Why Every Great Project Starts with Understanding

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what actually makes a website project successful.

Is it the design?

The technology?

The content?

The functionality?

The answer is probably a little bit of all of those things.

But after years of working on websites, learning new tools, troubleshooting problems, building client projects, and finally building my own website from the ground up, I’ve come to believe that something comes before all of it.

Understanding.

Before you can build something well, you have to understand what you’re building and who you’re building it for.

Start with the problem

It’s easy to jump straight into the solution.

Someone needs a new website, so you start thinking about the homepage.

What should it look like?

What colors should we use?

What should the navigation say?

What kind of images should be there?

Those questions matter.

But they aren’t necessarily the first questions.

The first question should probably be:

Why?

Why does this business need a new website?

What isn’t working with the current one?

What are their customers struggling to find?

What does the business need the website to accomplish?

What does the person visiting the website need?

Those answers should influence everything that comes afterward.

I’ve learned that the more time you spend understanding the problem, the easier it becomes to figure out the solution.

Understanding doesn’t mean knowing everything

This has been a big lesson for me throughout my own learning.

There will always be something I don’t know.

A new platform.

A new tool.

A new piece of code.

A new problem I’ve never encountered.

I’ve learned that not knowing something isn’t the same as being unable to figure it out.

That’s where the fundamentals come in.

The tools will continue to change, but having a foundation gives you somewhere to start.

You can ask questions.

You can troubleshoot.

You can research.

You can test something.

You can try again.

You don’t have to know everything before you begin.

You just have to understand enough to take the next step.

Understanding the client

Building my own website also gave me a different perspective on the client side of the process.

When you’re building your own site, you realize just how personal these decisions can be.

You’re not simply choosing a color.

You’re deciding how you want your business represented.

You’re not just writing website copy.

You’re trying to explain who you are and what you do.

You’re not just reviewing a layout.

You’re trying to imagine how someone else will experience your business through that layout.

That experience reminded me that clients don’t always come into a project knowing exactly what they want.

Sometimes they know what they don’t like.

Sometimes they have an idea that isn’t quite formed yet.

Sometimes they need to see something before they can explain why it isn’t right.

And that’s okay.

Part of our job is listening long enough to understand what they’re actually trying to accomplish.

Listening is part of the work

I think this is one of the most important parts of the process, and one of the easiest to overlook.

As designers and developers, we can get excited about the solution.

We know what we can build.

We know what looks good.

We know what technology can do.

But knowing what we can build isn’t the same as knowing what we should build.

That takes listening.

Sometimes the best thing you can do at the beginning of a project is ask another question instead of immediately giving an answer.

What are you trying to accomplish?

Who are you trying to reach?

What isn’t working?

What matters most to you?

What does success look like?

The answers might completely change the project.

And that’s a good thing.

Progress still matters

Understanding also doesn’t mean spending forever planning.

At some point, you have to build.

You have to put something on the screen.

You have to test it.

You have to get feedback.

You have to make changes.

You have to move forward.

That’s where progress comes in.

A project doesn’t have to be perfect before it can be useful.

Websites evolve.

Businesses evolve.

People evolve.

The first version of something doesn’t have to be the final version.

Sometimes you learn what works by actually doing it.

The important thing is that you’re moving in the right direction.

The fundamentals connect everything

Looking back at everything I’ve learned, I keep coming back to the same idea.

The fundamentals matter.

Understanding how things work underneath the tools matters.

Understanding the person you’re building for matters.

Understanding the problem you’re trying to solve matters.

Understanding that you can keep learning matters.

And understanding that a project can change as you learn more matters.

Those ideas might seem separate, but they really aren’t.

They’re all part of the same process.

You learn.

You listen.

You build.

You test.

You adjust.

You learn some more.

Then you do it again.

Great projects aren’t built in a vacuum

The best websites I’ve worked on haven’t come from one person sitting alone and somehow coming up with the perfect answer.

They come from conversations.

Questions.

Feedback.

Research.

Problem solving.

Sometimes disagreement.

Sometimes changing direction.

Sometimes realizing that the original idea wasn’t actually the right idea.

