The website design questionnaire that shapes the build

A website questionnaire (also called a website design questionnaire or web design client questionnaire) is the set of questions a client answers before a site is scoped and priced. Most agencies send a short version with the first inquiry and a fuller version once the client is serious enough to expect a proposal.

The fuller version is a discovery tool, not a design brief. The UK government's service manual makes the same point about digital projects generally: understand the problem, users and constraints first, and do not start building during discovery. Treat the answers as evidence for a proposal you will then discuss, not as a specification the client has signed.

A redesign carries risks a new site does not: losing pages that bring traffic, breaking links other sites point to, and dropping integrations nobody remembered. The questionnaire cannot solve those, but it can make sure someone is assigned to them.

Google's own guidance on site moves is to map every old URL to its new equivalent, starting with the important ones from sitemaps, logs and analytics, to use permanent server-side redirects, and to keep them for at least a year. So ask: which pages bring the most traffic and leads, who has Search Console access, and who owns the redirect map. If the answer to the last one is nobody, that is a line item.

Ask which accessibility standard applies rather than assuming. WCAG 2.2 is the current W3C Recommendation and the usual reference. Some clients have a legal reason to name one: in the US, the Department of Justice's 2024 rule requires state and local governments to meet WCAG 2.1 AA, with deadlines extended in April 2026 to April 2027 for larger entities and April 2028 for smaller ones. In the EU, the European Accessibility Act has applied since June 28, 2025 to services such as online shops, with an exemption for service micro-enterprises (fewer than 10 staff and under €2 million turnover).

For performance, agree targets you can test. Google's Core Web Vitals give concrete ones: Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds, and Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1. A questionnaire answer like ‘fast’ is not a requirement; one of those numbers is.

Use ranges. Four or five bands in the client's currency, plus ‘not sure yet’, get more honest answers than an empty number field, and let you shape a proposal with options instead of one take-it-or-leave-it price.

For timing, the useful question is not ‘when do you want it?’ but ‘what depends on the date?’ A trade show or product launch makes a date fixed; ‘before summer’ does not. Pair it with who approves the design, because approval time is the part of the schedule you control least.

Zunoform handles the questionnaire itself: conditional logic to hide redesign questions from new-site clients, file upload for logos and existing content (10 MB per file on Free, 100 MB on Pro), a document layout that reads like a brief with questions inline, partial responses saved as the client goes, and a meeting scheduler question to book the follow-up call. Answers can flow into Google Sheets on every plan.

It will not audit a current site, map redirects or write the proposal. Free is capped at 500 responses a month, which is plenty for client questionnaires but worth knowing; Google Forms has no monthly cap if all you need is a plain list of questions.