Pillars
A mobile app that helps Muslims center their day around prayer.
Objectives
Personal Project | To support spiritually centred lifestyles by automatically integrating prayer into daily planning to reduce the mental burden of scheduling.
My Role
UX Research
Wireframing
Prototyping
Visual Design
Duration
2 weeks
Tools
Figma
Photoshop
Miro
Team
Solo Project
42%
of Muslim Americans pray all five daily prayers, while ~60% pray at least some each day.
The Challenge
65%
of U.S. Muslims say religion is ‘very important’ in their lives. Yet this high level of importance doesn’t necessarily translate into prayer consistency. This suggests that motivation exists, but systems and structure may be missing.
4.45
million
Muslims reside in the U.S., representing a wide and growing demographic that could benefit from faith-based tools designed to support daily spiritual practice.
How might we help Muslims prioritize their prayers in a busy world?
Pillars is an existing prayer app that I use and enjoy on a daily basis. I designed an additional concept feature that reimagines Pillars that helps users schedule their day around prayer without the mental burden of manually adding shifting prayer times to their calendar.
The Solution
Key Features
Built-in prayer times
Prayer times adjust slightly every day, so having a calendar that automatically adjusts for you removes the need for users to manually check or add them to their schedule. Users can create a schedule that reflects both their spiritual and worldly commitments.
Period Mode
During menstruation cycle, women do not pray, so the toggle allows for quick and easy removal of prayer blocks.
Prayer tracker
Users can visually track their prayer, be reminded of the spiritual importance, and turn on notifications individually for every prayer time; helping users form deep habits and meet their goals.
Prayer nudge
The 15-minute prayer nudge is a gentle reminder that helps users transition into a state of worship before the actual prayer time. By giving a heads-up, it encourages people to wrap up tasks, make wudu (absolution), and mentally prepare; creating space for more intentional, focused prayer.
Qualitative Interviews
After the secondary research, I interviewed practicing Muslims to understand how shifting prayer times, life demands, and unique spiritual needs affect their ability to prioritize prayer in their daily routines.
Insights
Research
3 STUDENTS
to offer insight into scheduling faith around academics.
1.
Users want prayer to feel integrated, not disruptive.
2.
3 WOMEN
as women face unique prayer-related experiences like menstruation.
Women need prayer tools that account for menstruation and remove feelings of guilt and shame.
2 CONVERTS
bring fresh perspectives on usability and guidance needs.
3.
New Muslims are overwhelmed trying to build new routines, and would benefit from a tool that’s spiritually encouraging and easy to use.
Market Analysis
I analyzed competitors’ strengths and limitations to create high-impact low-effort solutions.
While both apps provide many islamic features, they do not deeply integrate prayer into daily schedule.
Muslim Pro
✅ Accurate prayer times
✅ Inclusion of islamic dates
✅ Comprehensive islamic content
❌ Cluttered, overwhelming UI
❌ Lack of gentle reminders
❌ Limited productivity tools
Opportunity Areas
Calendar with prayer times automatically integrated to organize events around it.
Gentle in-app nudges to prepare users for prayer without disrupting focus.
Menstruation toggle to automatically remove or apply prayer times within schedule.
IslamicFinder
Tags to visually categorize events and help users prioritize their commitments.
User-friendly and intentional UI to simplify user flow and remove clutter.
Storyboard + Wireframes
I briefly explored the user journey through storyboards to visualize the problem and solution. The main goal was to create an app that will prioritize and integrate prayer into a busy schedule smoothly.
Prototype
Usability Testing
While the results of the usability testing were satisfactory, improvements could be made with deepening habit-building features.
“I think it would be nice if I could get a reminder just for a specific prayer, or tap directly on a prayer event to mark it as completed without having to switch screens.”
- Andrea Horvath, Student
Revisions
✅ Notification button for audio notification
✅ Mark prayer as completed
✅ 5 daily prayers tracker
As someone who regularly uses the Pillars app and deeply values its role in my daily life, this project was especially important to me. I always found myself wishing for a way to plan my schedule around prayer more seamlessly, and this feature is something I would genuinely love to experience as a user. It made me want to continue to think critically about how we can ease spiritual and cognitive burdens through thoughtful tools.
I also really enjoyed the creative aspects of this project; designing an experience that feels both functional and spiritually grounding, and reflected who I am as a person. I believe that the process of worship can be beautiful and easy, and I wanted to reflect that through a simple andclean-looking interface.
This project reminded me that good design isn’t just about getting things done: good design is about creating tools that align with our values and bring ease to our everyday rituals.
Sayyid al-Shuhada Mosque
Medina, Saudi Arabia