Show HN: I suck at remembering names, so I built an app to help
wehighfive.com
wehighfive.com
For instance, you meet John. John's eyes seem like their closer together than most people's eyes are. So you could say to yourself "John, John, stared at his nose for too long". Every time you see John and his funny close-together eyes, you'll remember the story you made up and thus remember his name.
Once you get good at this you'll never forget another person's name. It works like a charm. I find it helps to make the stories especially strange or even offensive. The more of a caricature you can create in your mind about them the better. Just don't accidentally say what you're thinking out loud :)
By the start of the second sentence I've already forgotten the name.
An app would not help me. "Hello, I'm..." "Wait! Hang on! Let me launch this app... ok, go ahead!"
Another trick I use is if we've been chatting a while and I forget, I say lets add facebook details and give them opened to facebook people search for them to put their name in.
Edit: changed "efficacious" to "effective" because oh my god why did I use that word.
1) I think there's a strong case to be made that says spending 10 seconds thinking up a story is much more efficient than stopping a conversation, opening an app, and typing in details on a touchscreen.
2) if we offload everything, what are we saving? Assuming it takes just as long to make up a quirky story as to tap in someone's details[1] what have you saved, except possibility the opportunity to exercise mental skills otherwise falling into disuse?
IOW: If we offload everything, we become glorified mental button pushers.
---- The landing page is actually well done - simple, to the point shows and tells me what it's about without a ton of wasted space.
That said: it looks like a lot of steps; and it doesn't give you any way to associate the face. Seems like you come away with a list of people you've met in reverse chronological order, but nothing that really says "This person I see before me now is Hermione".
[1] ... while they patiently avoid looking at you as you fiddle with your phone ...
* 100's of people over long timespans.
* Remembering what that person you met at the bar last night was called.
Figuring out who "insert random name you stumbled upon in your phonebook" is.
Modern humans have networks way bigger than we can handle in just our mind and we need written records (contact books, diaries, letters, business cards, whatever) in order to be able to handle large quantities of data, such as these social and professional networks we tend to keep.
--
However, (and I think I speak for a lot of people when I say this) what I'm really waiting for is the obvious "ultimate" solution to this problem: an augmented reality device and app combo that would show people's names hovering above their heads. Making the names "glanceable" would make a huge difference and there would be potential for a lot for extensions. Add research/technological interests in highly visible large letters and conferences suddenly get a lot more interesting; add "going to <city name>" and it's a hitchhiking app; add "single" and it's a dating app (use at your own peril); add selectable multilingual subtitles (e.g., at an official speech) and it's a live translation app, etc.
I wonder if this could somehow be made viable without advanced augmented reality glasses.
Being able to tag people with whatever phrase you wanted would be hilarious.
The theory is that people carry a phone on them that is unique and is often in wifi mode trying to make a connection which broadcasts the mac. So when you record a contact, one of the visible mac address might be them. In a new place it sees what mac addresses are around and loads up your contact list based on what addresses were visible at the time.
My first reaction was, "Huh? Why not just use your phone's built-in Contacts?"
But then thinking about it for a minute and watching the very helpful video demo on the homepage...
I like how you can open the app and start entering info. Much better than fiddling through Phone or Contacts app. Really nice touch on including the location.
Seriously -- good job, Tommy!
On topic of WeHighFive, I think it is a stupid idea. Takes one more step away from the paradigm of 'face-to-face' communication.
At the very best, you're saving 30 seconds of time writing the text message, and wasting 3 minutes looking through all the texts you have to remember the person's name.
Either ask the person their name again or say it a couple times in your head when you first meet them. With your app, when I re-meet someone, I have to look at my phone and figure out who they are again.
Isn't the point of this to save time or remember someone's name. Actually think about how your interaction with another person would go and how this app fits into that....It makes the interaction awkward and you probably won't even find their text message in time (your messages screen is a most recently used list...the message will be buried).
Where is the plus side? I think the idea is stupid. If they like they are free to prove me wrong and show me it is a good idea.
edit: I think sugar coating opinions so they have to be positive is pointless. Maybe me saying the app is stupid helps them realize some problem with their app that helps them improve it and make it much better (and then prove me wrong).
If we were to Sugar coat all feedback then the feedback of horrible products will be indistinguishable from good products which makes it pointless.
I built it for myself, but some friends helped me make it into something anyone can use. Looking forward to the feedback!
ANDROID USERS - if you like the concept id love to hear from you, if it seems people want it I'd love to make an Android version
At the moment I scribble on his/her business card why a person I meet is important and send a follow up later based on that info.
I can appreciate this may sound like a total waste of time but i've been grateful of it so many times now!
The effect is almost like my phone could read my mind and it's saying something like "ohh, you're going to talk to so-and-so? Well here's something current to talk about!"
My personal hack for helping remember people is I use the company field as a tag. So people I meet in a bar will get the bar name in that field, people from school will get the school name, people from work, will get work name, clubs etc.
The nice thing about this is you can search for company name, so I can just type in "study group" and I get all the contacts in my study group up as a result.
Another thing that helps: if you notice something weird, latch on to it immediately. It could be anything: something he's wearing or about his voice or his looks (a guy I met recently had a Facebook style t-shirt with a thumbs down and "meh" instead of the 'like'; I made a note of it, and now, even a couple of weeks later, associate him with that t-shirt). These techniques have helped me remember names of up to 20-25 new people in a night of socializing.
This might be a step up, thanks!
Seriously, this is a great idea.
I expect an info-bubble will appear when you see someone through the glasses and tilt your head in an inquiring manner.
Thanks for sharing! I haven't seen refresh.io
Then, if you remember where or when you met somebody, you can more efficiently remember their names! Check out the non-mobile site, it has a really quick video that shows it.