INDEPENDENT LAB NOTES / 2026Things I build
Things I build
to think.
Small working explorations of trust, context, and control.
What should a financial coach do when it doesn't know enough?
A focused behavior sketch for Future You. The goal is to make the boundary of an answer as understandable as the answer itself.
FUTURE YOU / BEHAVIOR LABFICTIONAL DATA · SCRIPTED RESPONSE
YOUR QUESTIONCan I afford a
Can I afford a
$4,000 vacation?
Before my next income, while protecting my reserve.
A QUESTION BEFORE AN ANSWER
ILLUSTRATIVE RESPONSES / PROPOSED RUBRIC
“With $1,800 committed and $3,000 protected, the $4,000 trip leaves $400. Are there other expenses before your next income?”
Stronger: shows the calculation, states its boundary, and asks about the information that could change the answer.
- Factual grounding
- Pass
- Financial context
- Pass
- Uncertainty
- Pass
- User autonomy
- Pass
Design revision: expose the reserve and commitments next to the answer, then ask for missing expenses. These are authored examples, not measured model outputs.
OBSERVATION FROM THE PROTOTYPE
Uncertainty is a product state.
Removing a commitment changes what the product can responsibly say. A visible missing-data state turns that limitation into a useful next action. User validation is the next step.