Episode 6 - New Modes

I built the Bible app that puts the Word in you — not just in front of you. I'm candidly documenting my journey to 1,000 downloads. Follow along. Episode 6.

I've been pretty quiet because I've been taking word119 through its most significant rewrite since release. And it's finally out!

It started when I noticed that users were skipping activities often and sometimes not finishing their plans at all. I'd clearly gotten something wrong.

There was one activity in particular, 'Chapter Walk', in which you had to order a verse among its neighbouring verses to build contextual understanding. Good idea in theory, but it threw users off: "I'm trying to learn verse A, why are verse B, C and D coming into the mix?"

It got me thinking. People come to this with different intentions, different things they want to grow in. So I rebuilt around three modes.

Deep Dive — zeroes in on a single verse. Reading, reflecting, activities, then a commitment.

Learn a Passage — takes a sequence of verses, walks you through the narrative thread running through them, and starts you on the journey of memorising it.

Daily Review — takes the verses already in rotation and sequences activities to keep them fresh and front of mind.

word119 was never meant to be another Bible memorisation app, but something akin to a Bible study partner, that holds your hand and walks forward with you. I feel like this version gets closer to that than anything before it.

What's the biggest assumption you had to abandon after watching how people actually used what you built?

Speak soon!

Downloads: 218/1000