Retrospective
Water of Life Site v1 — March 21, 2026
What Went Well
Demo-driven iteration produced a site that matches Joey's voice and vision — build, show, fix, show again.
Dark theme + tron blue landed clean — distinctive, fits "water," pure CSS variables, no framework.
Print cards are strong — B&W, scannable QR, bold type, 4×6 photo print, hand-to-someone simple.
Writing is Joey's voice — direct, personal, no-bullshit. Truth section hits hard. Nobel callout gives weight.
Caught 1L vs 1.5L error mid-demo by comparing to actual LMNT usage — site now reflects what Joey actually does every day.
What Could Be Better
Too many rounds on print cards — wrong size, wrong colors, wrong layout, bad QR — 5+ iterations.
Root cause: Specs not nailed in one conversation before building.
Used emoji icons for results and timeline, then had to rip them all out.
Root cause: Should have gone text-only from day one on dark themes.
Metric vs imperial inconsistent until flagged mid-demo.
Root cause: Unit convention not established during discovery.
Built gold, Joey wanted tron blue — wasted a pass.
Root cause: Color assumed from source material, not confirmed.
Warning at top of page was too aggressive — took 2 tries to place before formula.
Root cause: Warnings should be near the action, not blocking content.
11 issues logged during demo — most avoidable with better discovery questions.
What We Commit To
Nail print specs up front — size, color mode, content checklist before building.
No emoji as UI — text elements only. Codified in a-d-d spec.
Unit convention confirmed in discovery — dual metric + standard is default.
Theme colors confirmed in discovery — never assume from source material.
Warnings placed near the action, not at top of pages.
Formula verified against actual daily usage before publishing.
Always present deliverables to user as HTML — open in browser, not terminal markdown.
All structured data stored as triples — the board format is the universal data model.