Ux on Build in Public

The occasional toast can’t hurt

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Some of the designers and frontend devs I’ve worked with may remember my rants against toast notifications:

“Why do I need a success message for every action? I expect things to work. Only tell me when something breaks.”

But… I’ll admit it: Sometimes toasts do have their merit.

Two examples from poketto.me:

🔹 Copy to clipboard (Podcast feed URL):

When users click the “copy” button, the action happens instantly. But without any feedback, it feels… awkward.

UX details sometimes make all the difference

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In WebSockets: More than tech vanity, I talked about how poketto.me uses WebSockets to keep the UI in sync with async backend processes—like translating, TTS, etc. Neat? Sure. Game-changing? Probably not. Just like I asked about AI in AI is not a value proposition: where would you put that on the Business Model Canvas? It doesn’t really fit as a Value Proposition, does it?

But that doesn’t mean it’s not important. Take Strava, for example.

WebSockets: More than tech vanity

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As I said in Socket science isn’t rocket science, WebSockets are quite easy to use with Python + Flask + Socket.IO on the backend and Angular + Socket.IO + RxJS on the frontend. But why bother? Dealing with asynchronous requests is more of a hassle than not. And for a “boring” app like poketto.me, aren’t synchronous HTTP requests/responses good enough?

Here are two use cases where, despite the app’s apparent simplicity, asynchronous backend/frontend communication adds real value:

Consistency Beats Accuracy (Part 1)

Thu, 07 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As I add more UI-heavy functionality to poketto.me (not all of it public yet), I keep running into the same issue: it’s tempting — but risky — to constantly invent new UI patterns and elements.

Case in point: On the Saves page, each saved item has a “more” menu with actions like Archive, Delete, or Edit Tags. But when I worked on the News Feed, I completely overlooked this. Instead, I gave each news item its own action bar — dedicated buttons to save the item or, once saved, edit its tags. (See Exhibit A.)

Socket science isn’t rocket science! 🚀 Or: WebSockets + Flask + SocketIO = ❤️

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

For some reason, async communication between a web app backend and the browser causes more anxiety than it should (guilty 🙋). I’ve had my fair share of headaches with WebSocket frameworks before, but for poketto.me, I tried a much simpler stack—and was pleasantly surprised:

➡️http backend: Flask ( https://flask.palletsprojects.com/en/stable/)
➡️websocket backend: Flask-Socketio ( https://flask-socketio.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)
➡️websocket frontend: socketio-client ( https://www.npmjs.com/package/socket.io-client)

🔌 Backend: Handling connections is dead simple

@socketio.on('connect')
def handle_connect():
_, user_id = authenticate()
sid = request.sid
connected_clients[user_id] = sid

📤 Sending data to a connected client

sid = connected_clients.get(user_id)\
if sid:
socketio.emit('message', {
'message_type': 'save_changed',
'data': {
'id': save_id,
'state': 'archived'
}
}, to=sid)
#### **🖥️ Frontend: Receiving messages is just as easy**

const socket = io(environment.WS_BASE_URL, {