Describing what you have in mind

You do not have to know how to code to write a good ticket. You only have to say how you will recognise that it is right.

That sounds obvious and it is not. The most common reason for a disappointing result is a ticket that said too little. Not too little text: too few decisions. Every decision you do not make, AdenAI makes.

This article shows what the difference looks like, using examples. The rules behind it are under How to write a good ticket.

Example 1: how it looks

Thin:

Make the home page more modern.

Better:

Make the home page calmer: more space between the sections, larger headings, only two colours instead of four. The images stay where they are. The "Book an appointment" button should be the only thing that stands out.

Why: "modern" is not a goal, it is a feeling, and it is yours. AdenAI does not know it. It is the same with "too colourful", "too boring" or "looks cheap": that says how the page affects you, but not what should change. As soon as you say what should be more and what should be less, it is checkable. And the last sentence is the most valuable one: it says what matters.

Example 2: a new page

Thin:

I need a page for my services.

Better:

New subpage "Services", in the navigation between "Home" and "Contact". Four services below one another, each with a heading, three sentences and an icon: consulting, planning, delivery, maintenance. At the very bottom a button "Send an enquiry" leading to the contact page. No prices, no photos of people.

Why: the second version is not longer because it is more detailed, but because it fixes number, place and order. Those are exactly the things AdenAI otherwise has to guess, and when it guesses you get three services instead of four.

Example 3: something is wrong

Thin:

The form does not work.

Better:

On the contact page: I fill in name, email and message and press "Send". The page loads briefly and then my entries are back, with no message. I would have expected a confirmation. Tested in Chrome on a phone.

Why: with a fault, three things count and only you know them: what you did, what happened, what you expected. With those three, AdenAI searches in the right place. Without them it first has to look for the fault and then for where it is.

Example 4: text

Thin:

Write something about my company.

Better:

Text for "About us", about 150 words. Joinery in its third generation, founded 1961, five employees, focus on bespoke furniture from local woods. Tone: matter-of-fact and warm, no marketing speak, no superlatives. In the first person plural.

Why: AdenAI cannot invent facts, and when it does anyway, it sounds convincing and is wrong. Give it the facts and leave the wording to it. The sentence about tone saves you a round.

Words that say almost nothing

These words feel like a specification and are not. Beside each one is what helps instead:

Instead of	Say
modern, fresh	which colours, how much space, how large the type
professional, serious	calm, few colours, no animation
appealing, beautiful	how you would recognise it
user-friendly	how many clicks to the goal, what catches the eye first
something with ...	a decision, even a provisional one
like [other company]	what you like about it: the colours? the calm? the structure?

The last point matters: naming a reference is allowed and useful, but it is never rebuilt (and for good reason, see What AdenAI can and cannot do). So name the quality rather than the name.

The most valuable sentence: what should not happen

It costs you ten seconds and often saves a whole ticket:

No slideshow on the home page.

The prices stay as they are.

Do not change anything about the navigation.

A brief without boundaries gets read generously. If you know what must not be touched under any circumstances, write it down.

Showing instead of describing

Some things are explained in a second by an image.

• Your material (logo, photos, PDF) you upload once and then call the file by name in the ticket. See Sending images and files along.
• A sketch on paper, photographed and uploaded, is perfectly fine: "The home page should be laid out roughly like sketch-home.jpg."
• Screenshots of sites you like belong in the design profile, not in the ticket. Why, is just below.

Set down once: the design profile

Every project has a handwriting that does not change from ticket to ticket. You write that into your project's design profile once, and AdenAI carries it into every ticket from then on.

You find it inside the project, in the sidebar on the left under Design. What goes there:

• Farben (Colours), in your own words ("dark green and cream") or as hex values. AdenAI understands both, and understands both together best. Above the field there are swatches: click one and it opens your machine's colour picker and writes that one value back into the text. Your words stay where they are.
• Stimmung (Mood), in your own words. Below it are a few suggestions to click ("Sachlich und ruhig", "Edel und hochwertig"), but it is not a list you have to choose from. "Like an old station kiosk" is a valid answer and often the better one.
• Was dir wichtig ist (What matters to you): audience, tone of voice, what must never appear. Up to 1000 characters, and this text goes along into every ticket in this project.
• Schrift (Font). If you have a font file, upload it with Schriftdatei auswählen (Choose font file) and AdenAI works with it. If you do not, there is nothing to type: AdenAI picks a suitable default font itself. Either way the font ends up inside your project and is never fetched from an outside service. The whole way there is under Where do I get a font file?.
• Referenzbilder (Reference images), meaning screenshots of sites whose effect you like.

To the right of it sits what AdenAI takes from all that, and it updates as you type. It is not a draft of your site: only a ticket delivers that.

The design profile is a default, not a veto. If a ticket says something other than the profile, the ticket wins. So you can break out at any time without changing the profile.

Why this pays off: anyone who has to write their colours into every ticket stops writing them by the third time. And then AdenAI is guessing again.

What you still do not have to explain

Technology. No file names, no technical terms, nothing about what it should be built with. If you know your way around and need something specific, write it down. If not, you lose nothing by it.