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.