02Save & Care SanctuaryIn production

“the to-do list on WhatsApp is fine but I'd like to tick tasks off so I know where I am”

a coordinator at the sanctuary

Behind every ticked box, an animal.

The coordinators write the care routines, the volunteers tick them off in the field, the manager finds the history of every resident. Offline first, calm by design.

From the first file to the first volunteer
6 days
What's left of it today
300+ tasks ticked off a day
First file
10 May 2026

Open the morning routine Access by a code sent by email, reserved for the sanctuary team · designed, coded and shipped, solo

Good morning

Monday 11 May

Opening the Animals

1 / 4
Tick Julio's card: the gesture, its timings and the closing screen are the product's own.

What the sentence meant

The instructions lived in long WhatsApp messages: which enclosure to open and at what time, what food for which animal. People read the same wall of text ten times over without seeing where they were, and mistakes followed. Except that behind every missed line there is an animal.

The coordinator was asking for a tick box. What they were describing is a sanctuary where the volunteers change every week, where the signal drops at the far end of the enclosures, and where continuity cannot live inside people's heads.

What was built

The wall of text became a tickable list, the same one on every phone. Around it, a complete working tool: Save & Care, a web app that installs like a native one on the phone's home screen and runs a day of care routines, for every animal and every team.

L'icône de l'application : la tête de cochon sur sa plume, seule, dans un carré arrondi crème leur logo l'icône de l'app
The icon is their logo, redrawn for the square.
9:41 Save & Care
Save & Care added to the phone's home screen.
THE COORDINATORS write the routine, plan the week THE DAY'S ROUTINE MORNING 07:15 · FEEDING & CARE Feed Osirah Feed Gaia Open the pigeon coop critical: check, photo generated every night at 3am, for each volunteer on the rota THE VOLUNTEERS tick, note, photograph, record a dose, raise an alert THE LOG EVERY ACTION, TIMESTAMPED Feed Osirah done, note Feed Gaia done Pigeon coop done, photo nothing is erased, everything is added they see everything in real time, reassign a section, resolve an alert
The circuit of a day. The roles, the procedures, the tasks and the portraits are the product's own.

The coordinators write the routine

A whole day is described once (teams, sections, tasks, rhythms, checks) and then plays itself back on its own. A coordinator can also give a one-off task to a volunteer in two gestures, from a catalogue of “helping hands” they build up themselves.

The volunteers tick in the field

The whole card is the tap target, 72 px tall, made for a gloved thumb in full sun: tap to tick, tap again to undo. An alert button reaches the coordinators within seconds, by native push notification. The instructions read in six languages.

The signal drops at the far end of the enclosures, and the app is built for exactly that. Every action is recorded on the phone, in a queue that survives a reload, then replayed in order when the network comes back. Volunteers are never punished for bad signal.

  • You're offline. Work is saved on this device.
  • 2 changes waiting to sync.
  • Synced.
  • 1 change needs your review.
The four states of the offline banner.
ON THE PHONE tick, note, photo at once THE QUEUE Feed Osirah · waiting Pigeon coop · with photo handover note IndexedDB: survives a reload 3 failures, or a refusal: “to review” when the network returns in order, in under 30 s THE API the log the server is the record, the phone is a queue THE DASHBOARD in real time
The retry queue, as architecture decision ADR-0005 of 18 May 2026 describes it.

The coordinators watch and organise

A real-time dashboard: who is on which task, what is moving, which alerts are open. From there a coordinator reassigns, resolves an alert, plans the week. A newcomer gets in through a signed link, with no password.

Life in the house follows the same grid, filled in every Sunday evening: cleaning, meals, hygiene tasks by zone and when each is next due.

One record per resident, to read out to the vet

Every animal is an entity in its own right: photo, species, zone, care notes, medical alerts. Its record gathers everything about it in order, filterable by date. The vet's question, “what happened with Patathina this week”, is answered in seconds.

A RESIDENT Osirah photo, species, zone, care notes THE PHARMACY stock per medicine, low threshold, days of cover left; every dose given takes from it TICKED TASKS note, photo, done, skipped ALERTS raised, then resolved HEALTH FLAGS info, watch, urgent TREATMENTS given, partial, refused MEASUREMENTS weight, temperature, appetite THE HISTORY, IN ORDER Feed Osirah · done, with photo welfare alert · resolved flag · watch · closed morning dose · given weight, appetite · noted filterable by date · 500 events at most to read out to the vet
A resident's record and the five streams that feed it, as the API exposes them.

The pharmacy keeps its own stock: every medicine has a quantity and a low threshold, every dose given takes from it without ever blocking care, and the health board flags what is about to run out and in how many days. Nobody updates the medical file: it fills itself, one tap per dose, during the morning round.

The residents

  • Osirah, a white duck with a red face mask, lying in tall grass in front of a wire fenceOsirahduck
  • Gaia, a brown goose with an orange beak, in profile in front of a flowering pomegranate treeGaiagoose
  • Patathina, a white duck sitting on the ground near a wire fence, feathers around herPatathinaduck
  • Cosmo, a grey goose with an orange beak, walking towards the camera along a sandy pathCosmogoose
  • Julio, a white goose with blue eyes and an orange beak, facing the camera in dry grassJuliogoose
  • Cocaina, a white rabbit with pink ears, lying in the sun along a wooden fenceCocainarabbit
  • Nutella, a fawn rabbit with long ears, lying against a wooden fenceNutellarabbit
  • Lucas, a rooster with cream and black plumage and a red comb, in front of a green shade netLucasrooster
  • Maria, a white hen with a red comb, under a wooden structureMariahen
  • Carlito, a brown and white pigeon, in front of wooden boards, a grey pigeon with a green neck beside himCarlitopigeon
  • Carlito's mate, a grey pigeon with an iridescent green neck and pink feet, in front of wooden boardsCarlito's wifepigeon
A few portraits among the 214 animals in care, taken by the sanctuary team and uploaded into the app. Any volunteer can open the record of any resident, outside the context of their own tasks.

How it came about

  1. 10 May 2026The prototype

    A local mockup: 58 tasks transcribed from the WhatsApp to-do list, approved on site with the team in four days.

  2. 16 MayOnline

    The complete product, wired to its database, reachable at a public address during the night of 15 to 16 May. The first volunteer is invited the same day.

  3. 17 and 18 MayReal time, offline

    Dashboard, alerts in under thirty seconds, retry queue, notifications, translation into six languages.

  4. JuneThe medical file

    Treatments, doses, flags, pharmacy, welcome for new volunteers. Last commit on 24 June: 231 in all.

What is coming next

The result

“Being able to tick tasks off so I know where I am” became: one routine per team, ticked in the field even with no signal, and one history per animal that the manager can read out to the vet. One box was what they asked for: more than three hundred get ticked a day now.