Where Digital Community Meets Scripture: Redefining Digital Bible Study
An App Design and Research Plan
Problem Statement
In an increasingly busy and digitally-connected world, Christian communities face significant barriers to shared spiritual growth, such as conflicting schedules that prevent regular group Bible study, geographic separation that isolates believers from their communities, and generational gaps that create different approaches to engaging with scripture.
How can we leverage readily available technology to transform solitary Bible reading into a simplistic, intuitive and collaborative experience—one that bridges generational and geographic divides while fostering deeper scriptural reflection and meaningful connections across Christian communities of all ages and technical abilities?"
Recruitment Strategy
"I decided to have a slightly higher sample size of 6 persons, so I could have a more comprehensive range of ages and genders across my target population. All were selected from my local church community, since they directly represent my target audience of active Christian believers who regularly engage with scripture and would benefit from collaborative Bible study tools. By recruiting from my local church, I ensured all participants share the common foundation of faith-based scripture engagement that is essential to understanding the collaborative spiritual experience I aim to create.
Selected participants ranged from older (65+ years) to younger (around college age), since I needed to capture how different generations think about and interact with the technology and design paradigms I want to incorporate into my product. I surveyed 3 males and 3 females to ensure gender representation in understanding different approaches to Bible reading and technology use. Of those 6 participants, 1 male and 1 female were older than 65, one female was in her forties, and the remaining female and two males were aged 18-25. This age distribution was critical because my app must bridge the gaps in both spiritual practices and technical comfort levels among users—the older participants bring deep biblical knowledge but may have different technology expectations, while the younger participants are digitally native but may have varying levels of spiritual maturity. I believe this gives me a robust range of users and their technological capabilities to consider when designing this app.
Survey Methods
I conducted structured data collection using both digital and in-person methods with my target audience. The Google Forms questionnaire served as my primary data collection tool and interview guide, covering key topics around Bible reading habits, technology comfort, and community engagement preferences. During in-person discussion, I used these same questions as talking points to facilitate deeper discussions, allowing participants to expand on their responses and share personal experiences that provided valuable context for empathy mapping.
A link to the Google Forms questionnaire can be found here: https://forms.gle/E2LymUKfkTfBTgbd9
Using what we discussed in lecture, I created the following empathy maps from the surveys I conducted:
Link to that Canva Project can be found here: https://www.canva.com/design/DAGxwXBUJAE/npZ6s9TtxhA6FL8FX-BjoA/edit?ui=e30
Conclusions for Phase 1:
Concluding Phase 1, it is much clearer to me now how important it is to have simple but easy-to-understand UI for my target audience. This app will need to be usable by people in their sixties and beyond, but also for younger, more focused users in the late teens to early twenties. The survey revealed to me that people aren't interested in another loud and noisy social media app, but something more controlled—something more akin to an app like Discord—where they are able to invite friends, family, and others to their own study circle, as opposed to being barraged by everyone on the platform. This approach would serve to address concerns about misinformation and anti-Christian rhetoric that could muddy or cloud the use of the app, which was a recurring theme in the form responses.
A very big "pain point" for my users, it seems, is a lack of consistent commitment to study and fellowship in their scripture-studying circles. I believe the creation of a community-centered app like Discord could address this issue, but with one crucial difference: instead of general chat channels or post feeds, every conversation space would be built around specific Bible passages. Think of it as combining the social communication features of Discord or Instagram with the scripture-focused interface of the Bible reader apps my respondents mentioned (YouVersion, Bible Hub, Blue Letter Bible, and others).
The chat and posting system would ONLY function within study circles AND only on selected passages. Users couldn't just scroll through random content or get distracted by off-topic conversations on an infinite-scroll feed of people they don't know; every interaction on the app would be anchored to specific scripture and their group, creating a focused digital environment for users to engage in. This driving force behind the app could serve to address these 'pain points' by naturally encouraging consistent participation while creating a digital space where my users can safely and confidently engage with people they trust on a regular basis around meaningful biblical content.
