Process

Inspiration

The Bible

Through COVID, in a world where we don’t know what is going to happen and how to control this situation, it’s hard to have hope in the world for there to be good things again. But there is hope in one that can be the solution, which is God. God is known through the words of the Bible.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. - John 1:1-4

The Bible has inspired the concept of this app in having a spiritual relationship with God. God is a source of comfort and a place of refuge. The idea that God is our Father and we Christians who are reborn in his spirit are his children, he has a higher form of love for everyone.

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User Persona

I interviewed my Christian friends on their feedback based on my proposal. I gathered their responses about their previous experiences on faith apps and journaling apps.

From their responses, I was able to analyse and identify patterns and similarities. Creating an ideal user persona for the app and understand the needs and problems of the demographic.

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Mapping

There are three main features involved in the app - journaling, praying and meditating. There were many good ideas I thought of that my friends suggested that could be implemented into these features.

It came down to prioritising features through drafting storyboards of how the user journey would be led to achieving the core aim of the app.  

Wireframes

After drafting user flows, I sketch wireframes of how the journey would roughly go for the user to be taken through the app in minimum steps. Providing them with what they needed to be able to reflect, pray or meditate.

I realised that while I was sketching this, that I should mainly develop the journaling / reflecting feature. This was the most important and main feature, and that is how I originally started the concept of the app.

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Style and Imagery

Instead of creating a visual interface, I focused more on the functional aspects and flow rather than the brand identity itself. I think this would have helped me in developing the wireframes quicker.

The logo was initially an organic rainbow shape, however asI was developing the screens, the style of the app became simple but elegant and crisp. So, the logo was adapted to appear neater and clean. The interface felt empty to me at first, as there wasn’t a lot of textures and imagery. But something my peers brought to turn my perspective was that,

Sometimes we try to add more than we need. That when we keep adding to the design, it becomes unnecessary and a bit much. Simple is good.

 It gave the app a clean and calm look for a meditation app. Feedback outside my head, really helps with another perspective.

Showcase

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Heaven is a faith journaling app for our spiritual development and growth, which helps to assist Christians to carry their life of faith and maintain habits.

By reflecting on our hearts, engaging in a positive overcoming mindset, seeking his word and expressing our gratitude is how we maintain our connection with God.

God’s home is where the heart is, the hearts of his children. As God is our Father, he is our source of life. We take care of our hearts spiritually through these three essential things of reflection, prayer and meditation. 

Heaven is an integration of my interests in journaling, my design practice, and my life of faith. This project is a creative outlet for my self-expression and personal spiritual growth in embracing the Heart of God.

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Retrospective

So many possibilities

I would love to develop this into a functioning app or prototype. I tried to nail the core aspects of what the app is originally supposed to do, not including the additional features. It would get overwhelming. What my lecturer told me; I just need to take it one bite at a time. I can’t do the whole thing at once.  

Teamwork vs Individual

With this sort of project, I work better in a team to share the load and to be able to handle the information and planning for designing this app better. As for UX, there are many components to it, not just UI. Which I would have also wanted to develop the branding of the Heaven app better, so it had a consistent and identifiable personality shown through the app. I realise that UI is not my specialty despite I like to do graphic design - however UI works a bit different in the scale of apps and web.

I would have loved to collaborate with people from other skillsets or similar to support in the development of this app.  It would have also been more encouragement when working in a team to bounce off ideas. It would help me feel accountable for my tasks as I wouldn’t initiate something on my own completely.

Future Direction

This is only an early version of the app – it is in its development phase of fleshing out the features. The future direction would be to continue to implement the core features of Reflect, Pray and Meditate. So many improvements can be done to these before I can build additional features like guided reflection, reflection/prayer programs and goal tracking features. The app could also have a consistent style and improve the messaging of this app. Including the copywriting tone would help in establishing the feel and personality of the app.

In the future, I plan to collaborate with other people. Or have other people join and work together with me in the creation of this app. They may have more experience in the skill setsI lack in.

Pleasing Something Big

Working on an app based on religious beliefs, ooft it’s a big thing, it’s hard to please.  Because this was quite important to me and can also be quite a sensitive topic to others, but I am quite open. I talked to my seniors and leaders while working on this app as well – because it’s quite heavy to be able to satisfy God to how I envisioned the app to be. Not going to lie, I was a bit hard on myself when working on this project, and it’s something I noticed. But I had my random joy moments, and it was fun to work on this app too. I hope it opens opportunities for other people to look at their faith differently and helps them engage more in their life of faith.