The Right Questions to Ask at a Website Kickoff Meeting
By: Kristin Zibell
Tags: Website Design, UX Design, Freelancers, Freelance, Project Management

To begin any new website project, you need a comprehensive view of the project scope and issues, users, and business goals and all the specific considerations for the client. I’ve led many projects — both freelance and in house — and used these questions to kick off a project and write a project brief or statement of work. I ask these questions to make sure that the client and I feel confident that we have the most crucial information needed to start the work and can identify gaps.

Current Site/Project Scope

If a new site, describe the project and scope.

If a site redesign, what are the problems with the current website? Gather screenshots of main pages and list relevant URLs if they exist to illustrate project scope on a redesign

Who is the User Experience for?

Name of persona or audience segment

What does success look like for them (in their words), and what are the KPIs to measure that success?

What is the performance of the current site, specifically on those KPIs?

What information and functionality do they need to achieve success?

What actions do you want them to take after visiting the website?

UX and Design Requirements

What is the performance of existing web pages/web site?

What are the specific business goals that the new UX must support?

What are similar sites/apps that have an excellent UX for the same goals?

What are the future UX considerations?

Content Requirements

What content is already created?

What content needs to be created for the personas to fit their needs?

What search term(s) would users wanting to get to this page/site would use?

What content/assets have performed well in the past?

What content/assets do competitors use (if new product)?

Where does current content exist? Any previously used pages?

Competitor/Best In Class Examples

What competitor sites do you admire, and why?

What other sites have an appealing UX, and why?

Marketing Considerations

What are the current marketing campaigns that drive to this website?

What does the creative look like?

What is the current marketing strategy that this web project is a part of?

Technical Considerations

What are the technical requirements for the project? I.e., where will it be built?

Any 3rd party systems?

Any functionality/functional requirements already in a plan or thought of?

What are functionality, integration, and platform considerations there for the UX?

A/B and Usability Testing Considerations

A/B testing → Does this capability exist? What has been tested and learned in the past?

Usability Testing → Has any been done? What has been tested and learned in the past?

Reporting Considerations

When are reports needed on-going?

What reports are needed for the benchmark, launch, and performance reporting?

Team

Business Stakeholders

Strategic Lead

UX Team

Project Managers

Design Lead

Content Lead

Functional Lead

Take all this information, capture it in a brief, and share it with your clients and stakeholders. They will feel comforted that you heard them. Then, use this information at each review to make sure the deliverables are meeting the client needs. For more information on reviews, check out my article on how to conduct effective and efficient reviews.

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