The generational divide in technology comfort levels also became especially apparent through this research phase. While older participants expressed enthusiasm for digital Bible study tools, they emphasized the need for intuitive navigation and clear visual hierarchy. Younger participants, though more comfortable with complex interfaces, actually preferred streamlined experiences that didn't distract from their spiritual focus. This convergence around simplicity validates my design direction toward a clean, purpose-driven interface that prioritizes meaningful engagement over flashy features.
Moving forward, the controlled community model emerged as a critical design principle that addresses both spiritual and practical concerns raised by participants across all age groups.
Persona Generation:
While creating the persona, I synthesized the information for "Theophilus"—an ancient Greek name meaning "Friend of God"—from all six of my interviewed users' needs, wants, and pain points. Per Dr. Stanley's instruction in the videos, I created only one persona to represent the primary user archetype. I am aware that this persona primarily represents the younger individuals in my sample population, but I intentionally incorporated aspects and desires from the older participants as well to ensure broader representation.
Throughout the synthesis process, I identified several recurring themes across all interviews: the desire for authentic community connection, frustration with overstimulating digital platforms, and the need for consistent spiritual discipline despite daily distractions. These patterns informed Theophilus's background, emotions, traits, and psychographic profile. I preserved the core insight that emerged most strongly from my research: users want a simple, easy-to-use tool that is non-intrusive and customizable based on each individual's desires and spiritual rhythm. This foundational need shaped every aspect of the persona, from his frustrated attitude toward social media noise to his cautious optimism about finding a platform that truly serves rather than distracts.
Buissness Model Canvas:
While creating the Business Model Canvas, I wanted to keep in mind that this app should have the trustworthy and genuine feel that a tool in this community and target population deserves, so a freemium model was adopted and the canvas was designed around that core principle. Much like Discord, any revenue generated will come primarily from users' desire to support a tool they believe in financially, rather than from aggressive monetization tactics that could compromise the user experience or community trust.
The freemium approach aligns directly with my persona research findings: users like Theophilus want simple, non-intrusive tools that serve their spiritual needs without distraction or pressure. By keeping core features free and accessible, the app removes barriers to authentic community building and consistent Bible study habits. Premium features will be optional enhancements—not paywalls that fragment the community or limit meaningful engagement.
Additionally, this user-focused approach makes the platform attractive for church/ministry subscriptions, donations, and sponsorships. Organizations will be more likely to support and recommend a tool that demonstrates outstanding performance and genuinely listens to user needs rather than prioritizing profit over people. This creates a sustainable revenue model built on trust, value delivery, and authentic community support—all principles that resonate deeply with the faith-based target audience.
Conclusions for Phase 2:
Concluding Phase 2, it is becoming much clearer to me what app needs to be created and the solution I wish to take steps toward completing. Through my user interviews and persona development, several key findings emerged that will shape the direction of this project:
- Users are overwhelmed by digital noise: All six interviewees expressed some sort of frustration with overstimulating apps and/or social media distractions that interfere with their spiritual disciplines and community connections.
- Simplicity and authenticity are non-negotiable: Users consistently emphasized wanting a tool that is easy to use, non-intrusive, and genuinely serves their faith journey rather than competing for their attention or monetizing who they are or what they do.
- Community matters as much as content: Individual Bible study matters, but users consistently expressed a desire to share insights and build authentic relationships around Scripture in environments that feel safe, comfortable, and non-overwhelming—enabling genuine connection with both close friends and newcomers to their faith community.
The tool I am seeking to design needs to be highly sensitive to users' needs and perceptions, remaining within appropriate boundaries while serving them in an enriching, supportive way. It is only in this context—where the app prioritizes user wellbeing over engagement metrics—that a solution like this will gain traction and trust within faith communities. If executed well with genuine user focus, this platform has the potential to become a household reference for the problem it solves, much like how Google became synonymous with search, or Facebook with social connection. The freemium business model, combined with the focused value proposition of distraction-free Bible study and authentic community building, positions this app to fill a genuine gap in the faith-tech space while maintaining the integrity and trust that this audience requires.
