Wehkamp Wannagive Days

2 years ago

In 2024 we built the Wannagive Days advent calendar for Wehkamp. Every day in the run-up to Christmas you could open a new package, collect cards and build up a streak. The longer your streak, the more you unlocked: discount coupons on things like Christmas sweaters and chances to win prizes.

What made this project special was the collaboration with the client. It was the smoothest client cooperation I had had up to that point. The external connections we set up with Wehkamp came together easily, testing everything went really well, and the communication back and forth was just really good. It was honestly my favourite project of that year.

It reminded me that a project is not only about how cool the application is that you build, but just as much about how you experience the development along the way. It sounds a little corny, but it is really true.

A year later we did a relaunch, and that time it felt different. Wehkamp was in the middle of another big launch, so they could not give this relaunch their full attention. That left us with very little time to test the older connections, and when we went live it caused some bugs.

We fixed them pretty quickly, but the real takeaway stuck with me: a relaunch is never automatically smooth sailing, even when the collaboration was so good the year before. Every relaunch deserves the same attention and the same testing as building the activation for the very first time. That lesson has made me a sharper communicator and a sharper developer.