How I did it: Some weeks ago I got the first hints from my sister that a friend of hers was marketing a new product and needed a website for it and was wondering if I was willing to take the job.

Being unemployed and having no money, I agreed to do it if we could agree a price, though to be truthful, I was pretty nervous at the time, I had never done freelance work before and was doubtful my skills were up to scratch to market a product online.

After agreeing on a price, I got straight to work. First thing was getting a header/background together. I knew they wanted a black and yellow theme, so quickly threw together a nice header and logo in Photoshop. It came as a huge moral boost to see positive comments already from my customer, even though I'd barely started.

Development of the site was pretty straightforward, even going beyond the scope of the project and setting up a PayPal checkout was a breeze, it wasn't web development, but it was essential as my customer was selling his product online. I was literally building his E-Business.

My client is very pleased with the finished product, although I'm a perfectionsist and can't help but pick holes at things I've done and think to myself "I could have done that a bit better". I have to stop doing that and see this as my first completed freelance project, then move on and take the experience I earned with me and onto my next project!

Lessons & tips:

• Listen to the customer first and foremost
• Take time to research your subject, look up sites for similar products, take notes, jot down ideas, do sketches
• Clearly define your project scope and boundaries
• Scope creep occurs when your project boundaries are not tightly defined
• Scope creep can mean a prolonged project build time and can overlap into time which should be spent on other projects
• Scope creep at worst can even lead into a 'never ending project' nightmare situation
• Don't lose patience with your customer, even if they keep asking for more
• Except when setting up an Ebay accont and listing, in which case feel free to have a cry and whinge
• Test your work thoroughly throughout development
• Internet Explorer may well suck (particularly when using .png graphics), but it's used by an unfortunately large portion of the public
• Like it or not, you may have to cater for, or make concessions for browsers other than Firefox
• Write valid XHTML to maximise cross-browser compatibility
• Always escape characters such as & £ the copyright symbol, etc
• Stay in contact with your customer, always let them know you are there for them
• Never stop learning or practicing your skills
• Look at what other people are doing. Be inspired
• Take time off if you've been working hard, reward yourself once a week
• Receive a big fat cheque at the end of it all and grab a cold JD & Coke

Resources:

• Notepad++ (All HTML and PHP coding written in this)
• Adobe Photoshop
• Mozilla Firefox (Web browser)
• Browsershots.org (Priceless tool for testing sites on differing platforms)
• Mozilla Thunderbird (For Email correspondence)
• Another.com (Hosting)

Jun 21, 2009, 09:25PM PDT | 0 comments | 1 cheer