A time-logging app with no language in it
An icon-driven, language-free time-logging app for a fabrication workshop. A worker logs a complete entry with five taps and never sees a keyboard, a date picker, or a dropdown. Every entry is append-only and every change in the system lands in an audit log.
The problem
A workshop floor is the worst possible environment for a form. Workers speak different languages, hands are busy, and any friction means the logging simply does not happen, which means project costing runs on guesses. The constraint I set: logging a full entry must be faster than not logging it, and must work for someone who cannot read the interface language at all.
The approach
Every screen is a grid of pictures. Tap the project (a photo tile), tap the work category, tap the task, set hours with a big minus/plus stepper in half-hour steps, confirm. Entries are stamped with server time so nobody back-dates, and Sundays are simply closed. Workers cannot edit anything after the fact: only an admin can correct an entry, and every correction is written to an audit log with actor, action, and before/after detail.
- Server-rendered Express and EJS, no SPA, so it stays fast on cheap phones and bad WiFi
- PostgreSQL with sessions in the database, bcrypt, strict CSP, rate limiting and CSRF protection
- Project images resized on upload and served from object storage
- Admin side: project and worker management, per-project and per-worker reports with CSV export, entry correction, and a filterable audit log
The outcome
Time data that actually exists. Because the flow is five taps, workers log as they go instead of reconstructing the week on Thursday. Because entries are append-only with server timestamps, the reports are trustworthy enough to cost projects against. And because the interface has no language in it, onboarding a new worker is showing them the app once.
What I learned
Removing text from an interface is a forcing function. Every screen has to answer one question, every tap target has to be obvious from its picture alone, and anything that cannot be drawn probably should not be in the worker's path at all. The admin side can afford complexity. The floor cannot.