Doom Scroll Classics Pride and Prejudice

Doom Scroll Classics appreciates the genius making us addicted to social media apps, and re-formats a classic into that structure. It turns Pride & Prejudice into a chat, with progress encouragement

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Inspiration

As I was enjoyably doom scrolling for days, one weekend I thought it was a bit strange I could barely remember what I actually saw, things I was amused by for milliseconds at a time and then forgot. What did I spend hours per day reading or watching? Shouldn't I be able to remember most of it?

We doom scroll because it is a carefully crafted UX that resonates deeply, so why not put an actual classic into that format. I put in other little ideas as well to keep reading momentum, like a daily little progress bar to get to a checkmark, it doesn't ask you to read a lot per day, it is the average amount we doom scroll in an app per session. There is also a widget that shows the exact text of where you left off and the day progress - just to get over that little barrier of starting per day to just read a bit

What it does

It reformats a classic into a visually appealing form, for this first one (just get started and ship it!!) it formats it into colourful text - it looks like a text app with texting dialog, but it is Pride and Prejudice the actual book

It took me a while to find the appropriate (copyright free) classic that would make sense for this concept. I wanted something of depth, but that could also be broken up into parts so it made sense in the format, that you'd never be forced to read volumes of text in one go.

How we built it

I iterated initially on the design quite a bit, showing it to others and refining. Getting the colours right actually took quite a while. First I was going to group each family into colour shades, but that got monotonous, then I had to tweak colors for light and dark mode.

I coded it in native Swift and SwiftUI. There is also a widget component.

Challenges we ran into

Since it is just a chat the entire book is one long scroll. There were performance challenges with this, syncing the exact position to the widget proved challenging. And right at the end I realized if you tap near the top of the iPhone the built in behaviour scrolls the app all the way to the top - losing the positioning. Not great, so now it lets you return if that happens

Accomplishments that we're proud of

This honest to goodness works. If you pick up your phone right when you wake up, and see the little Doom Scroll classic widget and tap it, and you read just enough to get to the checkmark, then immediately (of course) return to actual doom scrolling Reddit or Insta or whatever, you honestly will remember a week or whatever later that you are slowly reading a classic.

What does it mean to read a classic? It means it resonates, it hits a universal truth deeply, and it builds to these truths. It is impossible social media can do this, fundamentally its content is made not to do this. But because you are reading a classic bit by bit you will remember it, and then you'll get the little tug to want to continue

What we learned

Well first thanks for this contest. I was on a decent streak around a decade ago releasing one app idea a year, and then I just fell off it. This gave me the push to accomplish a nice little and useful idea, to get back on it. I hit the deadline! Sure there are only a few days left but I shipped the app!

"Real Artists Ship" as the saying goes, its nice to get back to having an idea, working on it in the evenings here and there, and shipping it

I learned a little bit of progress per day really can build and ship my ideas

What's next for Doom Scroll Classics Pride and Prejudice

If you look at the app in the presentation it highlights key passages. If you select it it gives you more information about that part - I quite like this concept

My goal is to make Doom Scroll Classics into a subscription app, not a free than single IAP purchase. I would like to add 2 books a year.

For the next one I want it to be a murder mystery in the same format (likely the wondrous classic The Murder of Roger Ackroyd), but I want an option where it highlights the clues and misdirections. I think that would be a fun way to read a murder mystery.

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