I have four school-age children, and studying spelling is not always a pleasant affair 😬. There is often frustration and sometimes even tears, and keeping all of the different spelling lists straight for each of them can be tricky.
I happened to be learning Javascript in a Skillcrush course, and it occurred to me that I could practice my new skills while creating a web app for my kids to study their spelling lists.
The app grew and I added various easter eggs along the way, including gifs that display in response to certain user interactions (I fetched from the GIPHY API). When I added a menu so that my kids could pick the voice that the computer used to read their spelling lists, spelling time turned into giggle time. The app benefitted from a lot of UI testing over the spring of 2021 😆. The best part is that my kids are so proud that their mom created it 🦸♀️! They even enjoyed watching (and sometimes helping) when I updated the code each week with their new spelling lists. Who knows--maybe I'm raising a new generation of coders!
Two important notes:
- I've replaced my children's names with pseudonyms for the sake of privacy. To experience the app's full functionality, use the following names: Emma, Joseph, Bobby, Zoey.
- This app relies heavily on speech synthesis, and there are some idiosyncracies with speech synthesis in Safari that may make for a suboptimal user experience. I recommend using any browser other than Safari.