Library Lite

School libraries run on a kind of beautiful chaos. Thirty children wanting to choose a book and a laptop that doesn't do what you need it to do.

The software is expensive and has zero consideration to the user, let alone the children for which it is supposed to help manage. It was built for someone sitting quietly at a desk, with time to navigate nested menus and type in ISBN numbers by hand. Calm, considered, sequential. Everything a busy school library is not.

In practice, checkouts are handwritten on a scrap of paper at best!

That told me everything I needed to know about where to start.

The three states cover virtually every real-world scenario.

• —Unknown book — the app flags it immediately and asks if you want to add it.
• —Available — it drops you straight into checkout.
• —Already on loan — it tells you who has it and gives you a one-tap return.

The first prototype looked great in Lovable. Elegant, considered, nicely spaced. Then I handed it to five separate teachers and watched what happened.

They logged onto a tablet, pointed it at a book, and immediately asked "so... what do I press?" There was too much text and a cluttered progress bar.

It was clear it needed to be stripped back to its basics.

Everything got simpler, clearer. Confirmations became full-screen states instead of small overlays. The fewer buttons that were needed were expanded until they were impossible to miss. Colour simplified and contrast went up until it had headroom to spare above accessibility thresholds.

The question I kept coming back to: if someone's half-distracted and a bit rushed, is this still obvious? If the answer was no, it wasn't good enough yet.