Buttondown's interface has long suffered from a common design pitfall: "shipping your database." This term refers to the tendency of well-meaning but narrow-minded engineers to design every screen and workflow as a direct reflection of the underlying database schema.

Need to store a list of subscribers? Then let's make a page that's just a list of subscribers. Emails? That's another list. Comments? Add another list, just like the others. And so on.

If you take this approach to its logical conclusion, the app starts to resemble a Google Sheet with 20 tabs—rather than a thoughtfully designed tool that understands and anticipates what users actually want to do. Even worse, this mindset leaves big gaps in workflows that don't fit neatly into a single data type.

For example, when you log into your Buttondown account after a couple of weeks away, you're probably not thinking, "I want to see every email I've ever written in order," or "I want to check my settings"—yet those have been our default landing pages after login.

What you likely want instead (though, of course, everyone's needs are a bit different) is a quick recap: what's new, what's important, and what needs your attention. Maybe you want to see new subscribers, the last few emails you worked on, interesting analytics, or any outstanding tasks.

That's exactly what we've built with the new home screen. It's meager for now: todos, recommendations, and a few other things. But it's a start.