That’s part of the work.

A good project isn’t about proving that you had the right answer from the beginning.

It’s about being willing to find the right answer as you go.

What I’ve learned

If I had to take everything I’ve learned from these projects and put it into one thought, it would be this:

Understand first. Build second.

Understand the fundamentals so you have something to fall back on when technology changes.

Understand that progress matters more than waiting for perfection.

Understand what it feels like to be the client.

Understand the people who will actually use what you’re building.

And understand that you never really stop learning.

I don’t think there is a point in web design where you suddenly know everything.

There will always be another tool.

Another problem.

Another project.

Another thing to learn.

And honestly, I think that’s one of the reasons I enjoy it.

There is always another layer to understand.

The work is bigger than the website

At the end of the day, a website is just one part of the bigger picture.

Behind every website is a person, a business, an organization, a goal, or a problem that needs to be solved.

That’s what makes the work interesting.

I’m not just interested in making something look good.

I want to understand why it needs to exist.

I want to understand who it needs to help.

I want to understand what isn’t working.

And then I want to build something that makes sense.

That’s probably the biggest lesson this series has given me.

The fundamentals matter.

Progress matters.

Learning matters.

But before any of those things can really happen, you have to be willing to understand.

Because when you understand the problem, you can build a better solution.

When you understand the client, you can create something that actually represents them.

When you understand the fundamentals, you can adapt when the tools change.

And when you understand that you don’t have to get everything perfect the first time, you can keep moving forward.

That’s where good projects begin.

Not with the perfect design.

Not with the newest technology.

Not with having every answer.

They start with a conversation.

They start with listening.

They start with asking questions.

They start with understanding.

What Building My Own Website Taught Me About My Clients

There is something different about building a website when you’re the client.

I’ve built websites for other people for years.

I know what it’s like to sit down with a client, talk through what they need, figure out what isn’t working with their current website, and start turning all of that information into something usable.

But building my own website has given me a completely different perspective. Suddenly, I was the one making every decision. And it made me realize something:

I understand my clients a little better now.

It’s harder when it’s yours

When you’re building a website for someone else, there is usually some distance between you and the project.

You can look at a layout and think about whether it works. You can make recommendations. You can explain why something might be better a certain way. You can move on to the next decision. When it’s your own website, every decision feels a little more personal.

What do I want people to know about me?

What work should I show?

What should I leave out?

How do I describe what I do without sounding like everyone else?

What actually represents me?

And suddenly, something as simple as writing a paragraph can become surprisingly difficult.

Because it’s not just a paragraph anymore.

It’s you.

I realized how easy it is to get overwhelmed; I live there more days than I should.

One of the things I’ve learned from working with clients is that they don’t necessarily know all of the technical pieces that go into a website.

And that’s completely reasonable. That’s not their job. But when you’re building your own website, even when you know the technical side, there can still be a lot to think about.

Content.

Structure.

Design.

Images.

Navigation.

Mobile layouts.

Forms.

Accessibility.

SEO.

Hosting.

Updates.

And then there are all of the tiny decisions that nobody sees.

It can become a lot.

That made me think about what it must feel like for a business owner who doesn’t work with websites every day.

They aren’t just handing you a list of pages.

They’re trying to explain their business.

They’re trying to figure out what they want their website to say.

They’re trying to make decisions about something they may not fully understand.

And they’re trusting someone else to help them make those decisions.

That’s a pretty big responsibility.

Sometimes people don’t know what they need yet

This is probably one of the biggest things building my own site has reminded me of.

Sometimes you don’t know what you want until you see it.

You can talk about a layout.

You can describe an idea.

You can have a general direction in your head.

But once you actually see it on a screen, everything can change.

“I don’t like that.”

“That feels too busy.”

“That doesn’t sound like me.”

“Can we move this?”

“I thought I wanted this, but now that I see it, I don’t.”

Those aren’t necessarily signs that the project is going badly.

They’re part of figuring it out.

And I think that is important for both sides of the client relationship.

A client isn’t always going to have the perfect answer at the beginning.

Sometimes they need to see the possibilities before they know what feels right.

