W.02 — NIYYAH · CONSUMER MOBILE · EDTECH

A COACH, NOT A CATALOGUE.

I led design for Niyyah, an Islamic learning app and Quran coach. V1 shipped to the App Store in one month. Day-1 retention held at 63%.

Niyyah — Islamic learning app and Quran coach hero shot

THE CHALLENGE

CREDIBLE ENOUGH FOR A RELIGIOUS PRODUCT. CASUAL ENOUGH TO OPEN BEFORE COFFEE.

Most Islamic learning apps are catalogues. Users open them, scroll, and close them. Niyyah needed to be a daily habit. Credible enough for a religious product. Casual enough to open before coffee.

The solution: I designed a coach, not a catalogue. Every screen pushes one tap forward — one topic, one verse, one minute of practice. Scholar-backed, source-visible, no scrolling.

THE APPROACH

PICK THE SPINE. LET THE REST ORBIT IT.

I joined as Head of Design and embedded with the founder full time. Daily sync. Weekly engineering review.

The first two weeks were listening. I tried every Quran app on the store. Talked to users. The same pattern showed up everywhere — too much content, no push, no reason to come back.

Then I picked the spine. The Coach. A chat surface where a real question gets a scholar's answer. Build that right and the rest of the app could orbit it.

Niyyah information architecture diagram — the Coach surface anchoring the app, with Quran, Explore, and the paywall as orbits
The Coach surface anchoring the app, with Quran, Explore, and the paywall as orbits.

KEY DECISIONS

FOUR CALLS THAT MADE THE PRODUCT.

01

SOURCES LIVE NEXT TO THE ANSWER. NOT BEHIND A BUTTON.

The Coach is a chat surface. A real question gets a scholar's answer, with the verse it traces from sitting right beside it. Tone was the design problem, not layout. Too formal and it reads like a textbook. Too casual and it loses trust. I landed on plain language with sources next to the answer.

The Coach chat surface — a scholar's answer with the source verse beside it
The Coach. Plain language, with the verse it traces from sitting right beside the answer.
02

ONE SCREEN. TWO READERS. NOTHING TO SWITCH.

The Quran screen serves two readers. Arabic-first, with translation in peripheral vision. Translation-first, with Arabic for reference. One layout. No toggle. Fifteen versions before both felt native on a commute.

The Quran reading screen — Arabic and translation in one layout with no toggle
One layout serving Arabic-first and translation-first readers. Fifteen versions before both felt native.
03

TOPICS, NOT LECTURES. ONE SITTING, ONE TAP FORWARD.

Explore is where the catalogue impulse fought hardest. Every app I'd seen surfaced lists of lectures by length. Every list drowned the new user. I replaced lists with topic cards sized to one sitting. The next-best topic always sits at the bottom of the current one.

Explore — topic cards sized to one sitting instead of lecture lists
Topic cards sized to one sitting. The next-best topic always sits at the bottom of the current one.
04

TRUST CONVERTS BETTER THAN SCARCITY IN THIS CATEGORY.

The paywall had to convert without feeling at odds with a religious product. I tried hard gates, soft gates, trust-led layouts. The shipped version is three value lines, then the price, then the alternatives. No countdown timers. No urgency tricks.

The paywall — three value lines, then the price, then the alternatives. No urgency tricks.
Three value lines, then the price, then the alternatives. No countdown timers.

THE SHIPPED WORK

Niyyah Ramadan campaign screens — the Topic primitive dressed for the season
Ramadan — the catalogue's busiest moment of the year. Same Topic primitive, dressed for the season.

HOW I WORKED

FULL-TIME HEAD OF DESIGN.

Model — Full-time Head of Design. V1 shipped in one month; ongoing through 80+ iterations.

Communication — Daily sync with the founder. Weekly engineering review.

Tools — Figma, FigJam, Notion, TestFlight, Loom.

IA across Coach, Quran, Explore + account flows Design system for iOS and Android 50+ shipped screens · 80+ iterations App Store & Google Play assets Engineering handoff & design QA Seasonal Ramadan campaign design

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR SIMILAR PROJECTS

Pick whether you're a catalogue or a coach. Catalogues let users browse. Coaches push them through. Most apps in this category never make that choice — and the retention curves show it.

WHAT COMES NEXT

  • Add streak rewards that survive a missed day. Long-term habits don't break on a single skip.
  • Push the Coach voice into Arabic. Right now it leans English.
  • Test a quiet community layer. Not a feed — a small circle of accountability partners.