Why would an experience design brief be important?

To complete any design project, there needs to be some sort of brief between the client and the designer. Without a brief, we are just guessing. With no understanding of the basics: like what is the job for? and who is the target market? it would be like playing pin the tail on the donkey: we know we are supposed to do but is it actually a donkey what sort of tail would he like?

When taking an effect brief from a client, we need to take in so much more than only what the client is saying with intuition playing a huge role in gaining an understanding of not only what the client wants but also who they are. Taking the brief is one thing but, if not undertaking the design work yourself, you then need to effectively communicate to the designer working on the project all of those vital and unsaid details.

In my office, we have a briefing sheet that we give to our clients that tries to dig up some of these unsaid details. Funnily enough more often than not these questions are left unanswered with comments being ‘we don’t know’ which means more digging on our part.

Well written briefs are great if you have that initial understanding of the client, with new clients however, only having a brief, no matter how well written, can be missing that little extra if you can’t talk directly to the client. In my experience when working with an account manager that doesn’t want the designer to talk to the client???, the situation can go pear shaped because they haven’t been able to communicate the clients needs effectively. In one case, the account exec was putting their own spin on what the client wanted. Disaster!!!

So after my rambling, briefs are very important to the design process because that help make sure everyone is on the same page and stay on brief and target for the project. There is however no substitute for meeting with the client and designers to discuss the project to gain the best understanding possible of the requirement for the job.

So why are experience design briefs important? So that the experience designer can clearly articulate to the designers and developers how the personality of a website need to be developed so as to maximise the user experience in a particular way. I also think that the greatest benefit of an experience design brief, is to assist those who don’t necessarily have the ability to understand an experience or empathise with a persona do so.

Cheers Paul