Mobile Ministry Magazine

Hope that most of you are having a good weekend and summer. I want to continue a bit on the subject of creating an ideal Bible reader by taking a look at a concept user interface (UI) that I created some days ago.

What you see here is a wireframe design of a UI for a touchscreen (PDA or Internet Tablet) or large screen (think laptop/desktop) computer. The the basic premise is that most of the time, we just want to read. But there are levels of interaction with the content that we'd like to explore, and thankfully, many in the Bible software and open source software communities have made available. This is just a more functional (and given some graphics, prettier) UI than what anything else offers that I've seen personally.

I got the idea of this from watching part two of Adaptive Path's series on the Aurora Concept. The Aurora Concept is a vision of UI and user experience (UX) web design that's projected for 5-7 years out. This takes into consideration only that the web is more ingrained into our lives, and that software works together with the live world around us to offer more compelling interactions with content and with one another. Simply speaking, I saw the video and it clicked.

My reasons are putting it out here (meaning the Internet) are many-fold. For one, I'd like to get some feedback for this kind of interface for a Bible reader. Many of you who read MMM are publishers, developers, and content creators/editors in the Christian space and therefore your input towards what might be missing or not clearly stated in these wireframes is very important.

To those of you who are academics, pastor-teachers, or just laypersons who like to read and study the Word electronically; this is an opportunity for your opinions to be heard given this skeleton of a mock up.

It is my hope that this can encourage us as a Body to start looking at the greater impact that the Internet has and will continue to have in the lives of those who utilize a much more connected and mobile paradigm of living than what humanity has had before. Yes, we can preach moderation and appropriate use, but we can also model usability that doesn't take away the older concepts of living, listening, and enjoying those quiet moments when we just need God and His Word.

Its not explicitly my hope for this to turn into an application. However, I have presented this to a few people and the response has been quiet encouraging that this is in line with what people are looking for. Having not the time to learn how to develop this, I'd probably be looking to the developer communities of various device operating systems to see if this can be turned into something that makes possible what I last spoke on - a common user experience framework, but designed within the scope of the system and the device.

The last thing that I'd like to state is this: this is by no means a project that a commerical entity should not be interested in. The feedback given on this Bible Reader Concept should be a help towards developing a more fluid system of reading and studying the Word given publisher and device constraints. After all, we are in this to help people read the Word more and see Christ interlaced into their lives. Demonstrating this literally in mobile software would be an excellent witness, wouldn't you agree?

Labels: Bible, community, Hardware, internet tablet, mobility, open source, reading, software, teaching, UI, UX