PN.26.021. Product. Studio project, 2026.
Plainsong
A personal finance app with almost no charts. Your money is told in sentences, and any number in red can be dragged to ask what if.
The brief
Design a personal finance dashboard that a person who is afraid of their bank balance would actually open.
The idea
Most finance apps look like a cockpit, which is the wrong emotional register for someone who is worried. Plainsong writes your month out in plain sentences, set like a chant book in black with rubric red for the numbers, and lets you argue with them by dragging.
Decisions
- Numbers are the only colour on the page, as rubrics were in a manuscript.
- What if is a paragraph with draggable values, not a form.
- Spending categories are set as words sized by money, so the page stays type.
- Every scrubbable value also works from the keyboard.
How it came together
- Wrote the sentences first, before any layout.
- Built a small template system that composes them from real figures.
- Added scrubbing, then keyboard access for every scrubbable value.
How it works
One HTML file. Sentences are assembled by rule from a sample transaction list. Compound interest is calculated monthly, and the curve redraws as you drag.
Want something like this?
Tell us what you are making. A few lines is enough to start.
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