Challenge

Oh so many challenges

1. Position within the market

Deciding on my market position was a challenge. When I launched the first iteration of my portfolio. My skill distribution between development and design 30:70 respectively. I have since transition that to 60:40 development to design.

2. Copywriting

With any undertaking, particularly if never attempted before there are always aspects not accounted for. In the case for this project. I did not estimate the requirements of copywriting properly.

Keeping away from a rigorous analysis, I simply underestimated the difficulty in honing in on the appropriate tone and verbage. Maintaining consistency for each project also was initially trying. I had to define and refine the appropriate voice for the web and further the particular web audience my content was intended.

1. Production Management (Managing a one man team)

Working on this project I ran into an unexpected challenge. But, with experience, it was completely obvious.

Initially I was bundling work in an attempt to be more productive. For example, I would wireframe and work on my content architecture simultaneously. Then skip the high fidelity design phase and bundle it into frontend development.

It ended up as a mess. The production quality was in the trash and everything was suffering. I had to take my favorite medicine of humble pie, and step back.

Solution

1: Position Solution

I cannot take credit for a cleaver solutions defining my market position. But rather my continued drilling of development made it clear as a frontend developer.

2. Copywriting Solutions

To solve the copywriting writing challenge required a more fundamental solution. That is study, drilling, and analysis, accompanied with the fortune of having a good friend who also wanted to develope their writing. We partnered for weekly writing to review and train. Through this, I was able to reach a point of adequacy. Though, there is a still a lot to improve on.

3. Mental Production Cost (Managing a one man team) Solution

To deliver a quality of work that I am not ashamed of I had change my perspective and treat my project like a full production. I was my own client and their was no room to cut corners. I had to completely rework my project timeline but, it was necessary to give each phase it deserved attention. General strategy, content strategy, copywriting, wireframing, low & high fidelity mock, development, dev and design quality assurance and copywriting editorial passes and final quality pass before deployment…and sometimes I still miss things. ;)