It’s not just about making something look good

This has always been important to me as a designer, but working on my own website made it even clearer.

I can look at a website and appreciate a beautiful design.

But a beautiful website isn’t automatically a good website.

It still has to communicate.

It has to be easy to navigate.

It has to make sense.

It has to help someone find what they’re looking for.

And most importantly, it needs to represent the person or business behind it.

When you’re building your own website, you feel that responsibility differently.

You aren’t just trying to make something that looks good.

You’re trying to make sure someone who lands on the site understands who you are, what you do, and why they should care.

That is exactly what my clients are trying to accomplish.

It made me more patient

I think that’s another lesson I didn’t expect.

When you’re working on your own project, you realize how many decisions can take time.

Sometimes you need to walk away.

Sometimes you need to come back to something later.

Sometimes you need to see it a few different ways before you know which direction makes sense.

That made me think about client feedback differently.

A question that seems simple to me might not feel simple to someone else.

A decision that seems obvious from the design side might have a completely different meaning to the person who owns the business.

Their website isn’t just a website.

It’s their business.

Their reputation.

Their first impression.

Sometimes it’s something they’ve invested a lot of money and emotion into.

That deserves patience.

I’m still figuring out my own website

And honestly, that’s probably the best part of this whole experience.

My website isn’t going to be perfect forever.

It will change.

I’ll learn something new and want to change something.

I’ll look back at an old design and wonder what I was thinking.

I’ll find better ways to explain what I do.

I’ll add new work.

I’ll take other work away.

And that’s okay.

Because businesses change.

People change.

Skills change.

Websites change.

A website should be able to grow with the person or business it represents.

Building my own site reminded me of that in a way that working on someone else’s site never could.

Sometimes being the client is the lesson

I think every designer should experience being on the other side of the process at least once.

Not because it makes you a better designer automatically.

But because it reminds you what the process feels like.

It reminds you how many decisions there are.

How difficult it can be to explain what’s in your head.

How easy it is to second-guess yourself.

How important it is to have someone who can take all of those ideas, questions, and sometimes complete confusion and help turn them into something real.

That’s what I want to remember when I’m working with my clients.

I’m not just building them a website.

I’m helping them take something that exists in their head and turn it into something other people can see, understand, and use.

And now that I’ve been the client too, I think I understand that responsibility a little differently.

Sometimes the best way to understand your clients… is to become one yourself.

Progress Over Perfection

I’ve always liked things to be done right.

That sounds like a good thing.

And most of the time, it is.

But there is a difference between caring about the quality of your work and waiting until everything is perfect before you allow yourself to move forward.

I’ve had to learn that difference.

Especially with websites.

A website can always be changed.

There is always something you could adjust. A heading could be worded differently. A section could be moved. The spacing could be tweaked. A photo could be replaced. A color could be changed. You could spend another hour trying to make one little detail look exactly the way you imagined it in your head.

And sometimes that hour is worth it.

Sometimes it isn’t.

A website is never really finished

One of the things I have come to appreciate about web design is that a website doesn’t have to be perfect on day one.

It has to work.

It has to communicate.

It has to give people what they need.

And then it can grow.

That has changed the way I look at projects.

When you’re working on something creative, it’s easy to get stuck trying to make the finished version exist before you’ve even allowed the first version to exist.

You want to know exactly what every page will look like.

You want every piece of content to be perfect.

You want the layout to be right.

You want the colors to be right.

You want everything to work exactly the way you imagined it.

But sometimes you don’t know what the right answer is until you actually build something.

You have to see it.

Use it.

Change it.

Try something else.

That’s where progress happens.

I’ve learned this by doing

Building websites has taught me that sometimes the best way to figure something out is simply to start.

I’ve spent plenty of time learning new tools and working through things I didn’t completely understand yet.

I’ve rebuilt things.

I’ve changed direction.

I’ve gone back and fixed something I thought was finished.

I’ve looked at something I created and realized, Nope. That’s not working.

And then I’ve changed it.

That’s not failure.

That’s the process.

I think we sometimes put too much pressure on ourselves to get something right the first time.

