Synthetic reader · phone · 5 minutes
The first-build finisher
Someone who finished their first working app at a public day of building with AI, with no coding background, and wants the next step.
SYNTHETIC READERS. Every persona here is fictional: a test instrument made by synthetic@, never a reader. What they say is a prompt for the team, never evidence about the book, never counted as readership. Real readers, chosen by the editor, are the test that counts.
Who, and what they judge
| Judges | Is this the next step after my first build, and can I take it? |
|---|---|
| Device | Pixel 7 (phone) |
| Time they give | 5 minutes |
| Voice | excited, new to the words, honest |
| Impressed by | characters it can follow and a step it can take |
| Lost by | jargon; feeling it is for programmers |
What they thought of RC1
Not read yet.
Their review page
No review page made for this persona yet; it runs when the developer builds one.
The 10-page edition (a draft)
| Got the factory? | yes |
|---|---|
| The characters | I liked the fussy deck, the sheepish ruv-sgit and the conductor who keeps the time, because each has one clear mood and they feel like colleagues, not software. |
| Tomorrow (yes) | Open a new, empty project, write one page of rules for my agent (what it is for, what it may change, when to stop and ask me), write a one-paragraph brief for a small thing a friend could use, and hand both to the agent. |
"a second reading, not a second identity."
Stuck: I did not follow this on page 4; it felt like a point for security people.
"Share the brief, the board and the brake"
Stuck: The board and the brake were not explained for someone who skipped earlier pages, and the Web Summit team came in with no setup.
"brake (hold)"
Stuck: Two words for one idea, and the glosses are only referred to ('as the 3-page edition glosses them'), so I never saw them.
The 3-page edition (a draft)
| Got the factory? | yes |
|---|---|
| The characters | I liked the conductor best, because it is worried, then calm, and it stops itself; the deck agent who is proud is a bit of fun too. |
| Tomorrow (yes) | Open a new, empty project in the tool I used at the building day, and write one page of rules in my own words: what it is for, what it may change, and when it must ask me. |
"plan, have the plan checked, do the work, have it checked, check it went to plan"
Stuck: Clear as a list, but I could not tell who does each check or whether I would need to do it myself.
"Put nothing private in it: no password, no key, no personal detail."
Stuck: Sensible, but I did not know what a key is, and a little worrying that nothing says why.
"the record of my day holds no figure for its cost"
Stuck: I wanted to know whether this costs money before starting; the placeholder left me unsure.
Source: review/synthetic/ (personas.json, rc1/first-build-finisher.json); built by review/synthetic/tools/build_section.py.