Most of my friends are teachers. Secondary school English teachers, mostly.

When AI writing tools started appearing, they kept asking me the same question: "Is there anything I can recommend to my students that isn't garbage?"

The honest answer was: not really. The problems were clear:

• Generic AI tools don't understand DSE marking criteria
• Expensive tutoring platforms are out of reach for most families
• Free options tend to be either inaccurate or designed to harvest student data

So I built something.

Who This is For

Hong Kong Students

EssayHero is primarily for Hong Kong students preparing for the DSE. It's also for IELTS candidates, since the feedback system works for both exam types.

Teachers in Mind

But I also built it with teachers in mind. I wanted something a teacher could confidently recommend:

• Free — so cost isn't a barrier
• Transparent about its limitations — so students don't develop unrealistic expectations
• Supplementary to classroom teaching — not trying to replace it

A Learning Project, Done in Public

I should be honest about another motivation. I wanted to learn.

Why Build in Public?

AI in education is a topic I care about. Building EssayHero has been a way to explore what works and what doesn't, to test ideas about feedback and iteration, to see how students actually use these tools.

I'm building this in public because I think that's the right way to do it:

• The source code isn't hidden
• The methodology is documented
• If you want to know how something works, you can read about it or ask me directly

A Volunteer Project

This isn't a product in the commercial sense:

• No company behind it
• No investors
• No growth targets
• A volunteer project maintained by one person who happens to have time for it

What Makes It Different

The difference between EssayHero and generic AI tools comes down to tuning.

Exam-Specific Calibration

Generic AI will give you feedback based on general writing principles. EssayHero's prompts are built specifically around HKEAA criteria:

• Level Descriptors — the exact criteria DSE examiners use
• Text types — the formats Hong Kong students actually write
• Common patterns — insights from marking thousands of local essays

That doesn't make it perfect. But it does make it more relevant than a tool designed for American college essays or British A-levels.

Small Choices That Add Up

The interface uses British English because that's what the HKEAA expects. The loading messages use sophisticated vocabulary because I want students absorbing good English even while they wait.

These are small choices, but they add up.

How You Can Help

If you use EssayHero and have feedback, I want to hear it.

Questions Worth Asking

• What's helpful?
• What's confusing?
• Where does the AI get things wrong?

Email hello@essayhero.app with anything at all. I read everything and try to respond.

For Teachers

If you're a teacher using this with students, I'd especially love to hear how it fits into your classroom:

• What works?
• What doesn't?
• What would make it more useful?

Continuous Improvement

This project improves through feedback. The more I understand how people actually use it, the better I can make it.

EssayHero is a volunteer project created by a Hong Kong educator with over 20 years of teaching experience.