Idea Generation
For the first part of my idea generation, I constructed a mind map from a question phrased around the purpose statement I created in phase 1: 'How can I improve my Bible reading and study habits, while connecting with others in my community?' I chose the mind mapping method over Walt Disney's dreamer-realist-critic approach because it seemed to be more within the spirit of the app I'm planning on designing and would more easily capture both individual spiritual growth and community engagement in a way my brain could tackle the problem. It allowed me to think about the complexity of balancing personal habits with social connection in a way that I could wrap my head around.
To generate ideas, I took time to get into my target audience's heads and identified six key groups that became the main branches of my mind map: Purpose, Habits, Barriers, Outcomes, Motivation, and Community. From each branch, I mapped out specific points using solid grey lines to show direct relationships to the key groups. Then, I connected related points across different branches using dashed lines, which revealed important intersections—for example, how 'sharing insights' from the Habits key group connected to 'discussing in person' in small group settings under the Community key group. This cross-connection visualization helped me identify which ideas addressed multiple user needs simultaneously, making them stronger candidates for my design solution.
Conclusions for Phase 3:
When working through the mind map, I found it challenging to begin. It was hard to come up with key groups in a way that felt actionable and could actually solve the problem—grouping all the different age groups and their unique needs under the various banners took some real thought. Once I got going on one branch though, like when I started mapping out Habits, it became easier to keep building out that section with things like 'read in morning,' 'read in afternoon,' and 'read in evening,' and then connecting those to broader ideas in the overall problem. I did find that at some points, once I was in the mindset of one branch, it was difficult to jump to another one without finishing what I was working on first. I feel like I could have certainly expanded even more than I did, if time allowed—there were so many potential connections I could see forming.
What really stood out to me was discovering the unique intersection points through those dashed lines. For instance, I went from 'sharing insights' under Habits and connected it across to 'discussing in person' under Community, which was inextricably linked to things from Outcomes and Motivations as well. These cross-connections showed me that almost everything around my problem eventually linked back to the idea of sharing insights in some form—which is a great foundation for an app design! The mind map helped me see which features would hit multiple pain points at once, making them priority candidates for my prototype.
In conclusion, the mind map revealed to me just how interconnected everything with my problem is and how important it will be to balance the right things in my app. I can see now that my solution needs to address both the personal spiritual growth side and the community connection side simultaneously, since they're so intertwined. I feel very ready and excited to begin working on my prototypes, since I have a lot of rich and actionable data to work from.
Prototyping: Low fidelity
After the previous phases and the fact that making an app like this excites me and ignites my imagination, I've had a really clear image in my mind of what the tool will look like. It's going to be a sweet, simple, and sleek Bible-reader app like many others, but with the added feature of verses gaining notifications from friends in the user's 'Study Circle'—a.k.a. friends added on the app. The interface will behave much like Instagram, Discord, or any average messaging app, with a toggleable view that switches between a space for the user's personal notes/draft thoughts and live chats with their Study Circle. These features will be simple but elegant, giving the user control over what content they see and from whom—whether they want to focus on their own reflections or engage with their community's insights on specific verses. Following the examples from class, I also added the 10 usability heuristics so I can keep those swirling around in my mind when pondering how the app should look and what the high-fidelity prototype will flow together.
Prototyping: High Fidelity
This part of the project took me the longest, since I really wanted to ensure that I prototyped something comprehensive—something that genuinely captured what my users liked and wanted. From my research, that meant a trustworthy, no-nonsense app that is simple and elegant to use, not flashy and vying for their attention and clicks. Every design decision needed to reflect the core insight that emerged from my interviews: users across all ages want a tool that serves their spiritual needs without distraction or overwhelm.
As a template for the Bible portion of the app, I referenced the Blue Letter Bible app, a popular resource that has that elegant simplicity I wanted to capture. It's clean, purposeful, and gets out of the way—letting scripture take center stage rather than competing for attention through unnecessary visual noise. This design philosophy became especially important given the generational range of my users; both older participants who value intuitive navigation and younger users who appreciate streamlined experiences converged around this same principle of simplicity. The prototype needed to honor that shared desire for a focused, distraction-free interface that actually enhances their engagement with scripture rather than pulling them away from it.
