the interface

Show hard words

💬 the map is not the territory.

💬 the app is not the interface.

the goal is an adaptive difficulty vocabulary quizzing app.

there are three modes:

  • lecturing. 💡 telling the app user what a word is
  • recalling. 💡 some form of interaction that requires them to know what a word is
  • meta-game. 💡 whatever "points system", mini-games, etc. are necessary to generate motivation

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for "simple" words, the lecturing can use pictures. there is no other way of defining cat until you have built up a substantial vocabulary of grammar and syntax.

for more advanced words, just giving the definition (and example sentences) is the simplest approach.

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for "recall", the classic pick which one of these 4 words has this definition is the simplest approach. type out your definition in your own words is somewhat harder; but with LLMs it is feasible.

the simple "spell a word" test is also valuable. the ability for people to cheat by using on-screen speech-to-text ... is not something worth investing too much time preventing. 🔥 you can't kill yourself preventing others from hurting themselves.

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for "metagame": that requires a theme. i can do the mechanics, but ... a magician never reveals his secrets.