Links to real Dropbox files included at end of post. ✊
I’m going to admit some things, they’re not crazy. I like to organize. I like things tidy. I really like to project manage and I’m obsessed with customer service. I’m weirdly terrible at sending invoices (hang on, just have to reply to all these new work inquiries from prospective clients). As someone who has freelanced for many years, I pour all of these things into my work and into the experience of working with me.
The tools you employ with clients is a balancing act. You want to make things easy and project management transparent but don’t want to be like, “hey, can you just create accounts for all these tools I use real quick?” You want to communicate, but you know your clients are also busy so communicating can easily turn into over-communicating.
When you’re a solo UXD freelancer, you run the project. You are responsible for all of it; and there’s a lot. Design projects include lots of: conversations, files, feedback and tasks. Ideally everything is in one place but inevitably (and often very quickly), they are not. Email breaks down very quickly. When this happens, things are hard to find. “Oh, is this revision #6 or #7, where’s the last round of design…are these the right files I’m looking at?”
