As communication moves online and face to face interactions dwindle, one St.Paul Academy and Summit School alum shares her fun family game with the online world.

“I got the big idea in January 2013,” creator of High Low Glitter Stephanie Ross said, “and from there it just took off.”

Ross, who graduated in 1982, invented a dinner-time game with her family called “High Low Glitter” where each family member shared the high point, low point, and the unexpectedly fun or surprising “glitter” point in their days.

As her daughters, Emily and Heather Upin, SPA class of 2012, grew up and left for college, Ross decided to turn this game into a website to stay in touch with her own family and maybe help others do the same.

“We started on the website in June [2013] and by September we had an app,” Ross said. With the help of user experience experts, Ross and her outsourced design team picked designs, pages, and aspects of other apps they liked to incorporate into their own creation.

“Once we launched the website, the users wanted an app to have on their smartphones, so in October [2013] we started working on the iPhone app which was finished 5-6 months later,” Ross said. Currently, the iPhone app is rated 4 out of 5 stars.  Shortly after, the Android app was also released, broadening the user base.

On the app, users write their own High Low Glitter, read friend’s posts, set reminders to post every day, and invite others to the app. “It’s a cool app,” sophomore JohnnyAddicks O’Toole said. “It’s easy to use, straightforward, and simple,” he added.

Creating an app is a labor intensive process. “As my husband says, everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much,” Ross said.

Many tweaks and updates later,the High Low Glitter app has garnered a solid, diverse user demographic. “Families use it as well as friends, businesses, work teams, and individuals which is such a delightful surprise. They have found so many ways to use [the app],” Ross said. “Moms love it, but it’s not just them. Anyone can use the app.”

Like many parents, Ross prefers face-to-face conversation with her children and friends, but her app provides something that is close. “It’s sort of anti-Facebook because it is so meaningful and intimate to share your day in a reflective and healthy way,” Ross said.

“It [High Low Glitter]  seems more genuine than something like Twitter or Facebook,”  junior Ella Hommeyer said.

Starting as a family game and ending as an app, High Low Glitter is “a great way to keep a journal and reflect on my day, all in one app,” Hommeyer said.