E-participation applications enable online participation of citizens and interested stakeholder groups in political debates and strategic decision-making. The tools, channels and devices through which online participation takes place require proper design to support citizens, politicians and other actors. To incorporate the needs of these actors into the functionalities of an eParticipation platform, this contribution proposes a hands-on guideline for e-participation initiatives. It has been generated from the experiences of two European projects: VoicE and VoiceS. The paper describes the six-step iterative process to successfully plan and realize e-participation initiatives.