The Visual Digital Brief Worksheet

This is a worksheet I developed to assist me in my consulting practice. It helps define & focus clients on the project.

http://thejordanrules.com/IMG/Visual_Brief_Worksheet.png

(download PDF)

Instead of creating a multi-page document, this is a one-page visual brief, designed for digital projects. It’s also proven useful for identifying strategic gaps & managing client expectations.Here’s an example:


http://thejordanrules.com/IMG/VBW_0.png

(view full version)


The document is divided into 5 sections:

1. Project Information: This section defines the project name & documents key stakeholders.

http://thejordanrules.com/IMG/VBW_1.png

2. Goals & objectives: This section consists of an goal matrix & definition area. You can throttle how many goals you want to make available to the client & prioritize them. Goals include: Create affinity, create awareness, convert or get a sale, and collect research. These can be achieved though entertainment, utility, or conversation/ communication.

http://thejordanrules.com/IMG/VBW_2.png

In this example, the priority is on creating affinity through utility. Followed by, increasing sales through utility. Finally, followed by, creating awareness through entertainment.


These high-level goals are distilled to: Increasing online customer service, increasing online purchase/ subscription, and increasing awareness through SEO. These should be further blow-out to measurable objectives.

3. Target & Strategy: This section defines who you’re talking to and how you plan on talking to him. The target audience should be defined in terms of online personas. If online personas do not exist, an exercise to define them should be completed prior to beginning the project. If more than one persona exists, list all personas - reference a separate document if necessary.


http://thejordanrules.com/IMG/VBW_3.png

In the right-hand box, you can list all the methods you plan on using to speak to the various personas. These can be highlighted & colour coded for easy correlation.

4. Features & Functions: This section functions as prioritized high-level user stories. They define the importance of key pieces of functionality. These should be correlated back to objectives.


http://thejordanrules.com/IMG/VBW_4.png

Obviously, these features/ functions will be blown-out further as the project progresses down through UX archecture to visual design.

5. Channels & Media: This is like a menu of digital communication channels that allow clients to check-off the channels they feel are most likely to fulfill the objectives. Clients should be walked through this process.


http://thejordanrules.com/IMG/VBW_5.png

This document ends up being a one-page reminder of what the project is trying to achieve. It tends to be a good reference during all client reviews.

There are several advanced methods of getting even more value out of this document. In future posts I’ll discuss how this document can be used for brainstorming, strategic planning, visual road-mapping, innovation planning & competitive analysis.

You can download this document in an editable (vector) PDF here.If you have an iPad, I recommend using Note Taker HD (iTunes Link) and setting this document as a background image. Note Taker allows you to fill out the document by hand. (I created the example document using Note Taker)

You can download the form as an image here.If you have any questions, comments or thoughts on how to improve the document, feel free to leave a comment or sent me a note on Twitter (@thejordanrules)

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