Diario
Everything our son's school publishes, in one place we can read on a phone before coffee. Built for exactly two users, and the project that changed how I think about my job.
Used daily, private
Family app, two users
Since August 2026
Phone-first
The story
Where it started
Seven in the morning, looking for the swimming kit.
The school already sends everything: the timetable, homework, lunch, news, what happened today. It just arrives in a system built for a desktop, spread over many screens. Diario takes what the school publishes and puts it in one place we can read on a phone, with what matters this morning at the top.
Building for two
When the distance to the user is zero.
I've spent my career on products used by hundreds of thousands of people. Here every question had an answer in the room: should this be on the first screen? I knew, because I'm the one looking for it at seven in the morning. What surprised me wasn't the speed. It was how much I removed. When you are the user, you feel the cost of everything you add, so you stop adding.
The decision that mattered
Writing back to the school stays manual.
Diario can report an absence or book a parent meeting, but only one tap at a time, on a live session, with a confirmation that names exactly what is about to happen, and a check afterwards that it really did. No background jobs, no retries, no date ranges. This is a child's school record.
“An automated write that goes wrong is worse than no feature.”
The rule behind every action that touches the school Honest about its limits
It says what it knows, and what it guessed.
Kit reminders come from the teacher's own notes; sports kit and swimwear are guessed from the timetable, and the app says so. When the school system signs us out, Diario says that too, instead of quietly showing old information.
What it does
- Today first
- The next lesson, what to bring and anything new, before you've had coffee.
- Shared homework
- Both parents see the same list and who ticked what, and when.
- Schedule, lunch and news
- The week, the menu and school posts, laid out for a phone.
- Timely notifications
- A check every 15 minutes, a push when something changes, and a badge that adds up what's unread.
- Absence and meetings
- Report an absence or book a slot, deliberately one confirmed tap at a time.
- Read aloud
- A Siri Shortcut reads the day out in English or Italian, one language per parent.
Built with
Next.js, TypeScript, SQLite, Playwright, Web Push