Though all the UI aspects aren't obviously complete, I believe this is the most comprehensive prototype that effectively demonstrates the community-centered functionality at the heart of this app. It covers the key interactions around discussing Bible content with a user's Study Circle of added friends, showing how users could hypothetically receive verse-by-verse notifications and engage with discussion threads as they're reading through scripture in real-time. This approach keeps every interaction anchored to specific passages rather than allowing users to drift into unfocused scrolling or off-topic conversations.
The prototype also illustrates how users could navigate into the Community section on the bottom navigation and engage in two distinct ways: posting forum-style 'Insights' for more thoughtful, developed reflections on passages, or opening up chatroom-style 'Discussions' for more immediate, conversational exchanges. This dual-mode communication structure emerged directly from my user research—some participants wanted space for deeper theological reflection, while others valued quick, spontaneous exchanges with their study partners. By building both interaction styles into the prototype, the app accommodates different communication preferences while maintaining that crucial connection to scripture that prevents the platform from becoming just another noisy social media experience.
The verse-anchored notification system is particularly important here, as it addresses the 'pain point' of inconsistent commitment that came up repeatedly in my interviews. Rather than generic reminders to open the app, notifications would be contextual and meaningful—tied to specific passages being discussed within each user's trusted circle.
This prototype was developed and posted with Figma, and can be found here:
Useability Heuristics
Below are the cases where I applied the 10 Useability Heuristics, with image examples from my prototype:
1. Visibility of System Status
Throughout the app, this heuristic appears in a few key places: as typing indicators in the Discussion windows and as faded current-page icons across the UI.
2. Match Between System and Real World
All iconography used in the app is designed to have intuitive meaning: the search function uses a magnifying glass, the home navigation displays a house icon, arrows indicate forward and backward movement, the Insight navigation features a lightbulb, and so on.
3. User Control and Freedom
Users will have access to settings and other tools they find important or valuable—not all of these were included in the prototype due to time constraints, but would obviously be present at launch. These include notification settings for Study Circles, an app-wide Dark Mode toggle, and similar customization options.
4. Consistency and Standards
Icons and functions maintain consistency throughout the prototype. X buttons behave identically across all contexts—chat windows, search bar, and elsewhere. The hamburger menu consistently opens the same settings panel and returns users to their previous page upon close. All icons were carefully chosen to clearly telegraph their behavior without obfuscating functionality.
5. Error Prevention
Error prevention features such as standard real-time email validation would be present at launch, though not included in this demo. The prototype does demonstrate error-catching functionality through features like the confirmation pop-up when removing a friend. Additionally, helpful messages appear throughout the app to guide users to their destination or briefly explain how specific features work.
6. Recognition Rather Than Recall
Verse locations are displayed in plain sight for users to see while chatting. Additionally, a feature such as one-tap navigation to the full passage could be added at launch. The verse header is planned to include a navigation pane that will help users navigate to other passages quickly.
7. Flexibility and Efficiency of Use
The prototype demonstrates how flexible, efficient, and easy to use the app is. The tab system gives users multiple paths to reach the discussions they want to join, and verse notifications or clicks provide quick, convenient, and natural ways to explore discussion on passages they're reading. The chapter navigation arrows serve novice users and clearly telegraph how the reader functions. At launch, swipe controls could be added for more advanced users. Though not present in the demo—an icon was provided for it—an audio reader mode will be available at launch for users with accessibility needs.
8. Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
"Simple and elegant" was a phrase that came up repeatedly during Stages 1 and 2, so an aesthetically pleasing and minimalistic design were no-brainers. This is evident in the navigation bars, which are very simple—offering access to fewer than five functions with uncomplicated icons. The scripture text on the main page always takes priority, and when users want to browse the app's settings, view additional verse options, or jump into chats or discussions, those content offerings take center stage, pushing the reader out of the way to eliminate attention split.
9. Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors
This app is designed to be fast, as most Bible reading and chat apps are, so there is no need for loading screens between states. Confirmation pop-ups appear before destructive actions, such as removing someone from a Study Circle. Status pop-ups occur after each such action to confirm completion. At launch, this pattern would be present for every action of similar nature. Rare cases where content is not displayed or rendering fast will obviously have a status message.
10. Help and Documentation
The verse annotation system with red notification dots is visually intuitive, and content is clear throughout—minimal documentation needed. The Activity feed models good documentation practice by providing helpful guidance when users are caught up, explaining next steps without requiring external help. By using familiar messaging patterns, the app "documents itself" through existing mental models. Users don't need instructions for threaded conversations because they've used Instagram comments, Twitter threads, or text messages before. Additional help is available through FAQ, About, and Help options under the App Options menu.
UX Laws
The key UX laws are applied quite well to this kind of app. I believe the Study Circle app will make excellent first impressions with its simple and professional welcome screens and helpful messages in the community section. Cognitive load is kept low through distraction-free Bible text and minimal visual noise. Clear icons further reduce cognitive load. Since this is a Bible app, things will load very fast—chapter navigation and pages load instantly, and discussion threads and messages will appear right away, same as one would expect in a text or chat app like Discord, meeting the Doherty Threshold.
Fitts' Law was considered here, since the chapter arrows were well-sized and the New Insight/Post and New Discussion buttons were placed at the right side of the screen, similar to common apps like Twitter/X. Hick's Law was applied through classic quick and easy sign-in options. Tabs are kept under four, and the main bottom navigation bar is capped at four options. The Verse Options and App Options sidebars are a little more robust, but are grouped logically under a menu that doesn't vie for users' attention.
Since the reading portion of the app was inspired by Blue Letter Bible, and the chat and community portions were inspired by Discord, Instagram, and Twitter, the app squares with Jakob's Law—giving users a new experience while drawing inspiration from already existing apps. Gestalt's Principles were applied through content grouping and organization: neat messages grouped by each user, modals with clear boundaries, and verse text that reads and flows naturally, also meeting the Law of Common Region.
Miller's Law and Occam's Razor were very important here, since I learned that users didn't want an app that was noisy and distracting. The app doesn't have many tabs, maintains minimal UI, avoids large swaths of messages or posts from their Study Circle, and provides closure with the "You're all caught up" message on their activity feed once they've finished reading everything. The Von Restorff Effect can be seen at play in the red notification dots, which stand out above verse text, and chat windows and other modals take center stage and "dim" the background so users can focus without being drawn away.
The Pareto Principle can be seen in the core scripture experience, while all other features—such as study tools and discussion with friends—branch off from that foundation. Aesthetics are clean with good typography, iconography, generous whitespace where possible, and polished UI. A heavy emphasis was placed on the Picture Superiority Effect, with large user avatars and icons near important, often-used options (this could obviously be tweaked at launch). Overall, everything is simple, elegant, and flexible. All complexity has been stored behind options menus, preserving the main experience: the simple reading interface.
Summary and Background
I found this stage to be the most enlightening of the development process, since I learned a lot about how real-world users viewed my solution. I decided to sit down in person with people from my local church to test the prototype, since many of them were the original participants I surveyed in Stage 1. Not all were available to participate again, but most were able to return for testing. I made sure to recruit both younger and older participants to capture how different age groups within my target audience interacted with and perceived the prototype. This generational diversity was crucial, as the app must serve both digitally native younger users and older users who may have different technology expectations and spiritual engagement patterns—mirroring the same demographic considerations from my initial research phase.
Methodology
During initial testing, I made sure to remain largely an observer, only stepping in if testers became obviously stuck or asked for help or clarification. Before each testing session, I gave participants a brief overview of what the app was and what it was trying to accomplish, but made sure to keep things vague enough that they went into the test fairly blind. This approach allowed me to observe genuine interaction with my prototype and identify areas of confusion or friction.
For each user, I gave them a physical handout of the Test questions with simple tasks that covered the basic uses of my app. I had a "tester" version of the handout, and an "admin" handout, which was a key of the steps I expected them to take to complete the task.
