Vocab Glance

I did not enjoy rigid vocabulary sessions, and I wanted a gentler way to meet unfamiliar words. The idea behind “Glance” was simple: if a word and its meaning appear repeatedly in places I already look, perhaps familiarity can grow without making every encounter a deliberate study task. That was a design premise to explore, not a claim of measured learning improvement.

Yuxi Chen and I turned that idea into a native macOS and iOS app. I use it myself, so the persistent vocabulary window is not just a demonstration of a concept—it is part of my own everyday workflow.

My Apple-platform development work uses Swift and SwiftUI, covering the learning interface, state and data flow, widgets, packaging, and distribution. The app combines a persistent glance window with topic-based selection: IELTS, CET-4, and CET-6 words include meanings, examples, synonyms, and completion states. The technical task is to make those pieces behave as one coherent learning experience across Apple platforms.

Engineering focus: native interfaces, predictable state, and a low-friction daily workflow.

We chose local-only storage and offline use instead of requiring a cloud account. For this product, a person should be able to open their vocabulary and keep learning without managing another sign-in. That choice also limits the amount of personal learning information the product needs to collect centrally.

Vocab Glance has shipped through the Apple App Store outside mainland China, and we intend to keep improving it for a broader audience. Taking the app through release gave the project a practical endpoint beyond the prototype: an installable product that I continue to use and maintain with my collaborator.