OMA: One Month App

Sketching out ideas

I started today on the initial design of the application. This mostly revolved around doing a lot of brainstorming and sketching on what it is going to look like and how it will function. To start out, I like to put a lot of emphasis on the process of how things work rather than the actual look and feel (more on that here). Because of this, I jumped right into the main section of the app which is the cash flow management, and in doing so focused on the main elements or "patterns" of this section.

In the past, Clear Function has used a simple spreadsheet to help us calculate and track our cash flow. And to be honest, it does a pretty decent job. However, problems come up in the actual management of things as far as adding new jobs, creating new months, putting in new expenses, etc. that make it not so fun to use. That's where the idea for this app came into play. We wanted something as basic as a simple spreadsheet, but as quick and easy to use as what is possible in a modern web application.

That being said, I think there is a lot to learn and a lot of design merit in the layout of a spreadsheet when it comes to looking at numbers. You'll notice in the sketches above that I'm imagining a grid structure allowing a quick glance of income and expenses over several months. I also envision being able to quickly add an income item or expense item in this spreadsheet view. I'm sure things will change over the next several days (as they always do), but for now I feel pretty good about this direction. Please leave your thoughts if you think differently.

Next up, I'll be digging into more of the look and feel of the app. This is when I'll turn sketches into Photoshop files, and Photoshop into HTML/CSS. I should have some screens to see in the next couple of days. Things are really rolling now.