Ashok's Estimate Queue

I photograph the forms customers fill in for painting work, and the app gives each one a number so I know who to visit first.

Who this is for

Ashok Pawar paints houses in Nashik. He works with two helpers, Rafiq and Sunil, and finishes about four flats a month. He leaves printed enquiry forms at three hardware shops in Panchavati, and customers write their name, area and what they want painted. The shopkeeper sends him a photo of each filled form. By Sunday night Ashok has eleven photos on his phone and no idea which one came first.

How the job is done today

The forms live inside his WhatsApp. He scrolls up, squints at a photo, decides that one looks like a big job, and rings that person. Two weeks later a woman from Gangapur Road rings, upset, because she filled the form before Diwali and nobody came. He cannot prove otherwise, so he apologises and goes the next morning. Some forms he copies into a small notebook, but the notebook stays in the van and he is usually at home when someone calls. In his gallery the forms sit mixed up with photos of ceilings, paint tins and his daughter's school function.

The screens, in order

1. Add a form — This is where a photo of a filled form becomes a proper entry in the line, with the name, area and phone number typed in by hand.
2. The queue — The whole waiting line in the order people asked, smallest number at the top, so Ashok can see at a glance who has been waiting longest.
3. One request — Opens the photograph large enough to read the handwriting, with the person's number and a button to ring them straight away.
4. After the visit — Closes that person's turn and lets Ashok note in a line what he saw at the house, so the line moves on to the next number.
5. Old ones — Keeps every visited and cancelled request, so when someone rings back in March about a job from December, the form is still there.

What it keeps track of

• Requests — the photo of the form, its number, the person's name, their area, phone number, the day it arrived, still waiting or visited
• Visits — which request, the day he went, what he saw at the house, what he told them, whether they want him to come back
• Next up — which one request Ashok is going to visit next, and the day he plans to go

The one decision that matters

The number can mean two different things. It can be a ticket, fixed the moment the photo comes in, or it can be a position in a list that shifts every time Ashok skips somebody. Make it a ticket. Ashok tells people their number on the phone, and a number that quietly changes turns him into a liar. Then keep a separate next-up mark that he can move wherever he likes, so he can take the Gangapur Road job on Tuesday because he is already in that lane, without disturbing anyone's number. Arrival order stays underneath, unchanged, as the thing he can point to when somebody says they were forgotten.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out any attempt to read the handwriting by itself. Marathi and Hindi mixed with pencil-written numbers will come out wrong, and a wrong phone number is worse than a photo he can simply look at. Leave out estimates, paint quantity and room measurements as well. The only job here is the order of visits. The moment the app starts asking for prices, Ashok has twenty boxes to fill in and he will go straight back to WhatsApp.

How you would know it worked

A customer rings while Ashok is up on the ladder and asks when he is coming. He says, you are sixth, I will be there Thursday, without hanging up to go and hunt through his gallery. And that woman from Gangapur Road never has to ring twice.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I am a house painter in Nashik. Customers fill in a paper form at the hardware shop asking for painting work, and the shopkeeper sends me a photo of it on WhatsApp. Make me a phone app where I open the camera or pick that photo from my gallery, type in only the person's name, their area and their phone number, and the app gives that request a number that never changes afterwards. Show me the whole waiting line with the smallest number on top, and when I tap one I want the photo big enough to read the handwriting and a button to ring them. After I go and see the house, let me mark it done with one line about what I saw, so it drops out of the line and I can set which number I am visiting next. It should all still open when there is no signal.