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1. Responsive Web Design (required) : a UI should be responsive, adapting to the size of various devices.
   1. Bootstrap support (recommended): Ideally, the UI would support Bootstrap, since it is one of the most widely used and supported responsive frameworks
2. HTML5 Support (required): a UI should be able to support HTML5.  Ideally, it is built primarily with HTML5 in mind, rather than only supporting some aspects of HTML5.
3. REST API friendly (highly recommended): a UI should be built with the idea of "separation of concerns".  For example, the UI framework should include NO business logic or Database query logic, etc. It should also have no knowledge of the underlying storage framework (e.g. Database schemas, file storage locations, etc).  Instead, ideally it would  communicate with DSpace primarily through the REST API (and other similar layers, e.g. Solr or Elastic Search). It would NEVER communicate directly with the database or other underlying storage layers.
4. Faceted/Filtered Search/Browse friendly (highly recommended):  a UI should easily integrate with a faceted/filtered search engine/server (such as Solr pr Elastic Search) or a generic API which can communicate with said faceted/filtered search engine (e.g. Discovery, Blacklight)
5. Ease of UI Customization (required): a UI should be relatively easy to customize for institutions. At a minimum, institutions should be able to easily swap out the header/footer/color scheme of the default UI. Ideally, the UI would support third-party themes (e.g. Bootstrap themes from http://bootswatch.com/ or similar) which can be easily applied to the UI to change its entire look and feel.
6. Rapid Development support / Developer friendly (highly recommended): a UI should be easy to develop against and improve upon. Ideally in a popular technology or language.  Local developers should not need to go through extensive training to work with the UI. The framework and technology ideally should be widely used, so that newer developers can also quickly come up to speed.  (Some examples: Ruby on Rails is a popular widely used technology/language. As is, seemingly, the Java Play! framework. Both are obviously much more widely used and easier to develop against, than say Apache Cocoon)

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