Education

Every Day Verse

One verse a day on the home screen, with its commentary a tap away.

Role: Android developer
Platforms: Android
Year: 2019
Status: Shipped
Stack: JavaAndroidApp Widgets
Links: Google Play

The idea

One verse a day, on the home screen, without opening anything. A reader who means to read daily and does not is not short of a Qur'an app — they have several. What they are short of is the moment of being reminded, and a widget occupies that moment better than a notification because it is already there when the phone is unlocked for some other reason.

What it shows

The verse, vowelled and set large enough to read at a glance; its sura and whether it was revealed at Mecca or Medina; and, behind one tap, the classical commentary on it. The commentary is the reason the verse is worth a day rather than a second.

The day’s verse — the second of Al-Fatiha, fully vowelled in gold on near-black, held between two ruled ornaments with its number between them, the sura named at one top corner and Meccan at the other, and a heart and a book set in the margins.

The commentary panel open over the same verse: a bordered sheet of classical exegesis on the words “praise be to God”, set at reading size and scrolling under the fixed ornament above it.

Decisions

The widget is the app. Everything else is what happens after the widget worked. Putting the day's verse where a launcher already draws is what turns an intention into a habit.

Set it like a mushaf, not like a UI. Gold on near-black, ruled ornaments above and below, the number between them. Arabic scripture has a typographic tradition older than any design system, and ignoring it would have made the text look like a quotation rather than the thing itself.

Commentary in a panel, not a page. Tapping the book slides the exegesis over the verse instead of navigating away, so the words being explained are still on screen while you read the explanation.