Deepak's Daily Samples

Deepak types one number when his morning round ends, and watches the count of blood samples he has collected keep climbing.

Who this is for

Deepak Sahu is 29 and collects blood samples for a small diagnostic lab in Raipur. He leaves at ten past six on his Splendor with a cold box strapped behind, covers Shankar Nagar and Telibandha, and does twelve to twenty houses before ten. The software lands at 10:40, back at the lab, cold box handed to Sunil bhai at the counter, first chai of the day in his hand, phone in the other.

How the job is done today

Nobody counts what Deepak does. The lab has a register at the counter where the receptionist writes barcode numbers against patient names, and that register is about vials, not about him. Deepak's own number lives on the back of the requisition slips in his shirt pocket till he throws them. When his wife asks how the day went he says busy, or says thoda kam tha. When his brother asked last Diwali how many people he has drawn blood from in three years, he said maybe a few thousand, and both of them knew he was guessing.

The screens, in order

1. Today's number — Opens straight to a number pad and one big Save button so he can put in fourteen and be done before the chai cools.
2. The total — Shows the one figure he came for, the count of every sample since the day he started, and how many days in a row he has entered it.
3. The month strip — Lays out this month as a row of days so he can see the fat Mondays, the thin Sundays and the two days he was down with fever.
4. Fix a day — Lets him put yesterday's number in this morning when he forgot, without pretending it was entered on time.

What it keeps track of

• A day's count — which date, how many samples, when he actually typed it in, whether he filled it in later
• Deepak — his name, which lab he rides for, the date he started counting
• Marks along the way — which round number he crossed, the day he crossed it

The one decision that matters

One tap per sample as he collects, or one number typed at the end of the round. Tapping is more honest and gives times of day, but Deepak has gloves on, a cold box in one hand and an old woman's arm in the other, and he is not taking his phone out in someone's drawing room. Half the taps would go missing and he would stop trusting the total. Go with one number at the end. It is a memory he can hold for twenty minutes, it costs him ten seconds at the counter, and a number he actually enters every day beats a precise one he abandons in three weeks.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out patient names, test names, area-wise splits and any chart. The lab register already holds all of that and it belongs to the lab, not to him. Every extra field turns a ten second habit into a two minute chore, and the first morning he is late, he skips it, and then he skips the next one. This is a count of his own work, and a count only needs a number.

How you would know it worked

Six weeks in, someone at a wedding asks Deepak what he does, and instead of saying he works in a lab, he says he has drawn blood from one thousand four hundred people. He says the number without checking his phone, because he watched it go past.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I collect blood samples for a diagnostic lab in Raipur and I want a small website only for myself. Every morning after my round I want to open it and type how many samples I collected that day, just a number, one big keypad and one save button, nothing else to fill. Then it should show me my total samples since I started and how many days in a row I have entered a number. I want to see this month as a row of days so I can see which days were heavy. Sometimes I forget at night, so let me go back and put in yesterday's number too. It should open fast on my phone and remember me so I never log in again. No patient names, no test names, just my count going up.