The core challenge was building an interface that feels simple to users while managing significant underlying complexity — every major social platform has different rules, post formats, character limits, and capabilities. Designing around this meant avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach that would either mislead users or clutter the UI with irrelevant options. Specific problems encountered: Platform feature accuracy: Surface-level naming caused early design errors (e.g., Meta's "Threads" app sounds like it supports threaded posts — it doesn't). Features had to be mapped to actual platform capabilities, not assumptions based on names. Compose workflow complexity: Showing all post types at once (thread, carousel, reel, story, etc.) created cognitive overload and allowed users to select formats their chosen accounts didn't support. AI output usability: Early AI-assisted drafts returned content wrapped in meta-commentary and labels (e.g., "📣 Added CTA:") that users had to manually strip before the copy was usable. Mobile layout breakage: The sidebar's flex behavior caused the hamburger menu to be clipped off-screen on mobile, making navigation inaccessible on small devices.

Platform-first compose workflow: Redesigned the compose page so account selection happens first. The UI then reveals only the post format options valid for the selected platforms — eliminating irrelevant choices and preventing user error at the source. Capability-driven feature mapping: Built a platform capability matrix that drives what options appear. Thread post type is shown only for Twitter/X and Bluesky (the platforms with native threading support), regardless of how other platforms brand themselves. Clean AI output: Rewrote the AI content generation prompts and output handling to return ready-to-use copy with no prefixes, labels, or assistant commentary — the draft lands directly in the compose field as publishable text. Structural mobile fix: Corrected the sidebar's flex container behavior at the root layout level so the hamburger trigger is always accessible, rather than patching it with overflow hacks. Responsive grid layout: Converted key pages (accounts, compose) to CSS Grid with responsive breakpoints — 3 columns on desktop, 2 on tablet, 1 on mobile — ensuring usability across all screen sizes.