Especially when we’re learning.

But learning doesn’t really work that way.

You try something.

You learn from it.

You make a better decision the next time.

Then you look back six months later and realize you would build it differently again.

That’s progress.

The first version doesn’t have to be the final version

This is something I remind myself of more and more.

The first version of something doesn’t have to be the version you keep forever.

A website can evolve.

A brand can evolve.

A portfolio can evolve.

Even the way you approach your work can evolve.

As you learn more, your decisions change.

Your eye gets better.

You notice things you didn’t notice before.

You understand your audience better.

You understand the technology better.

You understand yourself better.

So why would the work stay exactly the same?

It shouldn’t.

I’ve actually started to see that as one of the best parts of working on the web.

You aren’t carving something into stone.

You’re building something that can continue to change.

Sometimes you just have to hit publish

There is a point in every project where you have to stop tweaking and actually let people see it.

That can be uncomfortable.

Especially when you know every little thing you would still like to change.

But at some point, progress requires action.

You can research forever.

You can plan forever.

You can redesign the same section ten different ways.

You can keep telling yourself you’ll launch when it’s ready.

But sometimes “ready” becomes an excuse to keep working instead of moving forward.

I’ve learned that there is a lot of value in getting something to a good place, putting it out there, and then continuing to improve it.

That doesn’t mean lowering your standards.

It means understanding that improvement is part of the process.

There is a difference between unfinished and evolving

I think that’s an important distinction.

Something unfinished means you aren’t done with the work it needs.

Something evolving means you understand that the work can become better with time.

Those aren’t the same thing.

I don’t want to rush through a project just to say it’s finished.

I care about the details.

I care about whether something makes sense.

I care about how someone actually experiences a website, not just how it looks on my screen.

But I also don’t want perfection to keep a good project from becoming a real project.

Sometimes you have to let it exist before you can improve it.

I’m still learning this too

The funny thing about writing about progress is that I’m still figuring it out myself.

I’m still learning new things.

I’m still changing how I approach projects.

I’m still finding better ways to build.

And I’m still occasionally spending way too much time trying to fix something that probably didn’t need fixing in the first place.

But that’s okay.

Because the goal isn’t to reach some imaginary point where everything is perfect and there is nothing left to learn.

The goal is to keep moving.

Keep learning.

Keep improving.

Keep paying attention.

And keep building.

Progress is the point

I think I’ve started to appreciate progress differently.

It doesn’t always look like a finished website.

Sometimes progress is finally figuring out why something wasn’t working.

Sometimes it’s learning a new skill.

Sometimes it’s realizing that the design you started with isn’t the right design anymore.

Sometimes it’s scrapping something and starting over.

Sometimes it’s simply deciding that what you have is good enough to move to the next step.

And sometimes progress is letting yourself be proud of how far you’ve come without immediately focusing on what still needs to be fixed.

A website doesn’t have to be perfect to be valuable.

A project doesn’t have to be perfect to teach you something.

And you don’t have to have everything figured out before you take the next step.

I’ve learned that the more I work, the more I understand that good work isn’t about getting everything right the first time.

It’s about being willing to keep making it better.

Because the goal isn’t perfection.

The goal is progress.

The Fundamentals Never Go Out of Style

One of the funny things about working with technology is that the tools are always changing.

Software gets updated. Plugins get new versions. WordPress changes. Hosting platforms change. Design trends come and go. Something that was standard a few years ago can suddenly feel outdated.

And sometimes you click update and everything works exactly the way it should.

Sometimes it doesn’t.

I’ve worked with WordPress and web design for years, and I’ve had plenty of those moments where something that worked yesterday suddenly doesn’t work the same way today. A link isn’t connecting properly. A form isn’t behaving the way it should. An image isn’t responding to the CSS I just wrote. A theme isn’t installing correctly. Two parts of a website that should be communicating suddenly aren’t.

The site is still there.

Something underneath it has changed.

That’s when you get to troubleshoot.

And honestly, that is one of the parts of web development I enjoy most.

Not because I enjoy things breaking. I don’t.

I enjoy figuring out why something broke.

