First time working with a client. A simple website for a small construction business. They wanted a web presence - I wanted to try out something new.

WHY? My friend asked me to build a simple website for his dad's business. The client wanted to finally have a web presence where future customers could contact him. I decided to help as I knew it shouldn't take a lot of time. Besides that, there were a few new tools I wanted to try out.

WHAT? The initial deal went great as the client didn't have a lot of requests. We were to build a "classic" small business (construction) website with main elements like about, services, gallery, and contact. The client had some design ideas based on similar pages in that domain but they were all screaming WordPress which seemed kind of outdated. So I showed him a few different solutions and we agreed on a simple and dark look. Hosting and domain name were paid and opened with the client's account so they would have full control - I think that's important as it's their property and a right to choose to work with someone else during or after our deal.

HOW?

A piece of software I really wanted to try out was this thing called Shuffle - a visual editor for creating templates. You can choose between different CSS frameworks like Tailwind or Bulma and all components are customizable. The project's source code is exported in .pug format or you can just get individual UI components. This template was then populated with the client's data and pushed in the GitHub repo. This repo is then linked to Netlify so each time I push changes to the remote repo, Netlify runs a build and deploys the site. Also, this was my first time dealing with SEO and lighthouse performance metrics.

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CONCLUSION This was my first project that was done for someone else and the first that would be publicly available. It turned out a lot more work than expected - even though it was mostly HTML and CSS. As web design isn't my primary focus, I think Shuffle does a great job of simpliyfing the design process thus leaving more time for other tasks.

Even though I knew the client, I realized how much time and effort is spent on building quality rapport with a client. Most important realization was how the client's and my definition of "building a webiste" differentiate. Specifically, what goes into the job of building a website - and what doesn't. Client communication is an important skill to have and I hope I learned something during this project - most importantly how important it is to define each other's responsibilities and how soft skills must always be honed and are not to be ignored.

UPDATE 6/2022 - Client decided the website didn't bring any real benefits and asked me to take it down.

UPDATE 10/2021 - Few days after going live, I wrote down a list of tips and guidelines about possible improvements that could be implemented in the future and sent it to my client.