Ligi
This product is currently in the development process and the updates will be asynchronous. Feel free to ask any questions regarding the project advancements through my email. This will later on become a full report.
Update #1: Interview and problem framing
I sat down with the school librarian to understand how things work. Everything lives in one big spreadsheet. Books, loans, students, all in the same sheet. Registering a loan is pretty easy. Figuring out who hasn't returned a book or pulling a monthly report? That's where it falls apart.
Update #2: PRD sketching
I wrote down what the app needs to do on day one. A dashboard showing overdue books on open, a loan screen for checkouts and returns (with availability states), and a reports page the principal can read without reformatting a spreadsheet.
Update #3: Defining basic entities, data and flow
The three elements that contain the app structure: books, readers, and loans. Mapping how they connect is what makes a database different from a spreadsheet. Establishing a loan is a link between a specific book and a specific person.
Logical issues turned edge cases
Example: What happens when two books have the same title? The library owns multiple copies of the same novel. Every physical book has a registration number. That became the unique identifier.
Update #4: Acknowledging data storage issues
The librarian already uses Google Sheets, so building on top of it would be the simplest path. But Sheets can't reliably connect a loan to a book to a reader, and anyone with the link can edit everything. So I discovered Supabase. Sheets (and files extensions) stays as a backup during migration, so if the app breaks, the data is still safe.
Update #5: Sketching and refining usability requirements
In the first update I reported that the librarian has limited experience with technology, so the interface needs to be simpler than the spreadsheet.
The most common actions are always visible.
I also scoped metrics the principal needs monthly
Work still in progress and future updates will be posted. Coming up: Learning (deeply) Claude Code, Figma integration and tech limitations.