Go back to the beginning

When you’re learning technology, it can be tempting to think you need to know every new tool.

There’s always another platform to learn. Another plugin. Another framework. Another AI tool. Another design trend. Another update.

It can feel like you’re constantly trying to catch up.

But the more I work in this field, the more I realize that knowing every tool isn’t nearly as important as understanding the fundamentals underneath them.

I’ve actually thought about this a lot in terms of language.

Back in high school Spanish class, I remember learning about the roots of words. Once you understood the root, you could start recognizing patterns and understanding words you hadn’t necessarily memorized.

That idea has stuck with me.

Web development isn’t really that different.

The software changes. The platforms change. The terminology changes. The tools change.

But HTML is still HTML.

CSS is still CSS.

A website still has to communicate with the browser.

A form still has to send information somewhere.

A link still has to point somewhere.

A website still needs structure.

And users still need to be able to understand and navigate it.

The technology sitting on top of those things might change completely, but the foundation doesn’t disappear.

That’s why I keep coming back to the basics.

You never really stop learning the fundamentals

I’ve learned this through client work, through building websites, through troubleshooting, and especially through building my own website.

Working on my own custom WordPress site has been a good reminder that knowing how to use WordPress is one thing.

Understanding what WordPress is actually doing is another.

When you’re working with a theme, templates, PHP, CSS, HTML, functions, plugins, hosting, forms, analytics, or accessibility, there are a lot of layers involved.

And when something goes wrong, you can’t always solve the problem by clicking another button.

Sometimes you have to stop and ask:

What is supposed to be happening?

What is actually happening?

What changed?

Where does this piece connect to the next piece?

Where is the disconnect?

Those questions are often more valuable than knowing the exact answer immediately.

That’s something I’ve learned over time.

You don’t always need to know the answer before you start troubleshooting.

You need to know how to find it.

Fundamentals give you something to fall back on

This is especially important because technology doesn’t stand still.

I’ve worked with WordPress, website hosting, forms, analytics, SEO tools, email platforms, accessibility requirements and all of the other pieces that can become part of building and maintaining a website.

I’ve worked on everything from smaller business websites to larger projects, including a municipal website with more than 44 pages. I’ve worked with clients who needed a website that simply looked better, and I’ve worked on projects where usability, accessibility and compliance were much bigger considerations.

The tools can be different from project to project.

The fundamentals aren’t.

A website still needs good structure.

Content still needs to make sense.

Navigation still needs to be intuitive.

A user should still be able to figure out what to do next.

A website still needs to work for the people actually using it.

That last part matters.

Because it’s easy to get caught up in the technology and forget that we’re building websites for people.

And then something breaks

Anyone who has worked on websites for long enough knows this part.

You make a change.

Something else breaks.

You fix that.

Something completely unrelated stops working.

You stare at the screen wondering how changing one thing possibly caused another thing to stop working.

I’ve been there.

And I will probably be there again.

But troubleshooting has taught me not to immediately panic when something goes wrong.

Instead, I start working backward.

What changed?

What was working before?

What isn’t working now?

Is the problem with the code?

The theme?

The plugin?

The browser?

The hosting?

The connection between two different systems?

Once you understand the pieces, the problem becomes much less intimidating.

That’s the value of fundamentals.

They give you a starting point.

Backups are a fundamental too

There is another basic lesson that becomes very important when you’re working with websites:

Have a backup.

No one wants to think about their website crashing.

No one wants to think about an update breaking something.

No one wants to think about losing work.

But a backup is a little like having an umbrella in your car.

You might not need it for months.

You might even forget it’s there.

But when the storm comes, you’re very glad you have it.

It’s not the exciting part of web development. It’s not something that makes a portfolio look impressive.

But it is part of building responsibly.

Sometimes the fundamentals aren’t glamorous.

They’re just important.

The tools will keep changing

There will always be a newer platform.

A better plugin.

A different workflow.

A new design trend.

A new way of building websites.

And that’s okay.

I don’t think the goal is to learn everything.

I don’t think anyone can.

The goal is to understand enough of the foundation that when something new comes along, you have somewhere to start.

