This questionnaire is designed to help guide your relationship with the web design firm you select. It might be us, it might be someone else. But whoever you pick to design and build your web site, you will get a better value if you use the questions on this sheet to determine just what it is that you want built…

To print this sheet, click FILE >>>> PRINT in your web browser.

Or click here to download this sheet in Microsoft Word.

A Little About You

  1. What does your organization do?
  2. Who are your top 3 or 4 competitors?
  3. What is your goal, as an organization? Sell stuff? Get members? Influence opinion? Educate? Something else?
  4. On your team, who are the decisionmakers?
  5. What other resources, external or internal, might be working with your design firm on this project?

About Your Project

  1. What are the basic goals of this project? (e.g., branding/identity reinforcement, improved access to information, direct sales, corporate communication, etc.)
  2. What would be a ‘success’ for this project? High traffic? Increased awareness? Membership growth? Sales?
  3. When is your deadline for this project?
  4. What is the budget for this project? We’re not just trying to squeeze every penny out of you – rather, we want to make sure we build you a site that gets you the best value, and makes the best use of your resources.
  5. Rank the following, in order of importance:
    • A web strategy that fits with our marketing strategy
    • Modifying and moving existing content to the Internet
    • Building a community of dedicated visitors
    • A really great design
    • A really fast deployment
    • Ease of maintenance
    • Beating our competition on the Web
    • Staying within the budget
    • Looking web-savvy

Audience

  1. Who is it that you want to attract to your web site?
  2. Give 1 or 2 profiles of the ideal visitor. Don’t worry, we’re going to do this, too. We just want your perspective.
  3. What do you want each user to get from their visit?
  4. What do you want them to do on your site? Make a purchase? Come away with a message? Or something else?
  5. If you had to pick one phrase under which you were number one on Google, what would it be?

Content

  1. Where will content come from? Will it be new, repurposed, or both?
  2. If repurposed, in what format is the new content in right now? MS Word, text, rtf…?
  3. How often will you add new content?
  4. Who will update the content?

Functionality

  1. What will your web site have to do? Sell things? Display product catalogs? Organize lots
    of content? Stream video? Something else entirely?
  2. Who will maintain these tools?
  3. Are there extraordinary security issues?
  4. Are there other technical issues or limitations?
  5. Have you budgeted for hosting and maintenance of the site?
  6. How will the site be served/hosted? Onsite? By a third party? Not sure?

What You Like

Now the fun part: Find two sites you really like. These sites do not need to be in your industry or sector. Make a list of the site features that attracted you: Bells and whistles? Navigation? Colors? This is important – it tells us what you like and don’t like. It may not bear directly on the final design – remember, we’re designing for your audience, not for you, but more often than not your favorite sites can give us some great insight.