You've decided the business needs a new website and started speaking to potential suppliers.
One of the first things they ask for is a brief, which sounds straightforward until somebody has to write it.
The business understands its customers, services and internal workings, but may struggle to turn that knowledge into a clear project requirement. A designer or developer understands delivery but has only a partial view of the business. An agency may offer to define everything through its discovery process, although its recommendations will naturally reflect the work it provides.
So who should write the website brief?
The honest answer is that two of those three candidates can't. Whatever a supplier produces to define the project, however collaborative, however sincere, is a proposal: the project described from the seller's side. The brief is the only document in the entire process written from the buyer's perspective, and it exists only if the business creates it.
If the supplier writes it, it's a proposal
Most established website suppliers offer some form of discovery or planning, which can be valuable. A good supplier should challenge the initial request, identify gaps, and help clarify what the project needs to achieve. There is, nevertheless, an important commercial dynamic at work.
The supplier benefits when the project proceeds, and the resulting scope will usually lean towards the kind of project it's equipped to deliver. A WordPress specialist is likely to see a WordPress project, while a marketing agency may approach the requirement through positioning and visual identity. Each may be experienced and sincere, but they can still interpret the same business problem differently. This does not make the advice untrustworthy, but the business has to appreciate the tension and view recommendations carefully.
A brief that only justifies the supplier's preferred solution has not done enough to protect the client's interests. At that point, it's not a brief; it's a proposal, and it may not be good enough.
There's nothing underhanded in this. A supplier's scoping work is part of its sales process, done at its own cost in the hope of winning the project. No supplier collaborates on your requirement before something is signed, and nothing it produces beforehand is a document the business can take elsewhere.
The business must own the requirement
A supplier can investigate, challenge and organise the project once appointed, but the website is being commissioned on behalf of the business. It's the business that will pay for it, operate it and live with the consequences of the decisions made. Therefore, the business must write the brief; to not do so would be a commercial error of judgment.
That doesn't mean the owner sits down alone with a blank page. It means the requirement is assembled inside the business; from its own knowledge, from evidence about its customers, and from independent challenge, where the project justifies it. The rest of this article is about where each of those comes from.
The business provides the commercial context
No outside supplier begins with a complete understanding of how the business works; that's impossible.
The people inside the business know which services are profitable, where enquiries tend to go wrong, what customers repeatedly ask and which promises the business can realistically keep. They know whether staff will have time to update the site, whether a new system will fit existing processes and why apparently simple operational changes may be difficult.
A supplier can investigate these things, but the knowledge still has to come from somewhere.
This is why a website brief cannot simply be outsourced as though it were a standalone piece of copy. Whoever helps prepare it will need meaningful input from the owners, managers and staff who understand what happens beyond the website.
Internal knowledge is essential, though it isn't automatically correct, because businesses develop assumptions over time. They may believe customers understand their terminology, value the same things as the directors, or follow the buying process as the company expects. A redesign may be requested because the current site looks dated, when the larger problem is an unclear proposition, weak content or a change in demand.
The business should explain what it knows and distinguish established facts from long-held beliefs.
Customer evidence should test those assumptions
The brief should not be shaped solely by internal opinion. Useful evidence may already exist in:
- sales enquiries
- customer questions
- website analytics
- search data
- feedback and complaints
- conversations with existing clients
None provides a complete answer on its own. Together, they can reveal a gap between what the business thinks customers need and what their behaviour suggests. A company may insist that visitors want detailed technical information, while enquiry patterns show that buyers are struggling to understand the basic difference between its services. It may assume that a particular page is essential because it has always existed, even though almost nobody visits it. It may believe mobile use is secondary because projects are approved on office desktops, while the actual audience reaches the site mainly via mobile phones.
The brief doesn't need to contain a large research report. It should use the evidence available and acknowledge where important questions remain unanswered. That gives suppliers a firmer basis for their recommendations and reduces the chance of the project being built around internal preference alone.
The supplier's expertise arrives in the response
A designer, developer or agency brings a kind of expertise the brief cannot contain. They understand what can be achieved within the budget, how different platforms behave, the impact of technical complexity, and which apparently simple requests create substantial but invisible (to the business) challenges.
A business owner may request a customer portal without realising what it will require from staff, or a team may ask for several integrations without understanding the limitations of the systems involved. A page list may appear straightforward until the content, permissions and data behind it are examined.
That expertise reaches the business through two routes: the questions suppliers ask about the brief, and the proposals they return. A capable supplier should expose the implications before the job is priced — and may recognise when a requested feature is unnecessary, when an existing system can be retained or when a relatively modest improvement would achieve more than a complete rebuild.
This is why the brief should describe the requirement rather than prescribe the solution: over-specifying prevents a capable supplier from suggesting a better approach. You leave room in the brief precisely so their expertise has somewhere to work.
It's also why the questions are important. A supplier that responds to a brief without asking any questions has either assumed the answers or ignored the gaps, and its assumptions are now hidden in its price. This is dangerous ground for a business, and alarm bells should be ringing.
One brief, several proposals
A document that only makes sense inside a particular agency's sales process may describe that agency's proposed project well, but it is less useful as an independent statement of what the business needs. A shared brief gives suppliers a common starting point while leaving them free to propose different methods, technologies and levels of service.
The point is not to force identical responses. It is to make the reasons for their differences visible.
This is why three quotes for "the same website" can come back at wildly different prices. Where the buyer-side brief is weak, or non-existent, each supplier answers a requirement it has had to imagine for itself.
When independent help may be worthwhile
Many businesses can prepare a useful brief themselves. They may have an experienced marketing team, clear objectives, reliable evidence and people capable of coordinating the decisions.
Independent help becomes more valuable when the project is substantial, internal opinions differ, or the business is unsure whether its proposed solution is justified. Occasionally, it's sensible to engage outside help if the process has become overwhelming. A consultant may help clarify the requirement, challenge assumptions, and turn business needs into a document that suppliers can respond to. They may also review whether later proposals answer the original requirement or redefine it, which is an important distinction.
Independent planning can also reach conclusions no supplier's discovery process comfortably reaches: that part of the existing site can be retained, that the content needs attention before design begins, that the budget does not support the stated ambition, or that the business is not yet ready to commission the build.
The consultant does not replace the client or the eventual supplier. The business still provides the knowledge and approves the priorities. The key distinction is that the consultant has nothing to build. The engagement concludes with the brief, so the document is designed to be presented to multiple suppliers rather than targeting a single one.
So, who should write the website brief?
The business, sometimes with independent help, because everyone else who offers to is writing something else.
It should not be expected to produce the document alone, particularly when it lacks the relevant experience. The strongest brief combines:
- the business's operational and commercial knowledge
- evidence about customers and current performance
- independent challenge where the scale or uncertainty justifies it
The supplier's expertise is not an ingredient of the brief. It is what the brief is written to draw out, through the questions suppliers ask and the proposals they return.
Most importantly, the business should own what it finally asks suppliers to deliver.
The brief is the point where the business defines the requirement before somebody else defines the project for it.