PROTOTYPE · 2023

OpsBoard.

Real-time coordination for field operations

Context

Field operations coordinate through the worst possible medium: a chat where assignments, delays and handoffs scroll out of sight within hours. I built OpsBoard as a prototype to answer one question — what does a tool look like when 'what is happening right now' is its only job?

The problem

Realtime state over unreliable mobile connections, for users wearing gloves, is a harder problem than it sounds. The board had to stay truthful on bad networks, survive disconnects, and fit a day that happens mostly on a phone.

My role

Sole developer — event architecture, realtime layer and interface.

What made it technically interesting

Broadcasting state is easy; keeping every client correct across reconnects, offline periods and concurrent edits is the actual problem.

Field usage means gloves, sunlight and one-bar connections — the interface budget is measured in taps, and every state change has to survive being delayed.

History matters as much as the present: 'what happened yesterday' has to be queryable, not archaeological.

Decisions

Events, not diffs: The server broadcasts domain events ('job assigned', 'job delayed'), not UI patches — any client that reconnects rebuilds its view from the event log, with no sync logic in the frontend.
Optimistic UI, authoritative reconciliation: The interface applies updates immediately and reconciles against the authoritative event, so the board stays responsive on poor connections without lying about state.
Mobile-first field usage: One-tap state changes and large targets — the tool fits the environment instead of fighting it.

Result

Every client reconstructs its view from the event log — reconnecting after an offline gap needs no special logic.
A state change is one tap on a phone, and the board reflects it for everyone without a refresh.

What I learned

Internal tools fail socially before they fail technically. Designing for the environment — gloves, bad signal, interruptions — mattered more than any architectural choice.

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