The brochure trap
Most business websites are digital brochures: an About page, a services list, a contact form. They describe the business instead of doing anything for it. That's not a design failure — it's a scoping failure. The brief was "build us a website," so that's what got built: a website, not a system.
What changes when you map the process instead
Before any design work starts, the real question is how a stranger actually becomes a customer today. Where do they first hear about the business? What do they need to see before they trust it? What happens the moment they fill out a form — does someone see it in five minutes, or five days? A brochure site has no answer to that last question. A system does.
- How people discover you
- What makes them contact you
- What happens the moment they do
- How you follow up
- How you know it worked
Why this matters before you hire anyone
If a project starts with "we need a new website," ask what the new website is supposed to change. A faster load time and a nicer layout won't fix a lead that never gets a reply. Fixing that means looking at the process around the site, not just the site itself — which is exactly why every Webwerp project starts with mapping that process before a single page gets built.