We did what you do every day. We took the phone that goes out on the trail, a rugged model with a narrow screen, and opened the app screen by screen. We wrote down everything that made us hesitate.
The results fit in a few sentences. Some controls were too small for gloves. A back gesture could erase a weigh-in of twenty-five dogs. And the app did not always use the same words: "Ghost" on one screen, "fantôme" on the next.
This first wave fixes all of that.
What changes for you
A back gesture no longer loses your work. On the data-entry screens (pack weigh-in, goals, a dog's record, breeding forms, feedback, map download), if you have started typing and your thumb slips, the app asks "Leave without saving?" before closing. Once your entry is saved, it asks nothing. Offline recording now has the same protection as runs: an accidental back gesture no longer interrupts it.
The main controls are glove-sized. The button that starts a run is now primary-target size. The handle that ends a race is larger, and so is the pill that switches from kennel to trail. Other small targets follow, in the post-run check, the enclosures and the dog lists. We did not judge them by eye: a test checks the height each one actually renders at.
You can finally sign out. In Settings › My account there are two new rows: "Switch kennel or space" and "Sign out". Until now, handing a shared phone to a teammate meant uninstalling the app.
When something fails, the app says what to do. When an error message promises another attempt, it now carries a "Retry" button. Without a network, a rejected goal tells you the network is missing, instead of a bare "Add refused".
One voice, readable dates. In French, the app now uses the informal "tu" everywhere. "Ghost" becomes "Fantôme". "Next milestone" becomes "Next race" or "Next plan step", depending on what comes next. Abbreviations are spelled out. All dates are written the same way, with the month in words. The "06/09" that could read as June 9 is gone, and so is the "18:00:00" time with its seconds.
What these changes never show anyone
None of this leaves your phone. Signing out deletes nothing on the server, and switching kennel changes neither your members nor your data. The "Leave without saving?" prompts are local: nobody else sees what you had started to type.
What this wave does not do
It does not reorganise navigation yet: the tabs and the top bar change in the next wave. It does not touch the Plan either: rewriting it in a musher's language comes after. Neither is forgotten. Both needed deeper choices, so we kept them separate rather than make you wait for everything else.
Nor does it make every error "retryable". A "Retry" button only appears when doing the same thing again has a chance of working. Anywhere else, it would send you round in circles.
Choices made against the obvious
Informal "tu" everywhere in French. A professional app should use the formal "vous", you might think. But most of our screens already used "tu", including the trail screens, the ones that matter. Keeping both read like two teams that never talked to each other.
Asking before leaving, but only if you typed something. A confirmation that always appears ends up dismissed without being read. So it only appears when there is really something to lose.