Mockup D · Pipeline E · Ledger F · Workbench The brief

1BB Content Machine · round two

Give it back the power without giving back the mess.

Round one cut eleven tabs to three. This round puts Write back, gives photos, carousels and b-roll their own studios, adds rules, and proves the time saved — and has to come out easier to navigate than what we started with. Every screen here is live. Flip on Wireframe in the top bar of any mockup to see the structure without the skin.

The disagreement, out loud

Worth settling with pixels rather than in a call. These are the two live splits.

Kevin, on the call

“I think it would be better not to even have it as confusing on the same page. I know I'm going to the gallery just to upload videos and photos. I'm just going to tap over one tab — Integrations.”

He wants Gallery and Integrations kept as two tabs. D and E do it his way. F merges them into one Sources screen with two bounded zones.

Kevin, on editing

“I just want to be able to change this carousel if I'd like and it pick a photo if I pick one with a photo.”

He asked for editing but never mentioned rules or proving time saved — his framing was purely about not having to think. The rules layer and the receipt are additions, and they're what make editing pay for itself.

The risk we designed against

“Making the four editors permanent, first-class destinations reframes the product from automation that saves you time into a suite of tools where you do the work yourself.”

That's the one thing that could quietly kill the pitch. F is the direct answer to it — every studio shows what the machine already put in it, so you never open an empty tool.

How we prove it saves time

The trap with a time-saved counter is that it reads as marketing. The ones people stop believing all share a flaw: a fixed number multiplied by volume, never netted against the effort the person actually spent. So this one does three things differently.

1 · Published arithmetic

Every line is a real count of pieces times how long that format takes by hand — and the hand-times are printed on the page. A number nobody can check is worth less than no number.

2 · Your editing counts against it

Time you spend in a studio is subtracted from the total. A receipt that ignores your own effort is the kind people quietly stop trusting.

3 · Rules are the compounding line

Every rule you set shows up as time you didn't spend re-editing. Edit once, never again — that's the line that grows month over month.

Three ways to hold ten things

All three carry the same destinations. They differ on where the editors sit and what the app puts in front of you first — which is the whole argument.

Mockup D

The Pipeline

The sidebar runs in workflow order and says so out loud: Feed the machine, Make & fix, Results, The machine. Position on the rail teaches the job.

Best at
Teaching the product. Ten items read as four decisions, not ten.
Watch out for
The order is our model of the work, not necessarily theirs.
Open mockup D

Mockup E

The Ledger

You land on the receipt. Seven visible items open into eleven, and the first thing you see every session is what the machine gave you back this month.

Best at
Proving the claim. This is the one to show anyone asking "does it actually work?"
Watch out for
Accordions hide things — the editors sit one click deeper.
Open mockup E

Mockup F

The Workbench

Same studios, opposite message. Each one carries a count of what's already waiting in it — Carousel 3 ready, B-roll 1 rendering — so you never open an empty tool.

Best at
Keeping the automatic promise while giving full editing power.
Watch out for
Merges Gallery and Integrations, which is the thing Kevin pushed back on.
Open mockup F

Try this in any of them: open a studio, hit Save changes, and watch four minutes come off your total — then hit Make this a rule and watch it stop costing you. That one loop is the whole argument for adding the editors back.

Wireframe mode is in the top bar of every mockup. The wireframe argues about structure, the skin argues about feel — different fights, worth having separately.

Still open: whether Gallery and Integrations stay two tabs or merge, and whether Write earns a permanent slot or lives inside the Library.