The single biggest reason projects go sideways in week one is a bad brief. Not a missing brief — most clients have at least a sketch of one — but a brief that's vague in the exact places where precision matters. Here's the template we use at Designerly when we're the agency, and what we send to clients when we're not.
The brief template (copy this)
1. Project summary
In 2-3 sentences, describe what you're building and why it exists now. Not what your company does — what this project does.
2. Goals and success metrics
What does success look like in 90 days? 6 months? 12 months? Be specific. "Increase conversions" is not a goal. "Increase qualified lead form submissions from 40/month to 80/month" is a goal.
3. Target audience
Describe your primary user in one paragraph: their role, what they care about, what they read, what frustrates them. If you have multiple audiences, rank them.
4. Scope and deliverables
List every tangible thing you expect to receive. "A website" is not a deliverable. "A 12-page responsive website with CMS, contact form, and blog" is a deliverable.
5. Brand and visual references
3-5 sites you love, with a sentence on what you love about each. 1-2 sites you don't love, with a sentence on why. This is the single most useful section of the brief — do not skip it.
6. Constraints
Budget range. Timeline / launch date. Technical requirements (must integrate with X, must work on Y browsers). Internal stakeholders who need approval.
7. Competition
Who else is doing what you do? What do they do well? What would you do differently?
Three real briefs that worked
Example 1: B2B SaaS dashboard redesign
"We're redesigning the analytics dashboard for our enterprise SaaS product (used by 800 paying customers). Current dashboard has a 23% weekly active rate; we want 40% in 6 months. Users are data analysts at Fortune 1000 companies. The redesign should add three new widgets: cohort analysis, funnel visualization, and custom date range comparison. We're not changing the brand. Launch deadline: end of Q3. Budget: $45-60k."
Why this works: specific metrics, named audience, clear deliverables, named constraints, real budget range.
Example 2: Local bakery ecommerce site
"We're launching a small ecommerce site to take pre-orders for our sourdough bread. We currently sell out every weekend at the farmer's market and want to test online ordering with our existing 200 customers before scaling. Need: 1 landing page, 4 product pages, cart, checkout via Stripe, and an email signup. We're not designers — we have a logo and a color palette (#8B4513 and #F5F0E1) but no other brand work. Budget: $3-5k. Want to launch in 4 weeks for the holiday season."
Why this works: clear stage (validation, not scale), specific constraints, named tools, realistic budget.
The one mistake that ruins most briefs
Most briefs describe what the client wants to build. The good ones describe what the user needs to do. The difference matters: "We need a contact form" is what you want. "A returning visitor who needs to ask a specific question about our pricing and hear back within 24 hours needs a form that's clearly labeled and gets them a response fast" is what the user needs. The design follows from the second one.