the part that changed
I always knew what I wanted to build – getting it out of my head was the hard part. Now that I can keep up with the idea, I’ve stopped leaving the small things I knew were off..
So something changed for me about a week into building this site.. I basically stopped leaving the small things that I knew were wrong.
I think knowing what I want was never really the problem for me. I always had a pretty clear picture of how it should work, how simple it should be and what it’s actually for, so that part comes naturally.
The hard part was always getting it out of my head and into something real…
Every time I tried, the idea was moving faster than I could build it. I would have the flow figured out, you know, the right steps in the right order and nothing extra, and by the time I had something working I’d already see like three more things that needed to change.
So yeah, I wouldn’t finish it, and honestly, because I knew I wouldn’t finish, most of the time I wouldn’t even start..
Now that’s definitely different, because I can keep up with the idea. And I mean, it didn’t make me relax my standards, it’s actually the opposite, for the first time I feel free to hold myself to the standard that I actually have.
Before, there were subconscious compromises everywhere, for example a flow with one step too many because fixing it would take another hour I didn’t have, or a label that said the right word but not quite the right thing, stuff like that. I knew these were off and I left them anyway…
Now I don’t leave them. The one thing I definitely would have left before is the transitions, the crisp, smooth load time, and the copy. I do a quick 10 second test on a page, is it communicating what it’s supposed to, am I having to wonder where I am, where did I come from, what do I do next? So all of these are stuff I keep looking at, and also micro animations and stuff like that, because real people use this, and also because it’s mine..
I was always the one asking, is this as simple as it can be, and does it actually do what it’s supposed to do? Those questions used to just stay in my head or come up in meetings, and now they go straight into what I build.
So that is basically the part that changed. I think I ask the same questions I always did, I just get to act on them now, the same day..
So the old constraints kept me from starting, and what I can do now keeps me from stopping.. I’ll take that trade.