Daily log screen

What this screen does

This is the screen a person opens for the ninetieth consecutive day. They are about to record something they have recorded eighty-nine times, and the only question that matters is how fast they can be finished.

It answers two things: have I logged today, and how do I log now. The first is answered before the reader has focused their eyes. The state of today is the most prominent thing on the screen. The second is one target in the lower third, reachable with the thumb of the hand already holding the phone.

Everything else is history, and history is secondary. A log screen that leads with a chart is optimising for the reviewer rather than the person doing the work, and the person doing the work is the one whose effort produces the chart.

What this screen deliberately does not do. It does not interpret. Nothing here grades a reading, congratulates a streak, or warns about a gap: interpretation belongs on the results and trends screens, and a judgement attached to the act of logging is a tax on logging. It does not gamify. A streak counter converts a missed day into a loss and gives people a reason to stop rather than to resume. And it does not pre-fill a measurement.

Composition

Rungs are given by position; they are named in The ladder.

DailyLogScreen                         page ground
├── Header                             page ground
│   ├── Title                          what is being logged
│   └── DateControl                    today, changeable, never automatic
├── TodayStatus                        one rung above the page
│   ├── Value | EmptyState             today's reading, or an honest absence
│   ├── RelativeTime                   when it was measured
│   └── EditControl                    correcting is as easy as adding
├── HistoryList                        page ground
│   └── HistoryRow …                   date, value and unit in a list, not a chart
│       ├── Value
│       └── RelativeTime
├── LogAction                          fixed, lower third, thumb reach
└── LogSheet                           one rung above the screen, on demand
    ├── Field
    │   └── ReadingInput               decimal keypad, unit beside the field
    ├── TimeControl                    defaults to now, editable
    └── SaveAction                     above the keyboard, always

TimelineEntry now ships, so a team building the history list reaches for it as one dated row rather than composing each row by hand from Value and RelativeTime.

Three composition rules this screen demonstrates:

Today is lifted; history is not. Exactly one surface is off the page ground in the resting state, and it is the state of today. The reader's question is answered by elevation before it is answered by reading.

The action is fixed, not scrolled. The log control does not move with the history list. A primary action that scrolls away is a primary action the reader has to hunt for on a screen they use daily.

The sheet is a rung, not a screen. It sits above the surface it came from and leaves it visible, which is what makes dismissing it obviously safe. See Capture a daily log entry for the mechanics.

Preview

Safety notes

• No measurement is ever pre-filled. The convenience of defaulting to yesterday's value is exactly how a log fills with numbers nobody measured.
• The recorded time is the measurement time, with its time zone, and the reader can change it. A reading logged on a flight must not move a day.
• The unit travels with the value. Stored canonically, converted once at the edge. Unit systems covers both. A stored number with an implicit unit is a future incident.
• A plausibility warning describes; it never blocks or corrects. The one person whose genuine reading falls outside your expected span is the person whose reading matters most.
• A gap in the history is drawn as a gap. Missing days are not skipped over to make the list look continuous. See Data states.
• Logging on somebody else's behalf is visibly attributed, or readings will end up on the wrong person's record.
• No status colour appears on this screen. Logging is not a clinical state, and a reading that turns amber as it is entered is a judgement delivered at the worst possible moment. The two colour axes keeps status off this screen.
• Nothing here is a reminder mechanism. Notifications that chase a missed entry are governed by the alarm budget, not by this screen. Alarm fatigue governs them.

Accessibility

Landmarks and headings. One main, one H1 naming what is being logged. Today and History are H2s. The heading outline alone tells a reader what the screen holds.

Focus on entry. Focus lands on the main content, and the today status is the first thing announced. When there is no reading, that announcement includes the fact that there is none. The most common defect is a screen where a screen-reader user must traverse the whole history list to discover whether they have logged today.

Focus through the sheet. Opening moves focus into the sheet; it is trapped while modal; Escape dismisses it; and focus returns to the control that opened it, not to the top of the page. Keyboard and focus specifies this.

The keyboard never covers the save. The sheet respects the keyboard-safe inset at every detent and at every text size. This is the failure that makes a logging flow unusable one-handed while looking fine in a screenshot.

Announcements are proportionate. The save is announced politely and does not interrupt. Undo remains reachable by keyboard for as long as it is offered. An undo only a pointer can reach is not an undo.

Validation is heard, not only seen. Messages are associated with their field and announced when they appear. See Screen readers.

Targets. Every control clears 44pt with real separation, and the primary action sits in the one-handed reach zone. Density and touch defines that zone.

Text at 200%. The sheet scrolls internally, the save control stays visible, and the history list reflows to stacked rows rather than truncating values.

Input survives. Rotation, backgrounding and dismissing the keyboard do not discard a half-typed reading. Losing typed input is the fastest way to end a logging habit.

Status