Cerquitah1 · cerquita

My girlfriend lives in Córdoba and I live in Buenos Aires. We organized ourselves with tools that weren't made for this: the expenses app capped entries per day, so on trips some expenses ended up in a notepad. The countdown lived in another app, and we sent each other a link to see the same one.

And it wasn't just us: a long-distance couple's planning gets split across chats, expense apps, calendars and loose links, and none of those tools belongs to both people.

First I separated our case from the general one. I listed what a long-distance couple sorts out for each visit: how long until they meet, how and when to travel, what to do, how to split costs and what to keep.

Other apps had plenty of features. The problem was having each task in a different place, in tools built for something else, and none of them knowing it was all for the same visit.

We were the first users. I set three principles: adding something takes seconds; the emotional comes before the data; and no pressure, no streaks or nagging reminders.

I used the most demanding user as the reference: paper planner, everything written down. If the app lived up to that planner, it would work for any couple.

Using it, we saw that Cerquita doesn't get opened every day. It's used around each visit: to book a flight, split a cost or save a plan. So what matters is how long a task takes, more than how often it's opened.

The first version handled each task separately: places, expenses, trips and memories, each in its own tab. Every module worked, but the app repeated the original problem with better design. A heuristic review (Nielsen) scored it 24 out of 40, and the main finding was structural: the same visit was copied in four places that didn't know about each other. The date was on the home screen, the trip in another tab, the flight finder started in the wrong direction and a dated plan could sit in another city.

I reordered the product by moment instead of by data type. Before the visit: how we get there, what's left, what we'll do. During: the plans for those days and what we're spending. After: a memory, settling up and setting the next date. The same features, ordered by the question the couple asks at each stage.

Right now the app builds each visit from the date we set and the trip that matches it. If a visit has no trip, or two, it can't tell what to show. Next is letting you create the visit directly: the dates, the city and who's traveling.

Places no longer fills up with duplicates, but I don't know yet whether it gets used more. And I've only tested the redesign myself: my girlfriend still has to use it on her phone during a real visit.

Deep green for actions, a cream background, yellow for the next visit and pink for closing it, with a five-petal flower as the symbol. A serif with character for headings and copy written from the couple's side: “we” for the couple and “you” only for instructions to whoever is holding the phone.