That’s also why I don’t mind being in a constant state of learning.

Sometimes I’m learning new software.

Sometimes I’m figuring out how something works.

Sometimes I’m troubleshooting something I’ve never encountered before.

And sometimes I’m going back to something I thought I already understood and realizing there is more to learn.

You never really graduate from the fundamentals.

You just get better at understanding them.

That’s probably the biggest lesson

The longer I work with websites, the more I appreciate the things that haven’t changed.

Technology changes quickly.

People don’t.

A website still needs to communicate.

It still needs to be usable.

It still needs to make sense.

It still needs to solve a problem.

And when something goes wrong, you still need to understand enough about the foundation to figure out what happened.

So no, I don’t think you have to know everything about every new tool.

I don’t think you have to chase every trend.

And I definitely don’t think you ever reach a point where you’ve learned everything there is to learn.

Instead, I think the fundamentals give you something much more useful.

They give you confidence when the tools change.

Because when you understand what’s underneath the technology, the technology itself becomes a little less intimidating.

And maybe that’s why the fundamentals never really go out of style.

They don’t have to.

The tools can change.

The platforms can change.

The way we build websites can change.

But the foundation is still the foundation.

And there is always something new to learn from it.

Funny How You Come Back to What You Know

There’s something funny about building your own website.

You start out thinking about the obvious things — what it should look like, what you want people to see, how you want to present yourself — and somewhere along the way, you realize you’re revisiting things you learned years ago.

For me, that realization brought me all the way back to college.

I earned my degree in Visual Communication Technology at Bowling Green State University. It was a pretty broad education in visual communication. I wasn’t just learning how to make something look good on a screen. I was introduced to the different ways we communicate visually — through web, print, photography, and video.

I had a little bit of everything.

But as I moved through the program, I found myself gravitating toward two areas in particular: web and print. Those were the areas where I really enjoyed digging in, solving problems, and figuring out how all the pieces fit together.

Photography and video were part of my education too, and I’m glad they were. Having that exposure gave me a broader understanding of visual communication, even though they weren’t where I ultimately chose to specialize.

At the time, though, I think I looked at those classes differently.

You learn the fundamentals. You complete the assignments. You move on to the next project.

That’s college.

You don’t always realize which pieces are going to stick with you.

Years later, while working on my own website, I found myself coming back to those same fundamentals — but this time, I wasn’t completing an assignment for a grade.

I was the client.

And that’s a very different experience.

There wasn’t someone handing me a project brief. There wasn’t a professor telling me what needed to be changed. There wasn’t a checklist telling me when I was finished.

I had to make the decisions.

And the deeper I got into the project, the more I found myself thinking about the things I learned all those years ago.

How does this communicate?

Does this make sense?

What does someone see first?

Is this actually helping the person looking at it?

Does the design support the message, or is the design becoming the message?

Those aren’t necessarily new questions.

But I was asking them with a completely different perspective.

That’s probably my favorite part of this whole process.

The fundamentals weren’t outdated. I had just grown into them.

When you’re learning something for the first time, you’re often focused on how to do it.

As you gain experience, you start thinking more about why you’re doing it.

And that’s what building this website has given me an opportunity to do.

It has let me step back and reconnect with the foundation of my education while bringing everything I’ve learned since then along for the ride.

I’m not the same designer I was when I graduated.

Thankfully.

I’ve had years of experience, different projects, different challenges, different clients, and plenty of opportunities to figure out what works — and what definitely doesn’t.

But those early lessons are still there.

They’re just a little more seasoned now.

And maybe that’s why this website project has felt like more than simply creating a new website for myself.

It’s been a bit of a reset.

A chance to look at where I started, where I’ve gone, and what I still enjoy about the work.

It reminded me that good design doesn’t necessarily start with the newest tool, the latest trend, or the flashiest technique.

Sometimes it starts with the things you learned a long time ago.

You just have to come back to them with fresh eyes.

Funny how you come back to what you know.

And sometimes, that’s when you realize just how much you’ve learned.

One thing I’ve learned:

You never really outgrow the fundamentals. You just learn how to use them better.