What you get depends heavily on how clearly you ask. "Build me a restaurant website" and "build me a restaurant website that takes pickup and delivery orders" produce two completely different results, and the difference between them is one sentence.
This guide gives you a template for writing any idea, with practical before-and-after examples.
A good description answers five questions: who the user is, exactly what they do, what data is involved, what the result looks like, and what the limits are — and write it in your natural language, do not fake technical jargon.
The template: five parts
Write one paragraph that covers all five, in this order:
- The user: who uses the system? (a customer, a receptionist, a branch manager)
- The task: what exactly do they do? (book an appointment, track an order, approve leave)
- The data: what is stored? (name, mobile, date, status)
- The result: what do they see or receive? (a confirmation, an invoice, a WhatsApp message)
- The limits: what is required or forbidden? (no bookings outside working hours, Arabic first)
Before and after
Before: "I want a website for a dental clinic."
After: "I want a website for a dental clinic that lists services and prices, lets a patient book an appointment by choosing the dentist, the day and a time from the available slots only, and receive a confirmation message; and gives the receptionist a dashboard showing today's appointments with the option to reschedule or cancel. The interface is Arabic, right to left, with English support."
The second description is a few lines longer, but it defines four screens and a complete piece of business logic instead of leaving them to guesswork.
Common mistakes
These four come up constantly, and each one wastes a whole round:
- Asking for everything at once: build the core first, then add in stages.
- Describing looks instead of function: "make it nice" means nothing; say "simple, calm colours, large photos".
- Ignoring edge cases: what happens if the slot is taken? If stock runs out?
- Not stating language and direction: say explicitly that the interface is Arabic, right to left.
Changing things after the first result
Do not rewrite the whole description for a small change. Ask for the change precisely: "move the booking button to the top of the page" or "add a payment-status column to the orders table". Small successive edits are far more accurate than describing everything again from scratch.
And on our industry pages you will find ready-made prompts written in this style for every kind of business, so you can copy one and adapt it instead of starting from a blank page.