Mathieu Tozer's Dev Blog

Some ideas I just had while having a bath.

1. When you need to have some ideas, have a bath.

2. Words should have a customer feedback sheet.
What would you like to do with this software, but can't?
If you haven't registered, can I ask why?

3. The User should be able to just be reading a web page, and in the case of a non native speaker, think 'I wonder if I will be able to read all this?' and hit a key chord or something as simple. Then Words should come to the rescue.

4. The minimised version of the program is just the list. It it titled:
In this text
You don't know these words
You've seen these words
You know these words
And any other category dream-able. Emphasis on the words you don't know.

5. Click on the maximise button and you get the full fledged program window, with you customised word lists on the left, and the actual words on the right, with all their characteristics showing. 

6. When Words 'comes to the rescue' as described above, it whirs into action 'reading' the document. The words should pop up onto the screen as they are found and then dictionaries searched for translations / meanings. Known words in the document should have their sentences poised and ready to show the user where they saw the word, if they happen to have forgotten it and had to look it up again. 

7. It's important not to make all these things pop up all over the screen all the time. It gets really annoying and looks tacky. （ちゃち）

8. When it comes to final naming, DON'T call it iXXX or MyXXX. WeWords? WeLearn? WeeLearn?? Anyway nothing I really have to think about now.

9. When there's an Asian language parser, tablets could be used to practice characters, and give feedback on them, or store them so that the user can mark their progress.

10. Statistics should be available to the user on the progress