Step 9: Create GUI Design Specifications Document
After the final GUI has been approved (and concurrently with the following steps, if you wish), ask its designer to create a GUI Design Specifications Document. It should be considered an addendum to the Project Scope Document and distributed to all members of the development team. This document will serve as a design bible during development and likely include (but not be limited to):
- A palette with HTML hexadecimal color values for all the colors used in the design.
- An explanation of what HTML colors should be used on the template pages for various text, table cell backgrounds, body backgrounds and links (including active links, selected links and visited links).
- Instructions on how link behavior should be implemented, in regards to mouse-hovering, underlines, and title texts.
- A font guide that includes information on all the fonts to be used in the site. This should include all the particulars your developer will implement in the site-wide Cascading Style Sheets.
- An explanation of usability features and a detailed explanation (perhaps with illustrations) of how they should be implemented.