Website brief worksheet
Download a blank website brief and a completed fictional example. Read and print every field, with guidance on decisions, owners and open questions.
Use this worksheet to prepare a website project for a supplier discussion. It records the decisions that affect scope and delivery, with space for the evidence, owner and status of each answer.
It is a planning aid, not a contract or a quotation. The completed version uses a fictional repair workshop to show how specific answers differ from vague aspirations.
Download the working files
The files are UTF-8 CSVs that can be opened in a spreadsheet application. They contain the same fields; the blank file leaves the response, owner, evidence and status columns empty for you to complete. No account or submission is needed.
How to use the worksheet
Start with the business objective, audience and visitor tasks. Then list pages and functions separately. Fill in the people responsible for content, assets and approvals before discussing a launch date.
Keep an uncertain answer visible as a question, with an owner and a decision point. Do not treat a blank cell as agreement. For instance, the absence of a budget entry does not mean there is no limit; it means the commercial scope still needs discussion.
Save your own copy in your chosen spreadsheet application. The website does not receive or store your completed answers. To work on paper, print this page using your browser's Print command; the blank and example versions are both readable below.
Blank worksheet
| Field | Prompt | Your response |
|---|---|---|
| Business objective | What useful change should the website support? | |
| Audience | Who needs the site, and in what situation? | |
| Visitor tasks | What must a visitor be able to decide or do? | |
| Required pages | Which pages have distinct jobs? | |
| Functions | What must the site do beyond displaying content? | |
| Content owner | Who supplies and confirms the factual material? | |
| Assets available | What usable files exist, and who confirms permission? | |
| Constraints | What limits the scope, budget or delivery? | |
| Dependencies | What must happen before another task can finish? | |
| Responsibilities | Who owns delivery, approvals and ongoing operation? | |
| Review process | In what order will decisions and feedback be approved? | |
| Acceptance criteria | What evidence will show the work is complete? | |
| Unresolved questions | Which questions remain, who decides, and when? |
The downloadable version also has columns for owner, evidence or source and status. Use those to show who can confirm an answer and whether it is agreed, assumed or still open.
Completed fictional example
Alder & Grain is an invented furniture repair workshop. This completed example is not a live business brief or an assertion about a real supplier.
| Field | Completed fictional response |
|---|---|
| Business objective | Help households recognise suitable repair work and prepare assessment enquiries. |
| Audience | Householders with wooden dining chairs or small tables who can bring an item to the workshop by arrangement. |
| Visitor tasks | Check repair scope and exclusions; understand assessment; prepare photographs and a description; find the correct contact route. |
| Required pages | Home; furniture repairs; how assessment works; workshop information; contact and preparation checklist; current policy pages. |
| Functions | Informational pages, an image gallery and a verified email link in a real deployment. No shop, accounts or booking calendar in this scope. |
| Content owner | Workshop owner supplies and approves service facts and the first copy draft. Designer improves structure and enters approved content. |
| Assets available | One original wordmark and six workshop photographs are assumed available; the owner confirms permissions before use. |
| Constraints | Keep the initial site informational. No unsupported repair promises, fixed turnaround or invented prices. Agree a budget and schedule against the final scope. |
| Dependencies | Approve service copy and image permissions before final layout review; confirm contact and visiting details before any real publication. |
| Responsibilities | Designer owns templates and technical setup; owner approves facts and retains business account access; ongoing support is explicitly agreed. |
| Review process | Approve page map, then homepage and service copy, then layout and complete visitor journeys. Owner consolidates feedback. |
| Acceptance criteria | A new reader can state accepted repairs, exclusions, assessment sequence and preparation steps. Owner can complete the agreed editing task. |
| Unresolved questions | Owner confirms real contact details, appointment arrangements and image permissions before publication; owner and designer agree ongoing support before handover. |
The example intentionally records open questions. A real project should resolve operational details before publication, while keeping the planning record honest about what was known at each stage.
Check the brief before sharing it
Ask whether a supplier could explain the work, exclusions and inputs from this document. Make sure every listed page has a job, every function has an expected result and every dependency has an owner.
Look for words that hide missing detail: “professional”, “easy”, “SEO” and “full handover” need an explanation of the work or evidence you expect. Keep the project brief concise enough to use, with supporting assets and evidence linked or supplied alongside it.
For the reasoning behind these fields, read how to write a website brief. Then use the proposal comparison guide to compare suppliers against the same scope. The local-service website example shows the completed brief becoming actual page copy.