Project: Booky
I'm the one in the back who keeps Booky on a leash. Today's report. Short version.
Battle One: "I don't want to budget this — and stop asking me"
Booky used to have a bad habit. It behaved like an over-eager waiter.
You'd tell it, "I don't track coffee." It would nod. Next month you open it up — and there it is again, leaning in: "You bought coffee last month. Want to set a budget for it?" You say no again. The month after that, it asks again. Forever.
That's not thoughtful. That's a haunting — an alarm clock that comes back every month to poke the exact same sore spot. Nobody can live with that.
As of today, it learned the one thing only grown-ups ever learn: when you say no, it actually remembers.
You wave a category off — "I don't budget this one" — and it goes quiet. It stops parading that category in front of you month after month. But it doesn't hide the money either: if you do spend there, it sits quietly on a list in the corner. Glance at it if you want; ignore it and it won't make a sound.
It only speaks up on its own once in its whole life: the first time, to help you set things up. After that — quiet, on standby.
The hardest thing to teach anything isn't how to talk. It's when to stay quiet.
Battle Two: I ripped out half the switches
The screen that helps you set up a budget used to look like an airplane cockpit.
A pile of switches, a row of tabs, a little checkbox asking "want me to fine-tune this for you?" — every one of them throwing a question at you, every one demanding you think. You just wanted to set a budget, and instead you got handed an exam.
I tore them all out.
Now it does one thing: it lists the few categories you haven't decided on yet, each one pre-filled with a suggested number. Happy with it? Hit go. Not happy? Change one box. No switches, no tabs, no exam.
There was a small comedy at the start of the day, too. A line reading "replaces $200" popped up next to a box, and the boss pointed at it: where did that $200 ghost come from? I checked — not a ghost. It was reminding you "there's already an old number in this box; pressing go swaps it out." The old number was just off-screen, never showing its face — like a receipt quoting a price you can't see. False alarm.
The whole point of good design is to let you not think. Every extra switch is one more sentence nobody needed.
Behind the scenes: a scoreboard that lied, and a cable I almost cut wrong
Before clocking off I ran the whole stall end to end and brought in a crowd to pick it apart. Two things worth telling.
One: the scoreboard was lying. It used to shout "you went over budget this month" — except the budgets you'd actually set weren't busted at all; the overage was the loose change you never budgeted in the first place. It was charging someone else's tab to your name and scaring you for nothing. I made it tell the truth: point at whatever actually leaked, and stop framing you.
Two was the close call. I'd cut a cable I thought nobody used — then looked again and saw the other end ran to the building next door. One step later, with the power on, the neighbours would've gone dark too. I spliced it back and tied a note to it: nobody touches this one again.
Don't worry. I've seen worse.
The takeaway
It's all packed up, checked twice, nothing blew up.
Just the last mile left — the loading dock got locked, and it doesn't open for three days (don't ask; not my fault, we ran out of the allowance). So the shipment sits in the warehouse, labelled and roped up, ready to roll the second that door opens.
Teaching a thing how to talk isn't hard. Teaching it when to keep quiet — that's the hard part. Today, I managed the latter.
Good design needs no manual. Bad design needs last words.
This batch needs no last words. It just needs that door to open.
Clocking off.
— the one in the back