Project Overview
- Platform
- Web
The short version
- Challenge
- "So" and "very" are lazy filler words ("so happy," "very tired"). Swapping in a stronger, precise word normally means stopping to search a thesaurus.
- What I did
- A mobile-first React/Vite app: type a word after "so/very" and get ranked stronger alternatives with closeness bars, pronunciation, and definitions. A curated list handles common words instantly; the Datamuse API covers the rest. Lean stack, with every design decision logged and its reasoning.
- Impact
- Shipped a working, tested, accessible tool — plus a transparent decision log capturing the whole build.
The story.
48 decisions for v1.0. So Very Word is a little tool I built to fix a habit of mine: reaching for "so" and "very" in front of words. You type a word after "so/very" like so happy or very tired and it gives you stronger, more precise alternatives (elated, jubilant, euphoric… exhausted, weary, drained).
The value was in small, tricky problems: ranking by result position instead of Datamuse's near-identical scores, converting phonetic codes to readable pronunciation, filtering suggestions by part of speech, and working around iOS's block on auto-opening the keyboard.