After each test, I took time to sit with the user and converse with them about their experience with the app. I structured the conversation around the wrap-up questions below. I found this portion of testing to be the most enlightening, since it gave me time to connect and engage with my users on a deeper level, and I even wound up brainstorming improvements with all of them. These post-test conversations felt less like formal research and more like genuine dialogue—users became invested in the app's success and offered thoughtful suggestions I hadn't considered. For instance, one user identified a critical bug in my logic: what would happen when your friends respond to their friends' friends that you don't have in your Study Circle? How do you control what content each user sees based on their friend connections alone? This question sparked an important discussion about content visibility and privacy controls that will need to be addressed before launch.
I measured several key metrics during testing: how many times each user got stuck, whether they successfully completed the given task, and how many misclicks occurred. My main summary statistic was the ratio of misclicks to completion time, since that seemed to offer the most actionable insights for improving the interface. I recorded these results in real-time as each user worked through the test, using my phone to track their completion time and manually counting each misclick or moment they became stuck.
Test Results
For the stats generation, thankfully Python is well-equipped for generating and analyzing statistics with its built-in modules. I used NumPy for calculations, Pandas for data organization, Matplotlib and Seaborn for visualizations, and scipy.stats for statistical tests. So as the tests were completed and the data completely gathered, I input those results (shown below) into the program.
The Python program processed the data from the tables above and outputted task and user statistics, one-way ANOVA results, paired and independent t-tests, correlation analysis, and four visualization files—all of which are shown and summarized below.
The mean completion time by task revealed significant variation across different functions. Search for Verse (3.60 seconds) and View Discussion on John 1:5 (9.29 seconds) were the fastest tasks, indicating these features were highly intuitive for users. Reading John 2 (13.53 seconds) and Return to Home from Social (17.63 seconds) showed moderate completion times with reasonable consistency. However, Add Friend (30.30 seconds), View John 1:1 Options (31.69 seconds), and Remove Friend (35.20 seconds) took considerably longer, suggesting these workflows may require refinement to improve discoverability or simplify steps. The standard deviation bars in the task analysis chart reveal interesting patterns about user consistency. Tasks like Search for Verse showed minimal variation, indicating all users understood this function immediately. In contrast, tasks like Share an Insight on John 1:1 and Remove Friend showed extremely high variation—some users completed them quickly while others struggled significantly, suggesting these features may not telegraph their functionality clearly enough for all user types.
Individual user performance varied considerably. SG emerged as the strongest performer with a mean completion time of just 8.68 seconds and zero total misclicks across all tasks—demonstrating near-perfect understanding of the interface. CB also performed well (13.06 seconds average, 5 total misclicks), suggesting the app successfully serves its target demographic when users grasp the core navigation patterns. (Which was something I was told by users often during testing: that once they started to play with the app a bit, it became very easy to use) KT (20.45 seconds, 3 misclicks) and EG (25.97 seconds, 12 misclicks) showed moderate performance. JG, however, struggled significantly with a mean completion time of 38.24 seconds and 27 total misclicks—by far the highest in both categories. This outlier performance suggests JG may represent users who need additional onboarding support or clearer visual cues to navigate effectively.
The scatter plot reveals a strong positive correlation between misclicks and completion time (trend line: y=8.49x+13.10), which makes intuitive sense—more misclicks indicate confusion, which naturally extends task duration. The data clusters heavily near zero misclicks with short completion times, representing successful task completions where users understood the interface immediately. The outliers stretching toward 10 misclicks and 80+ seconds represent moments where users became genuinely stuck or confused, highlighting specific pain points in the interface that need attention before launch.
