A website can look impressive in a presentation yet be awkward when someone tries to book from a phone. When commissioning web design, start with the tasks it must support: finding a service, comparing options, asking a question or completing a purchase. Its appearance should help people do those things.
Describe the customer journey
Choose three common situations and write them in plain language. For example, someone arrives from search, checks whether you serve their area and sends an enquiry. Identify the information needed at each step. This helps determine the pages and avoids adding sections simply to fill a menu.
Include languages, existing content, available photographs and necessary integrations in the brief. Specify who writes, translates, adds products and checks the copy. A finished template is not the same as a website ready for customers.
Practical acceptance checks
- Complete those customer tasks on a real phone and a computer.
- Check that a form reaches the intended recipient and displays a clear confirmation.
- Review a long page and a short page to spot layouts that work only on the homepage.
- Test the menu, contact links and language switching.
- Ask for a demonstration of editing text without damaging the layout.
For an initial accessibility review, check keyboard navigation, visible focus, form labels and contrast. W3C provides preliminary checks; passing them does not replace a full evaluation. Agree which accessibility assessment the supplier will provide and how it will be recorded.
Performance needs more than one score
Current Core Web Vitals assess loading, responsiveness and visual stability. Their good-experience targets are LCP of up to 2.5 seconds, INP of up to 200 milliseconds and CLS of up to 0.1, assessed at the 75th percentile. These are not a ranking promise or a universal indexing deadline.
Ask for measurements that identify the pages, device and whether the evidence comes from real visitors or laboratory tests. A fast homepage does not establish that the catalogue or booking journey performs equally well. Record problems and agree which will be resolved before launch.
Agree what maintenance includes
Before accepting delivery, establish who renews the domain, keeps backups, updates the system and handles incidents. Request administrative access and documentation for the agreed licences. If replacing a website, also prepare a map of old and new addresses with the team responsible.
To connect the website project with customer acquisition, read our guide to choosing a marketing agency.
Editorial correction: the claim that Google does not index pages taking over two seconds to load has been removed. The archive image illustrates design concepts; it is not a project assessed by Buscatea.
Sources consulted on 23 September 2026: W3C accessibility checks and web.dev: Web Vitals.
