How to Write a Design Brief

In this post, we will go through the six steps to write a design brief. Writing a comprehensive design brief for clients is crucial for setting clear goals and expectations for a project. Not only is it a great way to stay organized and on schedule, but it is also what businesses expect from a design professional. Here are the steps to focus on before starting any designs:

1. Identify the mission and goals of the client's business.

2. Define the goals and objectives of the project.

3. Focus on the target audience and the problem.

4. Outline the scope of the project.

5. Provide visual references or creative direction.

6. Communicate project schedule and budget requirements.

For our mock project, we will use Bring Your Own Laptop as our client and create the process for a feature on their member dashboard. Now, let's go into each point of the UI UX design process in more detail.

Research the mission and goals of the client's business

In this step, we want to discover what our client's business is and what drives them to provide the goods and/or services they do. We can do this by reviewing their website, visiting their store location if they have one, speaking with current customers, and talking to the business owners and employees. 

Example: By visiting BYOL's website and speaking with their employees, we discovered they provide online courses and tutorials for graphic design students. The courses featured include Adobe's Creative Suite, online platforms such as Figma and Webflow, and Microsoft Office products. Along with instructional videos on using each tool, members also receive support from the BYOL team and assistants. This support feature leads us to the next step of the design brief process: project goals.

Define the goals and objectives of the project.

This step takes a look at the proposed design project and its objectives. Often, project ideas come through brainstorming sessions within a business. Sometimes, ideas are discovered via feedback from existing customers and/or what a competitor is doing. These ideas usually include a new or enhanced product or service to better meet customers' needs. 

Example: BYOL offers support to its members in various ways. Every video in each course provides a section for members to post design work, questions about the lesson, and general comments. The site also includes a panel for members to submit their questions and concerns to BYOL's team. And the team's response time is usually within 1-2 days! Even with all the great service members already receive, the BYOL team has decided to design a feed into their members' dashboards. With this new design idea, we can dive into the next step of the process: the problem.

Focus on the target audience and the problem.

With any new design idea, we must always focus on the end users, their preferences, and their behaviors. This helps your team understand the customers' experiences, needs, and pinch points. We want to provide them with products and services they find beneficial and help them solve a problem. 

Example: The idea for BYOL's new dashboard feature is to solve a problem for its current members: an isolated community. With the previous setup of having members post comments and designs on each individual video, another member would have to visit the same video page to discover new posts and share feedback. And many of the individual courses contain 80-100+ videos. It could take hours to go through just one course to offer assistance. Of course, nobody was doing that. Instead, members would join BYOL's Facebook group and post their content in the group feed. This involves a lot of back-and-forth for the user to learn on BYOL's site and get feedback on Facebook's site. BYOL's team wanted to alleviate this problem and provide a way for members to learn AND get feedback on the same site. Now, we could get to work outlining the design project.

Outline the scope of the project.

For this step in the UI UX design brief process, we will begin listing the deliverables, as well as any possible constraints to completing the project. Deliverables can include personas, journey maps, user flows, and calls to action. Since most of these items involve research and time to create, it is best to set expectations with dates for completion. 

Example: For BYOL's project, we will want to create a general persona focusing on the types of people who join BringYourOwnLaptop.com. We’ll expand on the user types, giving each a name, profile image, short bio, goals, and challenges. These personas will further direct our team as they begin the designing stage. We can also make a short journey map of how we think the users will use the new feed.  

Provide visual references or creative direction.

In this next step, we begin thinking about the design itself. Now is when we want to describe the design and style preferences. Most customers will already have brand guidelines to help us keep our design consistent and allow for a seamless user experience. If a customer does not have a brand style or preferences, we will want to gather any ideas or suggestions from them. This could include images or screenshots they gathered from other UI UX designs. Images are great visual representations of what the customer expects with their project.

Example: BYOL already has a great-looking brand with many UX tricks baked into the site to help direct members' actions. We need to extend those design styles into our dashboard feed. We can use the existing icon set for a submit post button or high-five micro-interaction. We can also designate specific accent colors to post types such as design submissions or general discussion topics. Using many of the same elements from the BYOL brand, we ensure that members have a great experience adopting the new feature on the site.

Finally, let's talk about one of the most vital steps in this process:

Communicate project schedule and budget requirements.

As a designer, we know there are many specialists in our field. We will rarely complete a whole project on our own, and we must rely on each other to complete most projects. If you are part of a team, it's essential to describe the role of each specialist in the project. For BYOL's dashboard feed project, they will have to utilize a UI UX designer to build the prototype, a web developer to code the new feature into the existing website, and a few team members to test functionality and report bugs.

We must also include a timeline for when the specific pieces should be completed. This way, each specialist in the project process knows when the project will be handed over to them to begin their piece. And, of course, we want to list the costs associated with each role, including expenses and fees. Finally, we need to share the budget with our customer along with a contract. The contract tells the customer what they can expect, when they can expect it, and how much it will cost them. After the customer signs the contract, it's time to start designing!

Wrapping up

There you have it! Six easy-to-follow steps are all you need to begin writing your first UI UX design briefs. Now it’s your turn. You can practice using these steps by jumping to our Random Project Generator. Click the UX/UI button, add a couple details, and Generate Your Project. You’ll get a short bio about the user and the project you’ve been asked to create. Go through the steps outlined in this article to write a design brief.

Interested in learning more about UI UX design? When you become a BYOL member, you will gain access to my 30+ additional courses on Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, Webflow, and more. As a BYOL member you will also enjoy personalized support, earn certificates, and tackle exciting community challenges. Head here to sign-up!

See you in class! - Dan