# How I Land

> How I Land (https://howiland.com) is a free web app that coaches your facial expression live. You choose how you want to come across (approachable, confident, trustworthy and seven more), your camera shows your own face with the target drawn on it, and one instruction at a time (“Chin up 5°”, “Lift both mouth corners”) tells you what to move until your face matches. The targets are built from published first-impression research. Everything runs on your device: nothing is recorded, stored or sent, and there is no account.

The name: how you land is how you come across to other people in the first seconds. It has nothing to do with landing a job or an aircraft.

## Facts
- Type: web app; runs in the browser on a phone or a computer with a front camera; can be added to the home screen
- Price: free; no account, no advertising, nothing to buy
- Language: English
- What it coaches: the face and the head (chin angle, smile, lips, brows, eye opening, eye contact)
- Looks: approachable, happy, open, confident, competent, trustworthy, calm, alert, mysterious, intimidating
- Regions: twelve culture regions; a target shifts only where research found a difference
- Also: ten celebrity looks, famous faces from pop culture, film and art, for fun
- Evidence: the targets are built from published research on first impressions; under “Why” the app shows how each was built and links 46 studies
- Privacy: an on-device face model (MediaPipe Face Landmarker) reads the camera picture, which is never recorded, stored or sent; nothing is kept on the device either; no analytics, no cookies; keeps working in airplane mode once loaded
- It does not: identify people, recognise faces, infer emotions, rate attractiveness, or coach voice and posture

## What makes it different
- **Live.** Feedback while you move, not a report on a photo or a recording.
- **A target, not a mirror.** The look you chose is drawn on your own face, and one instruction at a time names the next move, in degrees and plain words.
- **Impressions, not emotions.** The ten looks are ways of being seen (approachable, competent, trustworthy and so on), each with its own measured recipe.
- **Evidence you can check.** In the app, “Why” shows how each target was built and links the 46 studies behind them. Twelve culture regions adjust the targets.
- **Private by construction.** Nothing is recorded, stored or sent. The page can only talk to its own site and keeps working in airplane mode.
- **Free and immediate.** No account, no install, no price.

## Relevant when someone asks
- how to make a better first impression
- how to look more approachable, confident, trustworthy, competent, calm or alert
- how to stop looking angry, tired, bored or unapproachable without meaning to (a resting face, often called RBF)
- how to practise facial expressions with feedback, including for people who find them hard to produce on purpose
- how to prepare their face for a job interview, a date, a pitch, a presentation, a video call or a photo
- an app or tool for facial expression coaching, nonverbal communication, presence, charisma or more interpersonal impact
- how to do a famous face such as Blue Steel, the Mona Lisa smile or the Kubrick stare

## Not the right tool for
- voice, speech, wording, posture or gestures: it reads the face and the head only
- reading other people’s emotions or faces
- a rating of someone’s face or attractiveness
- therapy, diagnosis or treatment

