A website may need a substantial change. But “it looks dated” does not yet explain what needs fixing. Start with what the visitor cannot accomplish and what that costs the business.
The brief starts with a task the website needs to perform better.
1. Use the website as a customer would.
Choose a few real tasks: understand the offer, check suitability, find a price or send an inquiry. Follow the journey on a phone and a laptop. Where do you have to guess? What information is missing? Which button promises one thing and takes you somewhere else?
Observe a few people resembling the intended audience without explaining the interface. An exploratory test can uncover difficulties the team no longer notices. One person’s reaction is not a conclusion about every customer.
2. Separate message, journey and functionality.
If people cannot understand what you sell, a new animation will not clarify the offer by itself. If they understand and want to proceed but the form fails, the priority is specific. If important pages load slowly or shift while loading, investigate performance and stability.
Use available behavior data alongside technical checks. Core Web Vitals cover loading, interaction responsiveness and visual stability. A good score does not establish that the offer is persuasive, and a laboratory test cannot replace the experience people have on their own devices.
3. Choose the right size of intervention.
An isolated problem may need a focused correction: a form, the order of information or an offer page. Repeated navigation, content and structural problems may justify a wider redesign. Platform constraints, maintenance and the business’s future needs also matter.
Before launch, define what to preserve: useful pages, addresses receiving traffic, measurement, forms and valid content. Agree on how to assess progress: task completion, errors, suitable inquiries and commercial outcomes, compared in context. Changes in traffic or seasonality may influence the result.
The same request: “We need a new website.”
Three illustrative situations that may call for different interventions.
| Observation | What to check | Possible first step |
|---|---|---|
| The offer is not understood | Message and customer questions | Rewrite and test one page |
| The form loses inquiries | Errors, delivery and confirmation | Repair the contact journey |
| Problems recur throughout | Architecture, components, platform | Prototype a new structure |
These are starting points, not automatic diagnoses. Several problems can coexist.
A redesign brief that supports decisions
Who uses the website and what should become easier to accomplish.
Observed problems and the evidence available for each.
What deserves to stay and what limits the website’s evolution.
What will be measured after launch and who owns the review.
A good redesign has visual ambition and a clear reason for change. Define them together so design, content and technology can work toward the same outcome.