· Ed Dowding · Portfolio · 2 min read
ParentLog
Lightweight parenting journal enabling effortless memory capture and milestone tracking through micro-interactions optimized for sleep-deprived parents.
The Problem
Existing baby journals require too much friction—open app, navigate menus, fill forms, add photos. New parents are exhausted, overwhelmed, distracted. By the time they think “I should document this,” the moment has passed. Result: guilt-inducing empty journals and lost memories.
What I Built
ParentLog reduces memory capture to single-tap interactions:
Micro-Interaction Logging:
- Voice-to-text: “Whisper mode” for nighttime logging without waking baby
- Photo + auto-timestamp with one tap (no navigation required)
- Pre-populated quick actions: “Fed,” “Nap,” “Diaper,” “Milestone”
Intelligent Defaults:
- AI suggests context based on time/previous patterns (“It’s 3am, likely feeding?“)
- Auto-categorization of voice notes (“first steps” → milestone)
- No required fields—every interaction is optional detail
Curated Outputs:
- Weekly summaries emailed to parents (“This week Olivia: 3 new words, 2 playdates, 10 smiles”)
- One-tap export to print-ready photo books
- Shared family timelines (grandparents see updates without app)
Tech Stack
- Progressive Web App (PWA) for instant load without app store friction
- Local-first architecture (works offline, syncs when connected)
- Cloudflare Workers for edge compute (sub-100ms globally)
- WebRTC for voice recording with noise cancellation
Lessons Learned
Friction Kills Adoption: Every extra tap reduces usage. Reducing “capture memory” from 8 taps to 1 increased daily active users 4x. Lesson: for habit-forming products, remove friction ruthlessly—every interaction competes with exhaustion.
Local-First = Trust: Parents feared cloud dependency (“What if the service shuts down?”). Local-first architecture (data on device, sync as backup) eliminated anxiety. Lesson: consumer apps handling precious memories need offline-first as trust signal.
Intelligent Defaults Scale: AI auto-categorization meant parents could dump thoughts without organizing. This “organize it for me later” approach reduced cognitive load. Lesson: let users be messy; computers can impose order retroactively.