Mobile Ministry Magazine

I was just looking at an article at Nokia Conversations about 2009 being the year of widgets and had the idea of a new widget. With the N97 Widget Compeition going on, this was quite timely. Then, I realized something, searching for a Bible verse, or saved bookmark, should really be this simple. I'd submit one for the competition, but then also share about its idea here and maybe get a few consolidation votes ;)

First off, when you think about looking up a Bible verse (whether print or digital) its always think and go. One of the frailties of mobile computers is the fact that in addition to thinking and going, you have to also open an application, and then navigate to some kind of search or index (book menu, bookmarks, or find).

Well, I started to think; what would be easier? Personally, a widget on my phone's front screen would be prefable. But that widget would have to make it really simple.

So I developed this with the idea that all you want to do is search, and it should not matter if you are looking for a verse from an application on your device or a Bible website that you prefer. That you might even have that verse saved as a bookmark somewhere like YouVersion, and all you want to do is retreive it.

Let's take a step back now. Widgets are simple programs. They do one thing only, and they are designed to minimuze the friction from thinkning about something to doing it. Many of us are familiar with widgets - Weatherbug, the clock on your desktop, etc. The idea being that when something happens, all we want to do is know about it. The more indepth things of making notes, bookmarking, etc. are left for full applications. Essentially, every Bible reader should start here, and then build the experience.

Now, about this widget. My ideal widget would allow for this to be configured to work with every Bible website and application that could be loaded on a device. That it would index all of the verses, bookmarks, and tags used, and only those would be searchable from this interface.

And if you think about 90% of the time you are sticking your hand out for a Bible, this would be it. You type the verse, it opens a popup to that verse with an additional button that says "Go to 'x' Application" or "Go to 'x' Website." That's it.

Now, for those who are students of the Word, and would like to do things like add the ability to mark a verse as favorite, add notes, highlight, etc. Nope. Not happening here. This is only meant to be short, simple, and to the point.

To developers, open your Bible application's APIs so that something like this could plug into it. You don't lose sales by allowing for something like this, and essentially, you open the door for more people to know about and learn about your application.

What are your thoughts? If not you, could you see someone really liking something simple like this?

By the way, the N97 Widget Competition is going on until February 27, 2009 (drawing on march 13th); winning prize is a new Nokia N97 mobile device. All you have to do is make an image of your widget idea and submit it.

Labels: innovation, Nokia, software, UI, usability, UX, widget