Safe-crackingly good questions for the perfect website project brief

There are evidently many questions that can be asked from the outset to develop good brief and no doubt you've collated many of them already. From my perspective I want to know 4 things: The objective, the assets available, as much about the audience as possible and the journey you'd like them to take. With these questions answered you will be very well armed to create an utterly storming brief.

Objectives:

What are your KEY objectives for this project?
What is your minimum budget for this project?
What is your expected (or absolute) deadline date(s)?
What will a successful project have accomplished for you (over what timeframe?)?
What branding requirements, guidelines, restrictions are there?

Resources and Assets:

What functionality would you like to explore?
What kind of CMS will fit your project?
How would you like to manage your assets ie. Text content and images?
Which other resources might you need to consider for your project ie images, copy?

Defining the Audience:

Who do you want to visit your site?
What is the one most important action you would like your customer to perform whilst on your site?
How are new and existing visitors going to find your new site?
What access essentials does your project require?
What are your current customer impressions of your product or service?
How does that perception fit with your new project?
How would you like this perception to change, develop or influence your customers?
What sort of tone of voice will be adopted, how do you wish deliver your messages?
Who are your main competitors? What are they doing well?

Visitor Journey:

How will you drive traffic to the site?
What is the unique or primary domain name you will be using?
Is your domain relevant and informational?
What are the key message requirements that will be presented immediately on the home page?
What are the required outcomes (minimum and maximum) for your visitors?
What are the key categories that will help define the navigation?

Next time: Wireframes – the bedrock of a good site.

Please pass comment if you have your own ideas about what makes a great brief. This list is definitely not exhaustive.

NSPCC MK Half marathon

We did it again. Three brave runners. Once again, donning the running boots and taking to the redways around MK to complete the 13 point something miles in (not-so) record times.

The eleventh annual NSPCC MK Half marathon saw around 1000 runners in various states of health & fitness plod around the finest new town in the area.

You can view the official website here: http://www.mkhalfmarathon.org.uk/

Lego! Lego! LEGO OF ME!.

I love Lego. Every bloke loves lego don't they? My six year old son gives me the excuse to build stuff out of lego more often these days than would usually be permitted in polite adult society.

The piece of 'Lego art' above is clearly head, shoulders and guts above the usual (my usual) make-shift space rocket.

Yet with all that apparent time he has to spare, the lovely white floor and the lack of odd multi-coloured pieces, you've got to wonder whether the builder actually has any children at all! Remarkable!

I shot the Serif

Now you might say I am clearly easily pleased, yet every now and then you see something that is so simple yet so brilliant that you really wished you'd thought of it first. This brilliant image is one such something. "I shot the Serif" courtesy of artist Tom Gabor

Retro chairs in Pixar movies

It is a little known fact that this beautiful chair features in Toy Story 2, however more excitingly than that it's being reintroduced by Vitra. Long live the Pretzel Chair.

Personal Branding.

Self-help is not a new idea. Samuel Smiles wrote "The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual" back in the late nineteenth century (golly, how he could have made a name for himself today...).

Anyway, the logical next step on your road to a better personal space - once you've built up sufficient confidence and penned your life strategy with help from the world renowned Tony Robbins - is Personal Branding. In the grand scheme of things Personal branding has been around for about 37 seconds and yet it has a massive following and a multitude of experts.

One such expert is Dan Schawbel, ...the leading personal branding expert for Gen-Y... Dan's dream is ...To become the bridge, where qualified applicants can cross to land the positions they deserve. To create a personal branding class in every school internationally, helping students follow their passions.

Personally, like Smiles before him, I think he's a genius, a pioneer on the steep face of webnology mountain. And for individuals (or of course businesses) who are not quite there yet and are seriously exploring Social Media as a self-marketing tool, I suggest he's your first point of call.

My tip for today: You could do a lot worse than starting by visiting Mashable: The social Media Guide.

Stop advertising and people start to talk

More than 48% of US adults believe that a lack of advertising by a retail store, bank or auto dealership during a recession indicates the business is likely struggling...

...At the same time, a majority of consumers think businesses that continue to advertise are competitive and/or committed to doing business.

All this from the Marketing Vox blog. Read More