Writing a Website Specification
Any sizable website project should start with a specification. This should outline the objectives for your website along with any deadline or budget constraints. Below I have outlined an example template that you can use.
1. INTRODUCE YOURSELF
Briefly explain what you or your company does, this provides the background to the project. Useful information includes:
- A brief history of the company
- Size – the number of employees, turnover etc..
- Key services
- Major achievements
2. START WITH THE OBJECTIVES
- Why do you need a website?
- What outcomes do you want to achieve?
- Are they measurable?
- Do you have an existing site, if so, what are there problems with the existing site?
- What are the business drivers for the change?
Explaining your objectives will help drive everything else in the specification.
Define at least one goal that the website should help you achieve. Some examples are:
- Increase the number of enquiries via
website - add ecommerce functionality
- Increase the number of phone enquiries
- Improve search engine rankings
- Make website more responsive
When trying to quantify these, instead of looking at industry benchmarks, look at what you are achieving currently and come up with the improvements you’d like to see.
You may also have secondary objectives, for example, to gain press attention, promote your thought leadership or to reduce the admin associated with new enquiries. Make a note of these too.
3. KEY AUDIENCES
You now need to identify the key audiences that you need to appeal to in order to reach your objectives. These might be:
- Prospective customers or clients
- Existing clients / returning customers
- Members of the press
- Prospective employees
The above is a very generalised list so you might find there are more specific ways to define your audiences.
Once you have your audiences listed, the key thing you need to consider for each is what they want to be able to do on your site and what you want them to do on your site (these might be the same things, but they could well be different – e.g. they’re objective might be to read a blog post, but as well as this you might want them to steer them to sign-up for your newsletter).
In other words, what are you trying to persuade them to do? Buy something? Sign up for something? Enquire about something? This will be the method with which you achieve your objectives in section 1 above.
Another useful thing to consider is the priority of these audiences. This will help when it comes to designing the layout and navigation of the website.
4. PROVISIONAL SITE STRUCTURE
It is likely that this structure will change during the design stage, but it’s useful to have a starting point that clearly conveys the ‘information architecture’ of the site. The main purpose is to try and ensure nothing is forgotten about that needs to be on the site.
Don’t necessarily copy your old website structure – a change could yield benefits. Don’t carry old assumptions into a new project, you risk missing out on a beneficial change.
5. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
In other words, what should the website do?
- If it’s a brochure site, most pages will be ‘static’ in the sense that they don’t react to user actions. The exception here
is usually contact pages that have interactive forms. - If it’s an e-commerce site, list out any requirements for your home, product listing, search and product detail pages. If your checkout will be non-standard, for example, it allows customers to customise their orders, information on this should be included.
- If it’s anything more advanced or unusual than this, write a detailed list of what every user should be able to do.
- Also details the backend functionality that you require. What administration ability do you need over the website and content, users, orders
etc.
Large IT projects will spend months defining a technical specification. Most e-commerce projects aren’t this size, but it’s worth using some techniques that the bigger players use.
User stories are a way of describing the actions a visitor should be able to perform on the site. They look like this:
As a customer
I want to add items to my cart
So I can buy them later
As a member of staff
I want to change the status of orders
So I can mark items as dispatched
Create user stories for each type of audience on your site, especially if you have unusual functionality.
At this
6. NON-FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS
These are requirements related to:
- Usability – do you have accessibility requirements, perhaps your website will be used mainly on tablets, or by the elderly.
- Security – do you need to be PCI or GDPR compliant?
- Loading times – how important are loading speeds to you? If you’re in e-commerce, the answer is very.
- Legal – Are there any compliance requirements that the website must adhere to? Will your customers need to accept terms & conditions?
7. WEBSITES YOU LIKE AND DON’T LIKE
For the design process, it’s handy to have a list of websites you like and don’t like to help guide the process.
This will provide a starting point from which to work towards your ideal design.
8. WHO ARE YOUR COMPETITORS?
Listing your competitors serves three functions:
- We can see what other people are doing and perhaps borrow from their most appealing website features
- We can find opportunities to improve on what the market already offers
- We can ensure your website design is distinct from the competition
Competitor analysis is something you are probably doing anyway, even if it’s not formal, so this should be easy.
9. BUDGET
Many people don’t want to disclose their budget when they contact us.
This is counterproductive. If we know your objectives and your budget, we can come up with the best solution. Obviously, there is little point in quoting you for something that will cost twice as much as you can afford.
If your budget is low, we will think about what can be done with it. Either we can select a specific technology that is cheaper to set up or we can suggest a phased approach where more functionality can be added later.
You may also want to consider an Agile approach to development if you can tolerate not getting a fixed price quote. Often the results are better for all parties.
Be realistic and keep in mind that if you don’t have much budget you’ll need to compromise on the site specification.
10. TIMESCALES
Now is the time to mention any deadlines you might have.
It goes without saying, make them reasonable! You have to allow time for general communication and discussions, changes to the specifications, testing, debugging, waiting for reviews and feedback while dealing with other daily chores and responsibilities on both sides.
Web projects can take anywhere from six days to six months depending on the size of the project and how long it takes you to provide feedback and communicate.
Usually, a short-term solution can be made available if you have nothing online currently. A sign-up page is a good way of gathering email addresses before you launch your new site.
11. WHAT IS YOUR PROCUREMENT PROCESS?
Do you have a response deadline? Who will be the point of contact for the project? When will a decision be made and when will the project start?
WHAT TO AVOID
We thought it may be worth including some things to avoid, as that can also help when creating the perfect specification.
- Overly long specifications – remember people have to actually read this, so don’t waffle 🙂
- Jargon, no clear specification
- Don’t focus too much on the website should look or be structured like, this will be defined during the project design phases.
Creating a specification to these guidelines should allow you to get you some sensible, accurate quotes from which can proceed to your ideal website.
Once your site is live, remember to measure your performance against your initial goals defined in part one on an ongoing basis.
May the force be with you.