to know, after launch, whether the redesign actually worked — a "modern look" can't be measured, but a conversion rate can.

Know Your Audience — Really Know Them

Not "everyone who might need our service." Who specifically lands on your site, and what are they trying to do when they get there? A roofing company's visitors are often in a stressed, urgent state after storm damage and want to see availability and trust signals fast. A law firm's visitors might be doing slow, careful research over several sessions before ever calling. Those two audiences need very different homepage priorities, even if both sites "look professional."

If you have any real data — Google Analytics, search terms people use to find you, questions your team gets asked repeatedly on the phone — include it. That's more useful to a designer than a paragraph describing your ideal customer in the abstract.

What's Actually Wrong Technically

Separate from the visual and content issues, note anything you know is broken under the hood:

• Is the current site on an old, hard-to-update platform?
• Are there known security or hosting issues?
• Is the site not mobile-friendly, or does it break on certain devices?
• Is it missing basic SEO fundamentals — no meta descriptions, broken links, no sitemap?

A redesign is also the natural moment to fix accumulated technical debt, but only if you tell your developer it exists. They can't fix what they don't know is there, and "what's broken behind the scenes" often doesn't come up unless you specifically ask.

Content: What Stays, What Changes

Decide, page by page if you can, whether existing content is being kept, rewritten, or cut entirely. This matters more than most people expect, because content readiness is consistently one of the biggest factors in how long a redesign actually takes — see how long should a website take to build for why. If you're planning to rewrite everything but haven't started, say so in the brief — it changes the whole project timeline and should be planned for, not discovered midway through.

Pages and Features — Now, Not First

Once the above is clear, list the pages and features you actually need. This list should be a consequence of your goals and audience, not the starting point. If your goal is more booked appointments, a booking widget belongs on the list. If your goal is faster content publishing, your CMS choice belongs on the list. Avoid adding a feature just because a competitor has it — ask what job it does for your specific visitors first.

Budget and Timeline Honesty

State a real budget range, even an approximate one. A vague "what would it cost" question gets a vague answer, and a designer working blind toward an unknown budget either undershoots what you actually need or proposes something you were never going to approve. Same with timeline — if you have a hard deadline (a launch event, a seasonal push), say so up front, because it affects scope decisions from day one.

What a Complete Brief Looks Like

Pulled together, a solid redesign brief covers:

1. What's actually wrong with the current site (be specific, not vague)
2. Measurable goals for the redesign
3. Who your real visitors are and what they're trying to do
4. Known technical issues to fix
5. What content is being kept, rewritten, or cut
6. The pages and features you need, tied back to your goals
7. Budget range and any hard deadlines

A brief this specific takes longer to write than a wish list, but it's the difference between a redesign that fixes the actual problem and one that just looks different while the underlying issues stay exactly where they were.