Began to learn English - they wrote the application: EWM - the experience of creating a training project

    We will talk about the training simulator, which we are engaged in last year. The application helps to increase the English vocabulary and usefully kill time. The difference of this simulator from standard test batteries is that it has the ability to compete with other participants.



    Judging by the reviews of few users, the application helps to remember more words and makes this process fascinating. Under the cut - the first attempt to talk about the simulator, about us, about how we do it, what it is now and how we strive to make it in the future.

    What we have done


    Everything is very straightforward, but, as it seems to us, effective: two users are invited to simultaneously solve a series of identical tasks on the knowledge of the translation of English words.

    The winner is determined by the number of correct answers. Tests are divided thematically, you can choose one of the categories in which you want to learn new words. At the moment we have implemented test tasks on the following topics:

    • Tourist
    • Psychologist
    • Artist
    • Stylist
    • Doctor
    • Teacher
    • Cook
    • Unemployed
    • Biologist
    • It specialist
    • Manager
    • Scientist
    • Economist
    • Lawyer
    • Architect
    • Sportsman
    • Housewife
    • Mechanic

    For each topic, we have included 5,000 words in the dictionary.

    We also implemented statistics so that we could look at personal progress in expanding vocabulary and the number of defeated opponents or lost battles.


    As it turned out, the competitive element and the desire to win spurs the user and motivates him to spend more time for a difficult, seemingly boring task - learning new words.

    We thought it was important to have a social element in the simulator, so we added friends and in the future we plan to include an internal messenger in the functionality. We are well aware that we have done nothing fundamentally new, but the fact is that we could not find an analogue that would repeat our principle or be more effective.

    Initially, we created this application for ourselves, we can say for fun, now we understand that this can result in a mass product. Now there is no design (everything is crooked and clumsy as much as two technicians could do without a subtle sense of beauty), but we made efforts to the base UX and it seems to us that everything is quite usable.


    So it looks now, before it was even worse.

    There is no marketing, no promotion strategy, except, perhaps, an intuitive understanding that the product can shoot. And, of course, there is the main functionality, a bunch of bugs that we are trying to fix as much as we can.

    A little about us and a couple of words about the history of the application


    Once Paul, our generator of ideas, had a desire to learn English. And if he had some idea of ​​grammar, then there were big problems with the vocabulary. So he decided that a simulator application could help to study a large number of words in a fairly short time.

    With the idea to create a simulator, he turned to his friend Vadim, a programmer of wise experience in creating applications, who also felt the need to quickly replenish vocabulary. It remained to find someone who knows the language well, she was Tatiana, an English teacher who compiled a dictionary and attracted her fellow workers on a volunteer basis.

    Over time, it was understood that the boring process of cramming words can be replaced by a dynamic competition, divided into several rounds. Within six months, the first prototype was ready.

    No one remembers when the first working title of the application appeared - “English Word Mania”, then we found it too long and shortened to the abbreviation “EWM”. We will probably replace it, but for now it is not the most important.

    Due to the fact that the creation of the application is combined with the main work - the development is slow. At the same time, we constantly move forward and enjoy the process.

    Few technical details


    As you can see, our application is only available for Android. In the future, we hope to develop a version for iOS. The only problem is that our only programmer so far has more experience in Android development and therefore the release of the apple version may take a bit longer.

    The stack of technologies used for development looks like this: Unity3D, C #, PHP, MySQL. For some similarity of design, we also tried to conjure in Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop, although the first version for the prototype was sculpted at all in the old Net Paint (don't be surprised, we really started from scratch).

    Our plans


    In the future, we want to implement several more languages, for example, Spanish, Chinese, Russian. We want this application to allow communication, for which we plan to develop an internal messenger. In the current version, it is already possible to add other users as a friend, which, however, requires thorough testing. Sometimes we are also told about investing, but we still don’t think about it, but think more about the product itself.

    As a conclusion


    We understand that our application is very raw, but for some reason we believe in its future and, as it seems to us, the competitive principle that we use will be more effective than ordinary cramming. We will be glad to any reasoned opinion, constructive criticism and suggestions.

    If you have a desire, you can take part in voluntary testing of the simulator and write us about the bugs (at the moment the project is not monetized and exists as an experiment, now our application is available in GooglePlay under the working title English Word Mania). Due to the restrictions existing in the rules of habr, we can not publish links here.

    If you want to help us with the development - we are always open to suggestions, write to l / s (the designer is especially relevant).

    In the future, we plan to share some details of the development of testing the prototype, as well as more details about the development plans.

    The post used a photo borrowed from techwafer.com

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