An Experiment Defining
Waylan is a dictionary for Android built as an experiment to solve problems and explore experiences on modern devices. The idea to build a dictionary came late while reading in bed, holding a paperback in one hand and trying to juggle a phone in the other.
Looking up a word one handed is a balancing act - shimmying up to reach the search bar, sliding back down to type, correcting a spelling mistake, stretching for buttons, and so on…
With the above idea, Waylan was built — a dictionary which aggregates definitions from WordSet and Merriam-Webster in a natural and beautiful interface.
In an effort to solve the above use case — and be a platform for my own exploratory ideas — Waylan is based on the following principles:
- Ergonomic — Everything should be able to be done with one hand, holding the device naturally.
- Contextual — The scenario in which you need to look up a word is unique (reading in bed, reading at night, studying, referencing). With that in mind, a dictionary should support these scenarios by helping you spell, search and find meaning as quickly and effortlessly as possible.
- Artistic — A dictionary should feel warm, classic and intelligent. A dictionary should inspire curiosity and the desire to learn.
This article briefly covers the three principles mentioned above and how Waylan hopes to create a pleasant-to-use dictionary.
1. Ergonomic
Ergonomics was the primary idea Waylan was designed around. All design decisions had to be compatible with the scenario of someone reading a book in one hand and looking up words on their phone in the other. With that in mind, these are a few resulting highlights.
A. All actionable content is placed below a “line of reachability”, making key tasks possible with just a thumb.
B. Where actionable content is out of reach, alternate affordances are made available. In the below example, the back button is placed high in the upper left-hand corner. To work around this, Waylan has a built in drag-to-dismiss gesture, allowing a screen to be “overscrolled” to go back.
2. Contextual
Contextuality, in Waylan, is the idea that the user’s task and current environment should drive UI state. Designing around these factors meant understanding key journeys and surfacing ways to accomplish those as quickly as possible. Again with our reading user in mind, here are a few results.
A. Commonly, you don’t know how to spell words you’re looking up. Waylan uses an in-app spell suggestion engine to take your input and surface possible, correctly spelled, or completed, matches. Misspellings are part of the process and shouldn’t interrupt a lookup.
B. Common reader experiences, like lying on your side at night, should be intelligently supported. Words does this by surfacing timely suggestions depending on its environment. For example, a suggestion is shown to turn on night mode if the room is dark or to turn on orientation lock when unintentionally being rotated.
C. As mentioned, looking up a word should be as effortless as possible. With limited “reachable” UI space, Words attempts to reuse real estate, streamlining the most relevant actions, in the most convenient locations, for a given task.
D. Words ties into Android’s global tooltips, providing the option to define a word from anywhere in the OS.
This idea of efficiency is also supported by making definitions available both on- and offline. WordSet definitions are always available offline for a quick and accurate lookup. Merriam-Webster definitions are available offline after they are viewed for the first time.
Artistic
Lastly, I wanted to create a dictionary that was not only a great user experience, but also felt calm, quiet, academic and understanding. Here are a few elements through which I hope to convey these (and experiment with).
A. To promote the classic, intelligent and calm persona, Waylan uses an ivory palette, large serif headers and small, animated UI details that aim to underscore curiosity and thoughtfulness.
B. With large amounts of white space after shifting down UI elements for reachability, Waylan had a blank canvas to work with. Instead of leaving this space empty, Waylan plays with ephemeral, artistic elements that highlight the brand’s academic nature.
Conclusion
With lots more to do, Waylan is now available in open beta on Google Play. As a concept, the idea is to gather feedback, continue iterating and use the app as an experiment.
This project is open source and can be found on Github!
Stay tuned and give it a try. Thanks for reading.
