How to plan a website redesign with a design agency

1. Define what needs to improve

Describe the problem before listing pages or choosing a visual style. For an AI company, visitors may struggle to understand what the product can reliably do. For a developer tool, the website may explain the features without showing how to get started.

Bring examples from customer conversations, usability research, or analytics. Choose the actions that matter, such as qualified demo requests, trial activation, or reaching the right documentation. Record your starting point so you can evaluate the redesign later.

2. Give the agency a useful brief

Explain the audience, scope, constraints, and decisions you need help making. Name one person who can consolidate feedback and one who can approve the work. Confirm who supplies copy, product screenshots, technical examples, and development support.

Share the same brief with each agency you are considering. Mark unknowns openly so the team can explain its assumptions and price the work on a comparable basis.

DESIGN AGENCY PROJECT BRIEF

Product and audience
[What does your product do? Who uses it, and who chooses it?]

Problem and evidence
[What needs to improve? Include research, customer feedback, or analytics.]

Scope and deliverables
[Brand, website, product UX, or a defined combination. What is out of scope?]

Success measures
[Which user tasks or business outcomes matter? Record the current baseline.]

Content and examples
[Link to existing pages, product demos, documentation, and relevant references.]

Constraints
[Technology, integrations, accessibility needs, URLs and content to preserve.]

People and responsibilities
[Name the decision maker, feedback lead, and owners for content and development.]

Timing and budget
[Target date, fixed dependencies, budget range if known, and any flexibility.]

Review and handoff
[Approval milestones, required files, implementation support, and launch checks.]

Open questions
[What do you need the agency to help you decide?]

3. Agree what each review decides

Schedule reviews around decisions and deliverables. Ask the agency to propose timings based on the scope and dependencies, including the time your team needs to provide content and feedback.

Collect feedback in one place. Explain the user problem behind each request and resolve conflicting comments internally. Record approvals and agree how changes to the scope affect cost and timing.

4. Keep useful content and working journeys

Inventory existing URLs, content, integrations, and conversion paths. Decide what to keep, improve, consolidate, or remove. Preserve useful URLs where possible and map any necessary redirects before launch.

Search and content

Assign owners for page titles, descriptions, internal links, redirects, and the sitemap. Keep important answers and product facts in readable page text.

Product accuracy

Have someone who understands the product check technical examples and claims. Publish customer names and results only with appropriate evidence and permission.

Measurement

Define meaningful conversions and how they will be checked. Keep test traffic separate and avoid collecting the contents of private enquiries in analytics.

Accessibility and performance

Include keyboard use, clear focus, contrast, mobile layouts, and loading performance in the acceptance criteria.

5. Make the handoff part of the scope

Confirm who owns the design files, code, content, and accounts, and what support is included after delivery. Ask for documentation that lets your team update the site without reconstructing the design.

Before launch, test the main journeys with real content on mobile and desktop. Verify forms, redirects, analytics events, and indexing settings. Assign someone to monitor errors and enquiries after the release, with a clear process for resolving problems.