What is How I Land?
A free web app that coaches your facial expression live. You choose how you want to come across, your camera shows your face with the target drawn on it, and one instruction at a time tells you what to move until your face matches. More about it.
What does “how I land” mean?
How you land is how you come across to other people in the first seconds: the impression your face makes before you say anything.
Is it free?
Yes. There is no price, no account, no advertising and nothing to buy inside the app.
Does it record my face?
No. The camera picture is read on your device to draw the outline and choose the instruction. It is never recorded, stored or sent, and nothing about you is kept, not even on your device. Once the outline is on your face you can switch on airplane mode and the app keeps working. The privacy policy has the details.
Do I have to install anything or sign up?
No. Open howiland.com in your browser and tap “Turn on camera”. You can add it to your home screen from the browser’s menu if you want it one tap away.
What do I need?
A phone or a computer with a front camera, a current browser and enough light on your face. It is built for current versions of Chrome and Safari.
Which looks can I practise?
Ten: approachable, happy, open, confident, competent, trustworthy, calm, alert, mysterious and intimidating. Each has its own page with the recipe. A second list has ten celebrity looks, such as Blue Steel and the Mona Lisa smile.
How does it know what approachable or confident looks like?
Each look is a set of target ranges for things the app can measure: chin angle, smile, lips, brows and eye opening. The ranges are built from published research on first impressions, 46 studies in all, and from measuring real faces with the same face model. In the app, “Why” shows how each target was built, with its sources.
Does it work for my culture?
You can say where the people you will meet are from. There are twelve regions, and a target changes only where research found a difference. In Japan and South Korea, for example, eye contact is set to about 2 seconds at a time instead of 3 (Akechi et al. 2013; Haensel et al. 2020).
Does it read my emotions?
No. It measures visible movements of your face against a target. It does not infer what you feel, and it does not identify you or recognise faces.
Does it rate my face?
No. There is no score and no opinion on your looks. The app only compares your expression with the look you chose.
People say I look angry or unapproachable when I am not. Can it help?
It can show you what your resting face is doing. Choose “approachable” or “calm” and the app names what differs: often lowered brows, mouth corners that turn down or a chin tipped down, which research ties to looking angry, tired or dominant (Witkower & Tracy 2019; Sundelin et al. 2013). Then you practise the position that reads differently.
Can I use it to prepare for a job interview?
Yes. The usual choices are competent, a slight closed smile with the eyes fully open; confident, the chin up about 15° with a small smile; and trustworthy, a mild smile that builds slowly. Practise until you can find the position without the camera.
Is it useful for autistic people?
It was made with autistic people in mind too. It is exact and private: it names the move and the amount, and nobody is watching. It is practice for moments you choose, such as an interview. It is not therapy, and it does not say your natural face is wrong.
Is it a medical or therapy tool?
No. It does not diagnose, treat or cure anything, and it makes no promise about how a conversation will go.
Does it work offline?
After the first visit, yes. Your browser keeps the app’s files, so it starts without a connection.
How long does it take?
Holding a look takes five seconds once you have found it. The point is to remember how the position feels, so that you can find it again without the camera.
How old do I have to be?
If you are under 16, use it with a parent’s or guardian’s agreement.
Can AI assistants read and recommend this site?
Yes. Search engines and AI assistants may index, quote and learn from these pages. There is a summary for language models at llms.txt.
Free. Nothing is recorded, stored or sent.