Session 18 — UX Audit + Live Call Fixes

Date: 2026-07-31 Focus: Pre-call repo review, Playwright UX audit of production, then fixes approved live on a call with Sheri.

Work Completed

UX audit (Playwright, production site)

Found: no OG/social share tags, empty homepage footer, no privacy/terms, unstyled 404, no sample book anywhere, thin nav, preview error pointing recipients to "dashboard", "magic link" jargon, Premium pricing card underselling print perks.

Fixes shipped to code (approved by Sheri on the call)

1. Social sharing — OG + Twitter tags in Layout.astro; /b/[code] fetches the book server-side so shared invite links unfurl with the book title and honoree name.
2. 404 — branded 404.astro with mistyped-link guidance and contact email.
3. Sample book — "Inside the Book" homepage section, HTML mock spread (deliberately didn't publish docs/Test_Mom_Tribute_Book.pdf — tiny + possibly private content).
4. Navigation — shared SiteHeader.astro / SiteFooter.astro: marketing nav with auth-aware Dashboard link, 4-column footer (Product / Support / Legal). Applied to index, pricing, policies, privacy, terms.
5. Legal — /privacy and /terms created from approved drafts. Governing law: Tennessee. Effective date 2026-07-31. /policies retitled "Refunds & Your Book".
6. PDF text size — new bodyTextSize (small/medium/large/xlarge) in cover_design JSONB; segmented control in CoverCreator; per-download override in PDFDownloadButton; prompt label base size raised 11pt → 12pt. (Sheri: prompt text too small in print.)
7. PDF photo placement — photos now render inside the response block for the prompt they were submitted with, not pooled at the end of the contributor section.
8. Photo orientation — src/lib/image-normalize.ts re-encodes photos via canvas with imageOrientation: 'from-image', baking EXIF rotation into pixels before PDF render. Fixes sideways photos in print; PDF now matches on-screen preview. Used by both PDFDownloadButton and LuluDownloadButton. PNGs pass through (transparency).
9. Lulu preflight — LuluDownloadButton validates generated files before download: interior MediaBox vs trim size, page count vs binding minimum, cover spread MediaBox vs calcCoverDimensions, spine width report. Failing checks block the download.
10. Copy fixes: login ("Email me a sign-in link"), preview error ("Back to home"), contributor form loading text, Premium pricing card (hardcover + $20 print credit).

Decisions Made

• Governing law for Terms: Tennessee (Sheri, on call).
• Footer/nav design and privacy/terms content approved from drafts/ mockups.
• Cover misprint risk (cut-off/rotated images) mitigated by: EXIF normalization at render + preflight dimension checks + the cover preview (existing wiring WIP).
• Sample book stays an HTML mock until non-private demo content exists for a real PDF.

Human-Perception Test Pass (after the call)

Docker/local Supabase wouldn't start, so DB-backed flows were tested via a dev-only fixture harness instead (/dev/pdf-test, guarded by import.meta.env.DEV).

Verified by eye (Playwright screenshots, desktop + 375px mobile): homepage hero/nav/sample/footer, pricing, privacy, terms, policies, 404, login, create wizard step 1–2. Screenshots + test PDFs in walkthrough/ (gitignored).

Found & fixed during testing:

1. Mobile header wrapped badly at phone width (brand split "Say It / Now", CTA two lines) — whitespace-nowrap + responsive sizing in SiteHeader.
2. PDF hyphenation broke the honoree's name on the cover ("Grand-ma Ruth!") and littered tributes ("some-one", "ra-dio") — disabled via Font.registerHyphenationCallback in pdf-fonts.ts.
3. LuluCoverPDF refactored from absolute-positioned panels to row flow layout. (Investigation note: the "cut-off front cover" first seen in screenshots was a Playwright element-capture artifact on the 1428px canvas — content-stream math and canvas pixel measurement proved both old and new layouts render correctly. The refactor stays: explicit flow geometry, now provably right.)

Verified in the PDF output itself:

• Text size scaling real: prompts 9→12pt, body 11→14pt (medium→xlarge, 6×9), confirmed via font-size operators in the files + visual re-render.
• Photos render under the prompt they answer (both fixtures placed correctly).
• EXIF orientation-6 test photo renders upright on cover and interior.
• Lulu preflight: all checks green; blocked correctly at 22 pages softcover with a clear "try hardcover" message.

Known pre-existing bug (not fixed, low priority): TOC page numbers assume a one-page TOC; books with enough contributors to spill the TOC to two pages (~28+) get off-by-one page numbers.

Post-Deploy Live Test — Real Bug Found & Fixed

Signed in to production as admin (magic link retrieved via the notes repo's python scripts/google-api.py gmail ath read <id>; the ATH account owns the books, not the personal gmail).

Verified live with real data: magic-link login, dashboard, per-book share unfurl (/b/RE7496 → og:title "Happy Birthday Mom", description names the honoree), contributor form, Interior Text Size control renders + persists to DB across reload, preview page generates a real PDF with no hyphenation.

BUG FOUND (fixed): src/pages/preview/[code].astro mounted PDFDownloadButton without passing coverDesign. Effect: the PDF a customer downloads used the legacy cover instead of the cover they designed, and ignored the saved interior font and text size. Confirmed two ways — the rendered cover page, and font sizes in the file (11pt prompt / 12pt body = medium, despite "Large" being saved; Large on 8.5×8.5 = 12/14).

Partly pre-existing: the cover creator has been saving designs that never reached the downloaded PDF. The new text-size setting inherited the same gap. Fix: pass coverDesign through to the button. The dashboard's "Download PDF" links to this same preview page, so one fix covers both entry points. The admin Lulu print path already passed coverDesign and was never affected.

Lesson: the on-page preview looked perfect throughout — this class of bug only surfaces by downloading the artifact and inspecting it.

Copy inconsistency (not fixed, needs Supabase dashboard): the auth email still reads "Your Magic Link" / "Follow this link to login" while the UI now says "Email me a sign-in link". Update in Supabase → Authentication → Email Templates to match.

Next Steps

• Commit + deploy (tree also holds pre-existing WIP: Lulu SKU placeholders, preview cover wiring).
• Print a physical Lulu proof to confirm the orientation fix end-to-end.
• Verify pod_package_id placeholders against Lulu's cost calculator before API work.
• Beta round 2 with Sheri.

Files Modified

• src/layouts/Layout.astro — OG/Twitter/canonical tags
• src/pages/index.astro — sample section, SiteHeader/SiteFooter
• src/pages/pricing.astro, src/pages/policies.astro — shared nav, copy updates
• src/pages/privacy.astro, src/pages/terms.astro, src/pages/404.astro — new
• src/pages/login.astro, src/pages/preview/[code].astro, src/pages/b/[code].astro
• src/components/SiteHeader.astro, src/components/SiteFooter.astro — new
• src/components/TributeBookPDF.tsx — per-response photos, text scale
• src/components/PDFDownloadButton.tsx — text size picker, photo normalization
• src/components/LuluDownloadButton.tsx — normalization + preflight checks
• src/components/CoverCreator.tsx — Interior Text Size control
• src/lib/cover-design.ts — bodyTextSize + scale; src/lib/image-normalize.ts — new
• STATE.md, drafts/ (call mockups)