The project
profiler is comprised of three parts.
I. Background and Goals
II. Audience, Content, and Functionality
III. The Field Trip
Please provide
corporate and industry
descriptions,
including competitors, along with a
brief critique of
their sites. Include contact
information and a
description of the group who will
be working on the
project. Who are the
decisionmakers?
Who else would be contracting?
Who's responsible
for what? What human
resources do you
have for various stages of the
process?
Project
What is the
mission statement or summary of
your project?
What are the
basic goals of this project? (e.g.,
branding/identity
reinforcement, improved access
to information,
direct sales, corporate
communication,
etc.)
What outcome will
make this project successful?
How will you
measure success?
What are your
schedule requirements?
What is the
budget for this project? Is there an
acceptable budget
range, depending on the level
and
comprehensiveness of services provided?
Please explain.
Describe any work
that has been done toward
designing/redesigning a new web site.
Will the web site
reinforce an existing branding or
marketing
strategy? How?
Discuss any
identity/branding assets (logos, other
artwork, and
fonts) or issues.
Rank the
following, in order of importance:
A web
strategy that fits with our corporate
strategy
A web
strategy that fits with our marketing
strategy
Repurposing
existing content
Creating a
community of dedicated visitors
Quality
execution (graphics, writing,
navigation,
etc.)
Time to
market
Ease of
maintenance
Doing better than our competition on the
Web
People
bookmark the site because they
get so much
out of it regularly
Staying
within the budget
Sending the
message that we know the
Web and use
it appropriately
II. Audience,
Content, and
Functionality
Audience
What types of
visitors do you want to attract?
What are your
goals for each type of visitor? What
are the
products/services involved?
What are your
goals for these products/services?
Content
Where will
content come from?
Will it be new,
repurposed, or both?
How often will
you add new content?
Who will update
the content?
Functionality
What functional
requirements do you believe to be
necessary? (e.g.,
download areas,
database-driven
webpages,commerce, catalog,
applications,
etc.) rate in order of importance
What will each give you?
How often will they have to be updated?
Who will update
these functionalities?
Are there
extraordinary security issues?
Are there other
technical issues or limitations?
Have you budgeted
for hosting and maintenance
of the site?
If so, what is
your budget
Who will maintain
the site contents?
How will the site
be served/hosted?
What types of
legacy systems/databases are in
place?
What is your
long-term plan for the site?
This part of the
profile is very important. The more
work you put into
it, the more your project will
benefit. Find the
three highest quality sites (more
is better) on the
Web that relate to your project in
the following
categories:
Branding in
a similar situation to yours
(new
company, new brand, established
brand, etc.)
Appeal to same target group of customers
Whether or
not you would build the site if
you were in
a different industry
Colors,
look-and-feel, user interface, layout
Size of site
Size of
project
Publishing
model (frequency, novelty of
content,
etc.)
Attracting
new people to the site
(newsworthiness, giveaways, impact, etc.)
Your competitors'
sites
Quality of
content
Quality of
graphics
Functionality (things sites do for people)
Community,
special features,
responsiveness, other categories important
to your
project
Overall
favorite sites (for whatever reasons)