Project Design Guidelines

This practical guide for project design translates web standards into everyday steps teams can use during project planning and delivery. It emphasizes clear scope definition, concrete project goals, and alignment with the target audience. The recommendations favor simple, readable interfaces, consistent templates, descriptive page titles and metadata, speedy downloads, cross-browser testing, and accessible layouts.

By tracking resource requirements, collaborators, constraints, timeline, budget, risks, and expectations, managers can shape a minimum viable product and define measures of success. The document also reinforces operational topics such as keeping original assets, enforcing typography and color consistency, and maintaining notes for ongoing maintenance, ethics requirements, approvals, and regulatory limitations.

As a guide for project design and proposal development, it supports stakeholder engagement by clarifying content, navigation, and contact points for stakeholders with varying skills and accessibility. Teams can adapt it across research projects, with preregistration of research protocols, criteria for measurable success, and room to include case studies and lessons from failed projects. Many organizations structure their workflow as part 1 discovery through part 3 delivery; these practices fit that cadence. The guidelines can also complement policy, institutional, and regulatory communications and contribute to them.

Use cases span multiple sectors. For climate and water programs, they help present climate rationale, investment criteria, and financing strategies for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and GCF proposals. Digital materials for water security, integrated water management, WASH, sanitation systems, and sustainable sanitation solutions can incorporate hydrological observation visuals, early warning and risk assessment content, and adaptation and mitigation outcomes that advance SDG-6 and sustainable development benefits while addressing climate risks and greenhouse gas emissions. For urban planning, teams can communicate district design guidelines and urban design guidelines for McLean's commercial revitalization district in Fairfax County's community business center, or Durham County's manual-covering streetscapes, lighting, building frontage design, parks and gateways, trees and landscaping, wayfinding and parking, public art and parks, cycletrack and urban trail design, the urban park network, zoning, site plan approval, by-right processes, advisory group engagement, planning commission and board of supervisors reviews, owners and developers, community open house events, building architecture, environmental designs, planning and development, and economic vitality.

Proposal Kit can streamline delivery of these materials with document assembly, automated line-item quoting, an AI Writer to build supporting documents, and an extensive template library. Its ease of use helps teams standardize content across sectors, from water management solutions and sanitation projects to urban trail and revitalization initiatives.

To extend the abstract, consider how these design practices help teams communicate complex climate and water initiatives in a simple, credible way. Clear pages, consistent templates, and fast-loading content make it easier to explain climate resilient strategies, climate resilience benefits, and risks from climate change. Teams can present innovative financing and financing mechanisms alongside technical content on water conservation, efficiency, and reuse, and ecosystem-based adaptation. For Green Climate Fund pathways, concise sections can distinguish the roles of direct access entities and accredited entities while showing how the work is inclusive and transformative for communities.

Proposal Kit supports effective project planning by structuring the project scope, possible outcomes, resource requirements, and constraints into a coherent narrative. Its document assembly and AI Writer help align materials with policy, institutional, regulatory, and ethical and compliance checkpoints, while automated line-item quoting clarifies costs for the target audience and users. Templates prompt teams to map synergies across workstreams, define stakeholder skills needed for delivery, and connect activities to expected impact. This also streamlines collaboration between industry and academia and provides a clear line of sight from strategy to execution.

For place-based work, the same clarity improves comprehensive plan messaging, CBC revitalization proposals, district guidelines, and streetscape guidance. Owners and partners can see how content, navigation, and visuals connect to approvals, phasing, and performance, reducing rework and accelerating decisions. By standardizing language, Proposal Kit's extensive template library helps teams stand up repeatable, well-structured project management documents across sectors, improving readability and trust while keeping the focus on results.

Building on the core guidance, teams can strengthen climate-resilient proposals by linking technical design choices to clear social and economic impact. For water programs, define a project scope that connects integrated water management to water security through water conservation, efficiency, and reuse, and WASH and sanitation systems. Describe hydrological observation networks, early warning dashboards, and risk assessment methods that support ecosystem-based adaptation and both adaptation and mitigation outcomes.

Show how these activities advance SDG-6 while addressing climate risks and potential greenhouse gas emissions reductions. In GCF and gcf pathways, clarify climate rationale, investment criteria, and financing strategies that blend innovative financing and other financing mechanisms. Distinguish responsibilities of direct access entities and accredited entities, and align deliverables with policy, institutional, and regulatory frameworks so activities are inclusive and transformative.

Urban proposals benefit from the same discipline. Tie district guidelines to a comprehensive plan and CBC revitalization goals; include zoning steps, by-right thresholds, and site plan approval checkpoints. Use streetscape guidance to connect building frontage design, lighting, gateways, trees and landscaping, wayfinding and parking, public art and parks, cycletrack corridors, and urban trail links into an urban park network that supports economic vitality. Outline stakeholder engagement with advisory group sessions, community open house events, and planning commission and board of supervisors reviews that match stakeholder skills and the accessibility of stakeholders.

