Need a second opinion on your outfit? Can’t decide how you want to spend your Friday evening?
There’s an app for that.
Designed by three Furman students, Dicho, which is short for dichotomy, is an iPhone app created as a way to get feedback from a specific group or the general public by posing questions with two answers.
Senior Dougie Warstler, one of the creators of Dicho, explained that he and class of ‘13 graduates Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington came up with the app because they were tired of constant indecision and were looking for a way to end petty disputes.
“In the app, you post a question and then two answers,” Warstler said. “It is useful when trying to decide between simple things such as where to go for dinner or asking who is going out that night.”
They were inspired to create the app after taking a May Experience class at Furman about iPhone apps. Initially Dicho was used within Warstler, Droll, and Buffington’s fraternity to facilitate decision-making, but then they decided to take the app public.
“So many questions go unanswered, so it’s good to have feedback,” Warstler said.
Dicho is a free to download. The app gives users the option to post question to a group so that users can restrict who sees the question. Another feature is the ability to post and answer questions anonymously.
“By posting questions anonymously, you do not feel persuaded to vote a certain way,” Warstler said.
Other features include “Dichos of the Day,” which selects interesting and popular questions, and the ability to upload photos to accompany a question. The ability to share questions on Facebook and Twitter has also helped increase the application’s popularity.
Dicho currently has more than 1,000 users and was recently given a positive reviewed by iPhone application site App Picker. Droll and Buffington now live in Atlanta and are working to further develop the app.
Moving forward, Warstler, Droll, and Buffington hope to expand the app so it can be used with Android devices. Warstler added that he would love to see the Furman community help support the app, noting the way Harvard helped make Facebook popular.
“The Furman community is a group of smart students that can help us take Dicho to the next level,” Warstler said.
