Simplify IEP + IEP Process Simulator
A free mobile app that reads a parent's own IEP and explains it in plain language, plus a public reference of where the IEP process reliably breaks.
Parents get a dense legal document and a meeting. Simplify IEP reads the family's own document and returns a frontloaded summary with rated sections, a chat co-pilot, a letter drafter, a process map, and a vault.
The Process Simulator is the research behind it: fifteen adjudicated cases across eleven categories, ten simulated pain points from real parent accounts, and a nine-module guide to the document itself, with every candidate entry reviewed by a person before it merges.
Stack
- App, Expo and React Native, TypeScript, Expo Router
- Firebase Auth, Firestore, Storage, Cloud Functions
- A server-side language model behind a secret manager, streamed responses
- Simulator, static HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with a documented JSON export
- A human-gated monthly ingestion pipeline
Decisions
- The archetype is The Guide, warmed. Clarity first, softened by care, and never an Ally that implies a human the app does not provide.
- Real duties named, not borrowed ones. Health-privacy law does not apply here; consumer-protection and breach-notification rules do, and claiming otherwise would itself be a violation.
- Cited and Simulated are separate datasets and separate pages so a reader never has to guess the evidence tier.
Lessons
- A full accuracy audit of the cited dataset found six of fifteen entries with citation or fact errors. All corrected, none fabricated; the audit was necessary, not optional.
- Status belongs in one file. Restating progress across strategy, plan, and contract docs is exactly what made them go stale.