Proposal Kit helps teams convert these ideas into effective project planning documents. Use its template library and AI Writer to organize possible outcomes, resource requirements, synergies, constraints, ethics, and compliance topics, and measures of success. Document assembly structures annexes for timeline and budget, risks and expectations, criteria for decision-making, and case studies from industry, academia, and research projects. Automated line-item quoting clarifies costs for the target audience and users and keeps the focus on measurable success.

Writing the Project Design Guidelines document

Project Design Guidelines

Guidelines are only suggestions. Use what works for you and in the appropriate context and see your web development documentation for details where needed. Use these guidelines as a starting point and add your own personal design guidelines to follow for each project. Refer to the guidelines during each project to ensure details do not get missed.

While the systems can get complex underneath they must still appear simple on the surface. The best designs are ones that are not noticed and do not detract from the message of the site. Background color that doesn’t obscure any text; most successful sites use a white background and black text. Put product pricing or links to pricing in multiple locations.

Tags on appropriate input form fields so the browser can automatically fill in common form fields. Keep notes on accounts, user ids, passwords, font sizes, PhotoShop effect settings, filter settings, etc. so you don’t forget when you go back and maintain a site. Keep all original graphics files for headers, menus, animations, etc.

Do not use borders on images or most tables. Display size of all downloads such as large images, documents, java applets, executables, etc. Don’t use alt tags on visually unimportant images to assist text readers and visually impaired users. Use standard fonts like Arial or Helvetica.

If using other fonts use them sparingly as graphics. Use a complementary color scheme. Use Dreamweaver suggestions for complementary color schemes for text and backgrounds, buy a color wheel or a book on color theory.

Use a 595 or 590 page width using tables centered (or even smaller to support WebTV). Use 535 pixel widths for pages intended to be printed. Do not make people scan left to right with the bottom scroll bar with wide pages. If you design on a Macintosh or Linux, test your pages using Windows.

Test with as many browsers as possible (at least use Netscape and Internet Explorer on all major platforms). Use long and short pages in the appropriate context. Sometimes you hear that you should never have more than 1 page of text (this is more of a purist viewpoint). Some content like articles, pages designed to be printed, etc. should not be broken into multiple pages.

Some marketers swear by long sales letters and it seems to work. Just remember to know your audience and use each design as needed. Internet savvy users can easily deal with long pages, beginners generally can’t. Spell check all text and read back for grammar.

Consider hiring a professional editor to edit your most important pages. Use WIDTH, HEIGHT tags on images to make the text portion of pages appear faster in the browser. Use keywords in your URL links and domain names to potentially improve search engine rankings. Automated tools like Wisebot and WebPosition can create doorway, hallway and hook pages that can improve search engine rankings.

Use a 1x1 pixel hidden image file on each page to hide indexable links to other pages to improve search engine spidering of the site. Add a search CGI engine to each large site (optional). Put URL in all Word/PDF documents and bottom of each web page.

If someone prints a page, let them know where it came from. Put contact information on every page (website URL, 800#, e-mail address, postal address). Use image slicing on large images with animated parts, only animate the portions that actually change. This will improve download time.

All pages should use appropriate templates to remain consistent. Total size of all graphics/components on a page should be 30kb or less optimally (with exceptions for important content pages). Most pages should load in 15 seconds on a 28.8 modem. With exceptions for high content pages.

Specify the exact pixel width of all tables. Add a short descriptive title on each page header (depending on site). Use meta keyword, description, robot & author tags. Add credit card logos, pricing & ordering to front page, if a commercial site depending on client.

Let people know it is a commercial website and remove all obstacles from the purchase process. Create short titles consistent across the site (if someone bookmarks a page this will make it a meaningful description). Optimize graphics with Fireworks or ImageReady to improve download time.

Use transparent GIF format for graphics others can use on their site. Your graphics will then look better on other sites that use colored backgrounds. Body, Arial, font size 2 or 3 (don’t use sizes too small for main text for people w/ poor eyesight).

Small text sizes can also be too small to read on Macs. Headers, Arial bold, font size 2 or 3. Use tables to control text positioning & white space. Do not underline text if it is not a hyperlink.

Page header text should be in h1 tags at top of page in the navigation bar. Search engines may rank text in h1 tags higher. Don’t upper case text; it’s harder to read and is the Internet equivalent of shouting. Study the "Web Style Guide" for page and text layout and design guidelines.

Keep blocks of text within 9 to 12 words long. It is easier on the eye than text that goes across an entire page. Check spelling and grammar. Try writing in a way that results in an 8th grade reading level or lower when grammar checking with Microsoft Word’s spell checker.

Use short words in place of long words. It makes for easier reading for everyone.