The argument is simple: chronic pain users are often interacting with software while exhausted, foggy, stressed, or trying to preserve records for doctors, insurers, or claims. That changes the architecture.
For PainTracker, I chose a local first PWA model using IndexedDB, browser storage, and offline first behavior because the failure mode matters.
A health app is not trustworthy because the happy path works.
It is trustworthy when failure does not make a vulnerable user more vulnerable.
Full piece here: blog.paintracker.ca/stop-putting-health-data-in-t…
Would love feedback from anyone building PWAs, health tools, local first apps, or privacy respecting software.
CrisisCore-Systems
Building privacy first health tools that fail safely when users are already under pressure.
For anyone curious about the technical implementation:
The full stack is:
The key design decision: every feature was evaluated against the question "what happens when this fails at 2am while the user is in a flare?" If the failure punished the user, the design changed.
Open source at github.com/CrisisCore-Systems