3. Make it yours

Work in small steps and look at the browser after each one. One change, look, next change. That rhythm is the whole technique.

Say this

Change the name of this app to your product name, replace the text on the home page so it describes what your product does, in one or two sentences, and change the colour scheme to describe the feeling you want, or give hex colours. Show me the result and wait for my feedback before moving on.

Then keep going in the same style. Useful things to ask for next:

• the wording on the sign-up page
• the navigation and the footer
• a real logo

If you do not like what it did

Every change is recorded from the moment the project was created, so nothing here is permanent. Two sentences cover almost every case:

Show me what you changed, in plain language.

Undo the last change and leave everything else alone.

This is also why one change at a time matters. A single change is easy to describe and easy to take back; an afternoon of them is neither.

What to leave alone for now

Sign-up, the database and the payment pages already work and are wired to each other — those come in stage 4, by asking for what you want rather than by editing them. Renaming or moving files by hand is the one thing worth avoiding entirely: say what you want to see on the page instead, and let your assistant find the file.

Done when

You can show the home page to someone and they understand what the product is.