I was asked to come in for a short stint with a former client and help expand the feature set of his product. He had spent a year building a fantastic database of local professionals and onsite job experiences and now wanted to add in a student portal.

There were a few key requirements to the student portal. Firstly the students needed to be able to see all of the companies and professionals, but not the other way around. And secondly the students needed to be able to review their experiences and keep a journal about what they learned.

Adding features to legacy software is always a challenge, especially as a contractor coming in from the outside. The trick I have found is to always interview the developers. Yes, absolutely interview the client and stakeholders, thats a no-brainer, but I try and always make time for a sit down with the developers before I ever open Sketch. My reason? Because they already know what works. They have history with the product and can tell you why its broken. Often times the client will give you a lofty goal and the developer will be able to set it within the limits of the stack.