Two questions about a cup of coffee

Would I buy this coffee again? Did I enjoy this recipe?

They sound close enough to combine into a single rating. In Coffee Diary, separating them made the product model clearer.

A coffee can be worth buying again even if a particular recipe didn’t work out. A recipe can also produce a good cup without settling whether I want another bag. Those are different judgments, made about different things.

The revised model gives the Coffee its own preference and the Recipe its own enjoyment state. Both can remain undecided. A first-choice recipe is an explicit choice among the enjoyed recipes for that coffee.

That last detail matters. The latest recipe isn’t automatically the favourite. Recording another brew shouldn’t silently replace a choice the user already made.

Editing creates another interesting case. If the parameters change, the old judgment may describe a recipe that no longer exists in that form. Resetting the applicable judgment asks the user to assess the changed recipe, rather than carrying an old conclusion forward as though nothing happened.

This work also removed the earlier Duel and Ranking concepts. For this app, the smaller set of questions was a better fit for a personal notebook. There was less machinery between trying something and recording a preference.

The part I want to remember is how much depended on the wording. Once the two questions were stated plainly, they pointed toward separate state and clearer behaviour. Before adding another score or status, it is worth writing the exact question that the user is answering.