I want to increase my vocabulary, there’s an app for that, right?
Well, there are several, but none did what I wanted. My Spanish teacher back in college told us once that you need to hear a word 37 times before you remember it. No idea if it’s true or not, but it stuck with me. So I searched for an app that would provide me with multisyllabic words and also promote repetition, and found none. So, here I am, building my own.
Part 1: Prototyping
I’m thinking a one page app with a very simple interface. Word displayed in large font with the definition below. A counter above the word to keep track of usage. And below the definition, a scrollable list of use cases. A couple of hours later, here’s the resulting prototype:
I’m also thinking about having a progress circle around the number.
Use cases:
- User opens the app for the first time, they see a random word from the database (to be created later).
- User has the option to tap the arrows and see the next/previous word
- The number above the word represents how many times the user has said to have used the word. Tapping the number/button increases the usage counter. Starts at zero. When usage reaches 37, the word is considered learned and is removed from the list (marked completed in the database).
- Tapping the menu item allows user to log in/log out, see information about the app, see a list of completed words, and other settings I will think of along the way.
Prototyping tools:
I used JustInMind to create the above prototype. It has a free tier, which is fantastic, and it’s not just a trial, it’s actually free forever, with some limitations. It has a lot of pre-configured screens and icons you can just drag and drop. And it’s pretty straightforward to use. One major negative is that it cannot handle high resolution screens. I’m on a Surface Pro 4 running at 2736 x 1824 and I had to have the Windows magnifier on 200% the entire time I used the app.
For the colors, I used Paletton to come up with colors that work together well. For someone as artistically challenged as I am, this is one useful tool. Here’s the link to the actual color scheme I used for the prototype
Your turn
Got questions about the design or the tools I used? Suggestions? Leave it all in a comment below.
