{"id":20483,"date":"2023-09-01T12:21:37","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T10:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/synesthesia.it\/?post_type=case-study&p=20483"},"modified":"2026-09-25T09:45:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T07:45:35","slug":"word-ladders-2","status":"publish","type":"case-study","link":"https:\/\/new.synesthesia.it\/en\/case-study\/word-ladders-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Word Ladders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To develop your app<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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CONTACT US<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"Word<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Word<\/figure>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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How it all started<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Word Ladders is a linguistic game that is part of the five-year research project \u201cAbstraction<\/strong><\/a>\u201c(GRANT AGREEMENT: ERC-2021-STG-101039777)<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funded by the European Research Council<\/strong><\/a> (ERC) and developed by the research group at the University of Bologna<\/strong><\/a> (UniBO), the game aims to collect and study linguistic data on word associations (in Italian and English) to better understand the structure of the users\u2019 mental lexicon in relation to age, reading habits, and professions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Synesthesia\u2019s Technologies team was involved in the project to carry out the refactoring<\/strong> of the Word Ladders app, restructuring the code to make it more efficient and easier to maintain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The solution<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Word Ladders is a game that allows players to test their vocabulary and attempt to create the longest possible \u201cladder\u201d by adding words to each rung. However, not all words earn points. Players start by adding increasingly generic words above the given word (e.g., apple \u2192 fruit \u2192 food). The longer the ladder, the more points are scored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The development of Word Ladders involved active collaboration with the client, who fully managed the data analysis phase and word algorithm. In addition to the refactoring activities, Synesthesia\u2019s Technologies team worked on implementing the following features<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n