As the Dust Settles...

Last month, we dropped a big update that brought a lot of exciting new features to Knoword. We introduced Magic Import and audio clues, added pack cover image generation, and rolled out a ton of other improvements you can read all about here.

Since then, we’ve been on the road, attending teacher conferences across British Columbia. It’s been a fantastic opportunity to spread the word about Knoword and engage with a diverse range of educators from primary to high school, French immersion, EAL, and adult education. Teachers talked with us about their students’ challenges with reading, the need for different game modes, and techniques for teaching language skills, among other things.

During the days between conferences, we applied some of the feedback from our teacher conversations to the platform right away, and took note of some of the larger tasks to work on later. Here’s a rundown of what’s changed:

Contents

• More game UI language options
• Multilingual worksheet downloads
• Broader support for audio file types
• Improved mobile experience
• Reading assistance
• Introducing dark mode (again)
• Flip the game orientation

More game UI language options

At the first conference we attended this month, a teacher noticed our existing language options in the pre-game screen and was pleased to see Hindi included, as some of their students spoke it. They also pointed out that many of their students spoke Farsi, suggesting that adding it would make a big impact for those students.

Based on this feedback, we added Farsi to the list of supported game UI languages. While we were at it, we also included Portuguese and Ukrainian, inspired by previous feedback.

Multilingual worksheet downloads

After following up with the teacher who asked about adding Farsi, they reached out again. This time, they let us know that Arabic characters weren’t rendering properly in the PDF worksheets they created.

We fixed this issue by using the fantastic Noto Sans font family. This allows us to support many popular writing systems, including Arabic, Latin, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Cyrillic, and Devanagari.

Broader support for audio file types

I (Trevor) presented a hands-on workshop at many of the conferences we attended. During one such workshop, an attendee decided to try creating audio clues based on voice clips they had recorded on their phone. What a great idea!

Unfortunately, our list of allowed audio file types (MP3, AAC, and other common audio formats) didn’t include their M4A recording. Recognizing this, we quickly added support for M4A, a format commonly used by recording software on phones and laptops.

Improved mobile experience

During another workshop, I noticed some attendees didn’t bring a laptop to follow along. As no other computers were available, they opted to follow along using their phones. This worked mostly well, except for a few minor hangups.

Knowing this might be an issue in future workshops, we spent some time ensuring that all major workflows—creating packs, adding clues, and playing games—worked flawlessly on mobile devices. And it worked! Attendees of later workshops were able to follow along with the material on their phones and get the full Knoword experience, only smaller.

Reading assistance

In our conversations with teachers, we frequently heard about how some students experienced reading challenges and often relied on text-to-speech features to read text aloud from websites and other digital tools.

We’re always looking for ways to make Knoword more accessible to students of all levels and backgrounds, so we built this feature right into the game. Now, when you click any text clue during a game, the text will be spoken aloud by your computer’s built-in text-to-speech engine. We hope this helps level the playing field for students, allowing them to play the game and test their knowledge without the added pressure of reading.

Introducing dark mode (again)

When we overhauled our website design last year, we temporarily dropped dark mode support to ensure the redesign launched on time. But the intention was always to bring it back someday.

Over the last year, we heard from many of you through our feedback form—you wanted dark mode back! We heard you loud and clear, and the day has finally arrived. Dark mode is so back.

To enable dark mode, open the user menu in the top right corner of the page, select Dark mode, and embrace the darkness. 🧛

Flip the game orientation

This next one came from a student who wrote us, regarding the new game layout on larger screens:

We don’t like how it’s a ‘half and half’ screen and the definition up top and choices or input below worked better because it was easier to focus on one thing.

That’s totally fair! They preferred the older layout, where the clue and answer area were stacked vertically, over the new design that places them side-by-side on wider screens.

We added a button to the top right corner of the game UI that allows you to toggle between the horizontal and vertical game layouts, depending on your preference. This preference is stored in your browser, so Knoword will remember it even after you leave the site and come back later.

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All in all, these updates are a direct result of feedback from our users and fantastic conversations with educators. We hope these refinements enhance your Knoword experience, and to everyone heading into a well-deserved summer break, we wish you a wonderful and relaxing one! 🌞

—Trevor from Knoword