Business-focused custom software

Sometimes it is hard for a customer to know what to communicate with a freelance software developer. This isn't really surprising - it can often seem like the developer needs to only know WHAT the decision is, and not HOW the decision was arrived at (or WHY). Unfortunately, leaving the developer out of the loop is too bad, because they may be able to help you to better achieve your goals.

One of my customers made a design decision this week based on how google analytics will gather data. Their decision isn't necessarily wrong, but certainly this determination is worth me knowing about. Unfortunately, the customer didn't actually communicate this reason; from my point of view, they appeared to have made a random decision. Fortunately, the project manager clued me in.

Understanding that this was important to them will help me to better make design recommendations in the future. That's why it is so important to keep the lines of communication open, especially with those project participants who aren't on site.