Sayforth

1. 01

   Answer today’s question

   Today is one card. The lantern coach and your days in a row sit on its top edge, beside a Today’s answer lantern that lights once you have answered. The harbor is painted across the card, the day’s question sits under it, and one teal button reads Answer today’s question. On most days it opens Speak freely, about a minute on anything you like, with a quiet link under the record control that swaps in today’s question. For a day with no time to talk, a smaller card offers today’s puzzle.

   Day 1, Day 30 and the check-in days go straight to one fixed question, so the before and after can be compared. Every screen ends with one clear next step.

   

2. 02

   Speak

   The recording room is dark. A coral dot and the word Recording sit at the top with the clock counting up, and the record control is one wide teal pill: Start speaking, then Done, with a time ring that fills as the minute passes. While you talk, a teal line moves with your voice. Nothing is scored and no tips appear on screen, because feedback in the middle of a sentence pulls attention away from it.

   A light tap marks the start and the finish, and the few sounds the app makes stay quiet.

   

3. 03

   Read on your iPhone

   Next the phone reads the take. Reading your answer draws it as one teal line, solid where you spoke and broken where you paused, with the end of your first sentence marked, and ticks off three steps: your words, your pace and pauses, your coach’s notes. Hear it, a button on the coach’s notes, plays the take back.

   An on-device speech model turns your speech into text on the phone, and the audio never leaves the iPhone. Only the text and its timing go out for coaching. The coaching is written by an AI model working to rules I wrote, and you sign in with Apple to use it.

   

4. 04

   The coach’s notes and one change

   The notes are one page in the coach’s book, one entry for each coached answer. Two numbers the phone measured sit on top: how long your first sentence took, in seconds, and how many ums. Then your main point, underlined in your own sentence, with why it works, and how it sounded: Decisive, Clear and Structure, each with a mark.

   Then one change, with something to try under it. The page ends with Hear it, the coach’s signature and one plain line: 18 seconds, 43 words. Coaching written by AI. The coach names your actual words and numbers. Coaching is free for the first days. After that the free plan keeps the numbers the phone measured, and the paid plan adds the coach.

   

   

5. 05

   Play

   Play opens on Chart 1, The Approach: numbered stops down a river between two towns, Start here over the first, and the lantern coach with one line at the top: Keep the good lines, then tap Sail. Each stop is a level of Load and Launch. A level asks a question and leaves a pile of lines on the dock; you load the boat with the lines that make a strong answer and leave the filler behind. Each level ends with up to three medals: Made it, Kept the good lines and Few moves. Play never uses the microphone.

   

6. 06

   Day 30

   Under the card, Voyage draws your thirty days as a river of islands, one for each day, numbered and flagged once you have answered, with a banner for the week’s chapter: Week 2, Days 8 to 14, Main point first. Days in a row counts consecutive practice days. Miss one and you can make it up by answering twice the next day, and calm days you have earned cover a miss without breaking the run.

   On Day 30 you answer the Day 1 question again and hear both. You opens on the harbor, with your boat at the dock, the flags you have collected along the pier and the lighthouse behind; under it, Coach’s notes, your days in a row with the month as dots, and Invite a friend. Crews are invite only and sail on Voyage once you have joined one.

   

   

The idea is warm paper with a quiet line on it, and a small harbor to come back to.

• Observations, not scores

  Sayforth describes what happened in your answer and never grades it. A person cannot practise a number. Miles, medals and days in a row count practice, not how good an answer was.

• One change, not a report

  The headline of the feedback is the change. A person can act on one thing. The coach names your actual words and numbers, or says nothing.

• Nothing is judged while you speak

  The recording screen holds the topic, a line that follows your voice, and one pill. Everything else waits.

• Free is the real program

  Daily practice and the measured numbers are free. The coach reading your words is the paid part, and the first days of coaching are free to try.

• A harbor, not a dashboard

  When my play-testing found screens that read as a wall of text, I had the tabs, the welcome and the rewards redone as places you can look at: islands on a horizon, a boat at a dock, a lighthouse.

• Color carries meaning

  Teal is your voice and the one primary button. Warm coral means the microphone is on. The Today card and You sit on paper; recording and the coach’s notes sit in a dark room.

Motion is quiet. Buttons dim and do not bounce, and one motion system moves every screen. A finished day is celebrated with the lantern coach, rays and sparks, with a haptic on the main moment. Sound is used sparingly and has three settings: On, Quieter and Off. The reasoning is in The motion rules I wrote for Sayforth.

• ResearchLooks into the market and the audience.
• Blog draftingWrites drafts to the brand and voice rules for me to read.
• CodingBuilds the app from the approved design and contracts.
• QA and UX auditsChecks screens against the contracts.
• Motion reviewChecks that each movement follows the motion rules.

The Sayforth blog has 44 posts on speaking, interviews and meetings, written since 19 September 2026. Agents draft them and I read each one before it goes live.