What I thought I had built
- A UI that made sense — logical layout, good colours, felt right on my phone.
- I was ready to submit.
- Then I watched three people use it for the first time.
What actually happened during testing
- None of the three testers found the core feature on the first attempt.
- They tapped on things I had never expected anyone to tap on.
- They missed buttons that felt obvious to me as the builder.
- One person spent two minutes looking for a feature that was right in front of them the whole time.
The most important thing you will learn building your first app
- The UI that makes sense to you — the person who built it — is completely different from the UI a first-time user encounters.
- You know what every button does. They do not.
- You built it. They walked in cold.
- You cannot un-know how your own app works. That is why you need external testers.
How I rebuilt it
- I took notes on everything I observed — every confused tap, every missed button, every wrong assumption.
- I asked Claude to help redesign the three screens that caused the most confusion.
- I gave specific observations, not vague requests: "Users expect this button at the bottom, not the top."
- I did not ask for a full redesign. I asked for surgical, targeted changes.
- For each change: committed to GitHub first, one change at a time, tested before moving on.
- The second version took about two days — not because the changes were large, but because I moved carefully.
The result and the rule it created
- The third person I tested the revised version with found the core feature in under thirty seconds.
- That is the difference between a UI built for yourself and a UI built for a user you have actually watched.
- I now test with real people before every submission — even if it is just two or three people.
- It is the single most valuable thing I do before shipping anything.