The heatmap provides the most granular view of where specific users struggled with specific tasks. The darker red cells immediately draw attention to problem areas: JG's performance on Remove Friend (78.4 seconds), View John 1:1 Options (79.9 seconds), and Share an Insight (88.1 seconds) stand out as severe usability issues. Interestingly, these same tasks caused problems for other users as well—EG took 50 seconds on Add Friend and 79.9 seconds on View John 1:1 Options, while KT struggled with View Activities in Study Circle (42.0 seconds) and Remove Friend (44.4 seconds). The consistent pattern of difficulty across multiple users for these specific tasks validates that the issues are with the interface design, not individual user capability. In contrast, the predominantly yellow and light orange cells for tasks like Search for Verse, Read John 2, and View Discussion on John 1:5 demonstrate that when the interface is intuitive, users across all age groups and technical comfort levels perform well.
Findings & Recommendations
Reflecting on these stats, the results make sense. During our discussion time after testing, users often told me they felt the social aspects of the app were confusing at times. KT and CB both noted in their own ways that the Insights and Discussions didn't feel very distinct from one another, and questions arose about whether both were even needed. This feedback aligns directly with the quantitative data—tasks like Share an Insight and Start Discussion showed elevated completion times and higher misclick rates, suggesting users genuinely struggled to understand the distinction between these two features. The confusion wasn't just a matter of personal preference; it represented a fundamental clarity issue in how these social features are presented and differentiated within the interface.
I was also told frequently that the symbols used for the icons didn't always telegraph what they were supposed to do—specifically the one that led to the Social aspects of the app. On a personal note, I observed that the younger users didn't struggle with this as much and picked things up faster. However, the older and more thoughtful users kept gravitating to the hamburger menu in the top left and told me they expected to find what they were looking for there, like a one-stop-shop for everything. This generational divide makes sense: younger users are accustomed to bottom navigation bars and scattered icon systems from apps like Instagram and Twitter, while older users prefer centralized menus that consolidate all options in one predictable location. On further revisions of the app, I plan to make that change to the menu, and in doing so offer multiple paths to key destinations throughout the app. This approach honors both mental models—allowing younger users to navigate via the distributed icons they're comfortable with, while providing older users the centralized menu they expect and prefer.
Along with the symbols, I was told that the way content was presented could be distracting: the key navigation tabs in the social menus were very small compared to the main page content, even blending into the background with the instructional text. This created a visual hierarchy issue where users had difficulty distinguishing actionable navigation elements from passive informational text. It's worth noting to me that CB—who expressed strong concerns in Stage 1 about the app potentially being too distracting or noisy—actually said those concerns didn't materialize here. He was genuinely excited at the thought of an app like this being available, which validated the intentional design decisions around minimalism and focused content presentation. His positive reaction suggests that while certain UI elements need refinement for clarity, the overall approach of prioritizing scripture text and maintaining a calm, distraction-free interface successfully addresses the core pain points identified in my initial research.
Conclusion
I feel like these five users captured around 85% of my app's usability issues and provided valuable insights to push development toward completion—something I plan to pursue based on the enthusiastic reaction from all participants.
This project validated my initial vision: users want distraction-free spiritual tools, not another noisy social platform. Testing confirmed my design's strengths—focused reading, intuitive navigation, clean aesthetics—while revealing areas needing work: social feature clarity, icon communication, and accommodating different navigation preferences. Most encouragingly, users across all ages saw genuine value here. Even CB, initially concerned about digital distraction, left excited about the possibility of this tool existing.
With targeted refinements to social features, visual hierarchy, and centralized navigation, this app can achieve its mission: transforming solitary Bible reading into a collaborative community experience that bridges generational divides while honoring scripture's sacred nature. The foundation is strong—simple, elegant, flexible—and I'm committed to refining it further. I believe this app can become a meaningful tool for Christian communities seeking authentic connection around God's Word in our fragmented digital world. And who knows? As the tool takes its final form, perhaps its core concept of distraction-free, community-centered text engagement could expand beyond just the Bible to serve other faith traditions, education, or reading contexts where deep, collaborative reading matters.
Credits:
Created with images by isara - "Close up of Gray and white hand-painted of oil painting texture for surface wallpaper or decoration background" • ThreePines - "Neutral Ocean Landscape Vintage Oil Painting Art" • serge-b - "Sunset over sea, painting by oil on canvas."