Brief Builder

Browser storage. Drafts stay on this device.

Plan before you hire

Plan a website a good designer can price.

Turn “I need a website” into a clear brief. Define who it serves, what it must do, what content exists, and what should wait. Your draft is saved in this browser; export a copy for handoff.

Start with a preset or build from scratch.

Planning readiness22%Early discovery
Scope-risk heuristicLowClear choices reduce rework
Timeline range3–5 wkPlanning estimate, not a quote
Budget range$2.4k–$5.8kAuthored USD assumptions; not surveyed prices

Business and audience

Give the project a decision-making center.

Core
Primary website goal

Live project brief

Use this summary to align vendors before proposals.

Draft
Strategy20%
Content20%
Operations30%

Pages and priorities

Choose what launches now and what can wait.

Features and requirements

Separate launch essentials from future improvements.

0 selected

Quality requirements

Selected requirements are requested work, not completed tests or compliance certification.

Content inventory

Mark what is ready, partial, or missing.

0 ready

Visual sitemap

A clear hierarchy prevents accidental page sprawl.

1 page

Build in sensible stages

A phased roadmap that protects the launch.

Not every idea needs to become launch scope. Phase work according to customer value, operational readiness, and dependency risk.

Scope-risk signals

    Before requesting proposals

      Compare more than aesthetics

      Interview vendors with the same questions.

      Good proposals explain ownership, accessibility, maintenance, analytics, content responsibility, and what happens after launch.

      Interview question bank

        Proposal comparison rubric

        Your ratings, weighted by authored priorities; no independent vendor verification.

        Criterion
        Weighted total000

        Local comparison

        Saved brief versions

        0 saved

        Save a version to compare scope, readiness, cost, and timeline.

        Know what you are buying

        The terms behind a durable website.

        A clear contract should say who owns the domain, code, content, accounts, analytics, design files, and ongoing responsibilities.

        Domain and hosting

        Your domain is the address; hosting is the infrastructure serving the site. Keep the domain registered in an account the business controls, and document renewal access.

        CMS and ownership

        A content management system lets non-developers update content. Confirm whether you can export content, move hosts, and retain source files if the relationship ends.

        Maintenance

        Clarify security updates, backups, uptime monitoring, bug fixes, support response times, and which changes count as new billable work.

        Accessibility

        Accessibility is a design and engineering practice, not a plugin. Ask how keyboard use, contrast, labels, motion preferences, and screen readers are tested.

        SEO and conversion

        SEO makes pages understandable and discoverable; conversion design helps visitors take the next useful step. Neither replaces a clear offer or useful content.

        Analytics and privacy

        Collect only data that supports decisions. Document consent, retention, access, third-party scripts, and deletion responsibilities before installing trackers.

        Avoiding lock-in

        Prefer accounts owned by the business, documented integrations, exportable content, standard technologies, and a handoff package with credentials and operating notes.

        Proposal boundaries

        A proposal should define deliverables, assumptions, rounds of revision, content ownership, acceptance criteria, payment milestones, launch support, and exclusions.

        Add a page

        Reset this brief?

        This removes the current draft and all saved versions from this browser.

        Turn a website brief into evidence a vendor can price

        What should you verify before treating a readiness score or budget range as a project commitment?

        Use the builder to compare scope choices and identify missing material, then ask vendors to price the same written deliverables. Its budget, timeline, readiness and risk outputs follow authored rules, not surveyed market prices or inspections of your business. A checked requirement records an intention; it does not implement or certify that requirement.

        Amounts are illustrative USD assumptions. Costs exclude recurring services and unusual integration, migration or compliance work. The percentage is a weighted completeness heuristic, not a probability of success. Vendor totals summarize your ratings, not independent verification. The diagram groups selected pages rather than defining actual URLs or generating a search-engine sitemap.

        Try a worked example

        From a fresh blank brief, five pages are must-have and the inquiry form is selected. The low estimate adds $1,700 base + $760 for two pages beyond the first three + $400 for forms + $420 for three requirements + $1,080 for six missing content items = $4,360, rounded to $4,400. The upper estimate is 2.2 times the rounded low amount, rounded again to $9,700. The same assumptions give 6–10 weeks and 21% readiness. These are scenario outputs to discuss, not vendor quotes.

        Write acceptance criteria instead of relying on a checkbox

        W3C’s accessibility planning guidance treats accessibility as work to organize, implement and maintain. Specify the intended accessibility standard, representative pages and tasks, evaluation responsibilities, issue resolution and later content checks in the brief. Asking for accessibility testing does not establish that testing has happened or that the delivered website conforms. W3C WAI: Accessibility planning

        For performance, Google’s Web Vitals guidance defines good thresholds of LCP at most 2.5 seconds, INP at most 200 milliseconds and CLS at most 0.1, assessed at the 75th percentile of page loads. Agree how representative field data and testing will be collected; the builder does not measure any of these metrics. Google web.dev: Web Vitals

        Make the content useful before expanding the page count

        Google’s SEO Starter Guide emphasizes readable, original, useful content and links that give readers relevant context. Name an owner for each page’s claims, source links, photographs and next action. Ask the vendor to explain crawlable navigation, descriptive titles and accessible resources. Following these practices does not guarantee indexing or a ranking position. Google: SEO Starter Guide

        Must-have pages and features affect the estimate; later items are shown for comparison but excluded from launch pricing. The Prepare and Launch roadmap cards show only their first listed items; the text export contains the full must-have and later lists. Identify dependencies explicitly, including accounts, approved content and third-party subscription fees.

        Compare proposals and protect your saved work

        The vendor rubric uses weights of 20, 15, 15, 15, 15, 10 and 10 percent. Each 0–5 rating contributes rating × weight ÷ 5; all fives total 100. Keep notes and request evidence behind ratings, especially ownership, portability and maintenance. The number alone cannot establish vendor competence.

        Drafts and up to eight saved versions live in this browser’s local storage. Clearing site data or confirming Reset removes them; export a text copy before that. The export includes scope, assumptions and interview questions, but not a restorable state file or vendor scores. Form handling does not call an AI or vendor service; the published page also contains analytics and linked media, so local draft storage is not a promise that the whole page makes no network requests.

        Sources and further reading
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