I’m available to work on projects in any of my areas of expertise: CSS, Sass, accessibility, user experience (UX), workflow automation, performance, and WordPress development. (More info about my areas of expertise.)
What I Do #
I can build new sites: WordPress themes, flat-file sites, even static site generators (like Jekyll, Metalsmith, or Harp).
I can refactor your code. With time, codebases get really bloated. Every dev adds code in their own style; everyone’s afraid something will go wrong if they delete some existing code. If your team isn’t able to clean up the code base (not a slam on them: there’s no shame in recognizing technical limitations or time constraints!), I can refactor it (and provide rules for future code) so they can work more quickly and happily.
I can optimize your site. If your site was built without proper consideration for speed, accessibility, mobile usability or user experience, I can strengthen its weaknesses.
How I Do It #
Based on your requirements, I’ll provide you a single project price. If that’s a surprise to you, keep reading. (If not, enjoy the next paragraph!) If I billed hourly and gave you an hourly estimate, we’d end up in trouble if something unexpected pushes the project past that estimate. Either you’d pay more than you expected to get it finished, or I’d deliver the project in its current state. And the whole time, we’d be inefficient. You’d want to make sure I could justify every hour logged; I’d use up valuable hours tracking and reporting the time I spend - it wouldn’t be great. A flat project rate lines our goals up perfectly, however. You get a solid price that doesn’t change.
Based on your requirements, I’ll also provide you a contract and a completion estimate. The estimate where some of our flexibility lives. If you’re still collecting resources (design comps, style guide, 3rd party integration information, etc), I’ll provide a duration estimate and we’ll wait together till everything’s ready for work to begin. If you’ve got everything ready to go, we’ll document the project requirements and get started.
While the project progresses, we’ll schedule a weekly check-in. I’ll brief you on what I’ve got done so far, let you know what I’m going after next, and make sure you’re aware of any blockers that are preventing my progress. This isn’t a big screenshare/show-and-tell/demo meeting (unless, of course, visual design is part of the project); it’s usually less than 30 minutes.
As I work, if any new requirements arise or significant scope changes are requested (since we agreed on those already and attached them to the contract, it’ll be easy to confirm), I’ll immediately inform you how those surprises affect the completion estimate. We’ll talk about how those affect the project rate and the completion estimate. More than likely, we’ll draw up a contract amendment that documents the scope change, new requirements, and price change.
When we agree on the project price and completion estimate, we’ll sign everything up and start. I require 70% of the fee upfront, with the other 30% due after delivery. If there’s a price increase due to changes made to the requirements and scope, 100% of that increase will be due when that amendment is signed. The simplicity of that payment method and the percentages due are designed to reflect mutual trust. I feel comfortable asking for a significant portion in advance because I believe my value is visible. Even if we’ve never met before, by the time we get to signing the contract, I want you to be confident that I’m a professional with deep expertise. The 70% upfront fee demonstrates that you trust the value I’m providing. My willingness to deliver the project before getting the final dollar shows my trust for you. I used to use contracts that withheld final deliverables till after the final payment. I’ve seen that turn the final delivery into a bit of an awkward hostage exchange.