I should start by saying this post isn’t exactly groundbreaking. I’m confident that I’m not the first person to think about the pros and cons of communicating with clients via phone versus email. That is what is on my mind this week, though, which means it’s going in the blog.
Exactly two months ago today was the last time that I spent my day inside a cubicle. A lot has changed since then. I write a lot more of my code barefoot. I’ve been spending a lot less money on lunch. Beyond these and other trivial (but awesome!) differences, I’ve observed a few things related to being a freelancer that surprised me.
Wouldn’t it be great if clients new exactly what they wanted and could articulate it to you at the beginning of a project? At the very least it would make things faster, but that’s not he world we live in. No matter how much questioning and planning you do before sitting down at your computer to create, there will be an iterative phase of every project. When you think you’ve created exactly what your customer wants, there are going to be a few tweaks requested. And while it would be a stretch to describe these changes as desirable, they do have a small benefit. Your client will feel a stronger sense of ownership of the site, knowing that his or her input was a part of the process.
If you’re lucky the change requests will all be relatively minor, but I have yet to meet the web designer who’s lucky all the time. So fully expecting your “completed” web design to be met with some constructive criticism, how can you prepare to make the revision process as smooth and painless as possible? I doubt a single blog post can cover the topic completely, but I can offer one tool that I find extremely helpful: a change request log.
I went back and read the post I wrote on pricing your web design service and realized that I made a pretty big assumption with it. I assumed that every freelancer looks at a list of requirements for a project and can instantly predict the amount of time it will take to complete the project with a high degree of accuracy. When someone comes to you with requirements that are very similar to your previous work, this may be true. What about when you look at a list of features you’ve never personally created. You’re confident you can address every item on the list, but you just don’t know how long it will take.
I’ve had a great deal of success breaking the project down into the following areas and making estimates of the time I’ll spend on each one.
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