Technical Brief Writing & Specification Gathering

Know you need a website but don’t know what you need? Big team with lots of ideas? Or a complicated requirement you’re not sure how to approach?

Then our Website Brief Writing service can help. Writing a brief can be a lot of work that you might not have resource – or the expertise for – in house. And a well written brief can make the difference between you getting accurate quotes and just getting a surprise at the end when a misunderstanding is realised.

Whilst you can ask web agencies to submit a tender that includes ideas of how they may tackle your project, you’ve got to give them something to go on. And even how you word that, can make a huge difference to the web professional reading it. Accidentally calling a “blog” a “forum” has a completely different meaning to the person working out the quote.

Also, you need to consider any technical requirements from within your company’s infrastructure and ascertain which need to be adhered to and which are flexible, before you ask web companies to spend time coming up with ideas which they then can’t fulfill because of a hurdle no one was told about.

We read a lot of web briefs at 18a – some are good, most are not. We know what a web company needs to be able to quote accurately; where to be specific in your requirements and where to be open to ideas if possible. We also know where a brief should stop – how much technical specification gathering is ultimately down to the chosen web developer rather than the brief, but how much detail you need to give them in the first place so they can put together an idea of costs and timescales.

Need funding?

A situation we hear a lot is that a start up needs funding in order to proceed, but they don’t know how much they need until they get some quotes. And busy web development companies may not always have resources to do proposals – which can take a lot of time and planning – for a project which might not be going ahead.

Having a professionally written brief put together not only shows web developers and potential investors that you’re serious but it gives everyone involved a set of criteria to base things on.

How does it work?

It can work in a couple of different ways. It might be that we arrange a meeting where we go through everything with you, making notes as we go so you can go away with a clearer idea of what you need to present. Or you might want us to write up the detailed brief – either starting with a meeting, or a conference call for those clients a little further away from Bristol.

If you’d like us to help you write a plan for your new website, then please contact us.