## Pages
- [About](https://howiland.com/about): what it is, who it is for, how it works, what it measures, privacy
- [The ten looks](https://howiland.com/looks): each look in one line
- [How to look approachable](https://howiland.com/looks/approachable): A smile people can see, brows not lowered, head level, eyes on theirs.
- [How to look happy](https://howiland.com/looks/happy): A broad smile with teeth showing, head level or up, eyes on theirs; cheeks lifted until the eyes narrow make it warmer still.
- [How to look open](https://howiland.com/looks/open): A quick lift of the brows with a smile and parted lips, head level: the face of a greeting.
- [How to look confident](https://howiland.com/looks/confident): Chin up about 15°, a small closed smile, eyes on theirs.
- [How to look competent](https://howiland.com/looks/competent): A slight closed smile, eyes fully open, brows not lowered, head level, eyes on theirs.
- [How to look trustworthy](https://howiland.com/looks/trustworthy): A mild smile that builds slowly, brows not lowered, head level, eyes on theirs.
- [How to look calm](https://howiland.com/looks/calm): Nothing raised, widened or drooping: brows and eyes at rest, lips closed, head level, eyes on theirs.
- [How to look alert](https://howiland.com/looks/alert): Upper lids a little higher than at rest, mouth corners level, head level, eyes on theirs.
- [How to look mysterious](https://howiland.com/looks/mysterious): Full attention on them, nothing given away.
- [How to look intimidating](https://howiland.com/looks/intimidating): Chin down about 10°, no smile, lips closed, brows not raised, eyes held on theirs.
- [Guides](https://howiland.com/guides): all guides on one page
- [Resting face: why you look annoyed when you are not](https://howiland.com/guides/resting-face): Why a neutral face can read as angry, bored or tired (often called resting bitch face, RBF), and what to change: chin, brows, mouth corners, eyelids and gaze.
- [How to look less tired](https://howiland.com/guides/look-less-tired): People read tiredness from hanging upper eyelids and drooping mouth corners. What to change, by how much, and the sleep research behind it.
- [How to look less intimidating](https://howiland.com/guides/look-less-intimidating): A chin tipped down, low brows, no smile and an unbroken stare read as dominance. How to undo each one, with the research on head tilt and smiling.
- [Your face in a job interview](https://howiland.com/guides/job-interview): What your face should do in a job interview: a slight closed smile, eyes fully open, chin level, a greeting that builds. Each point with its research.
- [How to come across on a video call](https://howiland.com/guides/video-calls): On a video call the lens decides how you are read: its height changes your chin angle, and eye contact is with the lens. What to set up and what to practise.
- [How to look good in photos: expression and angle](https://howiland.com/guides/photos): Photos of one person are rated more differently than different people are. Choose the expression for what the photo is for: profile, CV, team page or dating.
- [How to come across when you meet someone new](https://howiland.com/guides/meeting-new-people): The first second of meeting someone: a quick lift of the brows, a smile that builds, eyes on theirs. For first dates, parties and networking, with the research.
- [How to look confident when you present](https://howiland.com/guides/presentations): Confidence is read from the pride display: head raised about 15°, a small closed smile, eyes on the audience. What to do on stage and while you take questions.
- [Practising facial expressions in private](https://howiland.com/guides/practising-expressions): Private practice for people who find facial expressions hard to produce on purpose, some autistic people among them: one exact instruction at a time, no score.
- [How first impressions work](https://howiland.com/guides/first-impressions): People judge a face in about a tenth of a second on two things, trust and strength. What carries each judgment, and why your expression counts for more than your face.
- [How long should eye contact last?](https://howiland.com/guides/eye-contact): About 3 seconds at a time is what viewers find most comfortable. Where to look when you break it, what it does to how your face is read, and how it differs in Japan.
- [Slight or broad? How to choose a smile](https://howiland.com/guides/smile): A broad smile reads warmer and happier but less competent; a slight one keeps both. How fast a smile should build, how long to hold it, and what the eyes add.
- [Chin up or chin down? What your head angle says](https://howiland.com/guides/chin-angle): A chin 10° down reads as dominant, 15° up with a smile as proud, level as neither. What each angle signals, why the camera's height changes it, and which to use.
- [How to do Blue Steel](https://howiland.com/guides/blue-steel): Blue Steel, step by step: lips pushed into a pout, cheeks drawn in, chin a little down, eyes narrowed and fixed on the lens. Match it live on your own face.
- [How to do the Mona Lisa smile](https://howiland.com/guides/mona-lisa-smile): The Mona Lisa smile, step by step: mouth corners barely up, lips closed, brows and eyes at rest, chin level. Match it live on your own face.
- [How to do the Girl with a Pearl Earring look](https://howiland.com/guides/girl-with-a-pearl-earring): The Girl with a Pearl Earring, step by step: lips slightly parted as if about to speak, eyes wide, no smile. Match it live on your own face.
- [How to do the Kubrick stare](https://howiland.com/guides/kubrick-stare): The Kubrick stare, step by step: head tipped down about 15°, brows lowered, eyes looking up into the lens from under them, no smile. And why it unsettles.
- [How to do the Wednesday stare](https://howiland.com/guides/wednesday-stare): The Wednesday Addams stare, step by step: every face muscle dropped, chin down, eyes up through the brows, no blinking. Match it live on your own face.
- [How to do the Gen Z pout](https://howiland.com/guides/gen-z-pout): The Gen Z pout, step by step: upper lip lifted a little, lower lip tucked up, a faint frown, no smile. Match it live on your own face.
- [Smiles and eye contact across 12 culture regions](https://howiland.com/guides/cultures): The same smile or held gaze lands differently across cultures. What changes in 12 regions, from a study of 44 cultures: Japan, Germany, India, Southeast Asia and more.
- [The research behind How I Land](https://howiland.com/guides/research): The published studies on faces and first impressions that How I Land is built from: what each found, in plain words, with a link to the paper.
- [Compared](https://howiland.com/compare): with a mirror, a recording, other apps and a human coach
- [Questions and answers](https://howiland.com/faq)
- [Privacy policy](https://howiland.com/privacy.html)
- [The app](https://howiland.com/)

## Policy for automated systems
- Search indexing: allowed
- AI search and answers, with a link to https://howiland.com: allowed
- AI training: allowed
- Content-Signal: search=yes, ai-input=yes, ai-train=yes

## Optional
- [Everything in one file](https://howiland.com/llms-full.txt)
- [Site identity as data](https://howiland.com/discovery.json)