UX Case Study
Temple Connect is a mobile product that makes temple discovery, priest booking, and guided rituals accessible to anyone, anywhere. This is how I designed a digital experience for something that was never meant to be digital.
Introduction
Temple Connect is a mobile application designed to help Malayalees stay connected to their religious practices, regardless of location.
It enables users to discover nearby temples, learn how to perform rituals at home, and access temple-related services in a simple and trustworthy way.
Religious rituals are an important part of everyday life for many Malayalees. However, changing lifestyles and geographic distance have made it increasingly difficult to practice them consistently.
Many people, especially elderly users and Non-Resident Keralites, face challenges such as:
The client’s vision was to bridge this gap by creating a platform that brings rituals, temples, and guidance into one accessible ecosystem.
Stakeholder insights
Summarised from stakeholder interviews conducted before design began. These conversations shaped the product's scope, priorities, and constraints.
The client wanted to create a digital platform for Malayalees, especially the elderly and those living outside Kerala, who struggle to perform traditional rituals due to distance and lack of guidance. The idea was to help users book poojas and priests online, learn rituals at home, and explore a database of small but meaningful temples.
Client, stakeholder interview
downloads in the first 6 months
small temples listed within 1 year
Astrology and priest services
Scale to other South Indian regions
| Pain point | Design opportunity |
|---|---|
| No digital platform for ritual or priest booking | Online pooja and priest booking |
| No guidance for performing rituals at home | Step-by-step ritual tutorials |
| Only famous temples have an online presence | Database of smaller, emotionally significant temples |
Elderly Malayalees in Kerala
Users with strong ritual traditions but limited digital comfort. Accessibility and simplicity were non-negotiable for this group.
Non-Resident Keralites (NRKs)
Malayalees living in other states or abroad who want to stay connected to their cultural and religious roots despite distance.
General spiritual users
Broader South Indian audience with interest in Hindu rituals and temple discovery. Planned for a later expansion phase.
Reviewed for feature gaps and UX patterns before design began
Research overview
A mix of market signals and primary user research shaped every key decision in Temple Connect.
Existing apps miss the personal
Most platforms focus on famous temples. Smaller, family-significant temples with emotional ties have almost no digital presence.
3M+ Malayalis abroad
Over 3 million non-resident Keralites actively seek ways to stay connected to cultural and religious practices from abroad.
Online rituals are growing fast
India's online religious services are growing at 11% CAGR, especially pooja bookings and digital donations. Kerala's high literacy accelerates this.
No guided ritual support
Current solutions skip at-home puja bookings, ritual guidance, and Kerala-specific astrology, the exact services users need most.
Rituals are occasional, not routine
Most users perform rituals rarely or sometimes. This means the app needs to feel guiding and supportive, not assume prior knowledge.
Faith is a family activity
80% of respondents participate in rituals as part of a family or community. This shaped the shared ritual flows and multi-user experience.
Competitor analysis
I reviewed three leading ritual and temple apps to understand what users are accustomed to, and where the real gaps are.
What works
Where it falls short
What works
Where it falls short
What works
Where it falls short
Takeaway
Every gap I found became a design principle. Here is what I committed to building differently.
Step-by-step guidance for rituals performed at home
Emotion-first experience, not a transaction screen
Simplified, accessible UX designed for elderly users
Discovery for smaller, personally significant local temples
Local temple festivals surfaced in the discovery flow
Transparent, step-by-step booking with clear confirmations
Style Guide
The visual language built to ensure consistency, accessibility, and cultural authenticity across the app.
Display / Headings
Brings a refined, classic tone that echoes the timeless quality of temple architecture and ritual tradition.
Body / UI
Optimised for screen readability across all sizes, essential for elderly users reading ritual steps or booking details
Inspired by Kerala's lush landscape. Used as a supporting colour for secondary actions and accents.
Drawn from traditional temple roofing and ceremonial saffron. Used for primary actions, CTAs, and active states.
Derived from temple walls and stone textures. Used for text, borders, and backgrounds.
Semantic colours
Design rationale
The palette was derived directly from Kerala's temple environment rather than chosen arbitrarily. The primary green reflects the dense, lush surroundings that frame almost every Kerala temple. The saffron accent is drawn from traditional temple roofing tiles and the ceremonial use of saffron in rituals. Neutral tones come from the weathered stone and plaster of temple walls — surfaces that carry history and quiet dignity. Together, the palette creates a visual language that feels familiar and trustworthy to the people it is designed for.
Base library - Feather Icons
Consistent 24px grid, 1.75px stroke weight throughout.
Material Symbols & Iconoir - Temple-specific elements
Feather doesn't cover culturally specific concepts. Other icon packs were used on the same 24px grid to maintain visual harmony.
Temples - bottom navbar.
Priests - bottom navbar.
Astrology - bottom navbar.
Rituals - temple details screen.
Used for fine-grained vertical spacing, especially between labels, captions, and small UI text where 8px is too large.
Label to input
4px gap
Caption to content
4px gap
Icon to label
4px gap
Helper text
4px below input
Accessibility
A large portion of Temple Connect's primary audience is elderly Malayalees, people with deep cultural knowledge but limited digital familiarity. Accessibility wasn't an afterthought. It shaped every core design decision.
High contrast text
WCAG AA compliantAll body text meets a minimum 4.5:1 contrast ratio against its background. Critical labels like ritual names and booking details use dark text on light surfaces only.
Large readable typography
16px minimum body sizeBody text is set at a minimum of 16px. Ritual step text, the content elderly users spend the most time reading, uses 18px with 1.7 line height for comfortable reading.
Large touch targets
48px minimumEvery tappable element, buttons, nav items, list rows, has a minimum tap area of 48x48px, following Google Material guidelines for accessibility.
Plain language for ritual names
Clarity firstRitual names in Malayalam are preserved for cultural authenticity, but every name is accompanied by a plain-language description so users know exactly what they are booking.
Confirmation screens before booking
Error preventionEvery booking action includes a full review screen before final confirmation. Elderly users can verify the date, priest, ritual, and cost before committing, reducing anxiety and accidental bookings.
Text contrast pairs used in the app
Perform Ganapathi Homam at home
A ritual to seek blessings before a new beginning
Book a Priest
Light pink text on light background
Touch target sizing
Elderly users often have reduced motor precision. A 48px target is roughly the width of an adult fingertip, the minimum comfortable tap area on a mobile screen.
WCAG 2.1 AA
Contrast ratio
Material 3
Touch target guidelines
16px minimum
Body text size
Design iterations
The home screen went through three iterations. Each round surfaced a new usability problem, and each change was driven by a specific decision, not preference.
Iteration 1 — Horizontal scroll layout
First attempt at organising services on the home screen
Problem identified
Services were shown as horizontal scroll cards, which many elderly users found hard to navigate and read. Horizontal scrolling assumes digital familiarity.
What needed to change
Replace horizontal scroll with a layout that surfaces all services at once, with no hidden content.
Iteration 2 — Improved layout, readability issues remain
Addressed scrolling but introduced a new readability problem
Problem identified
The layout improved overall, but users still struggled to read and identify services at the top of the screen. Service labels lacked visual weight and blended into the background.
What needed to change
Group services into clear visual categories with stronger labels and enough breathing room between each group.
Final design — Bento grid layout
Services grouped by category, fully scannable at a glance
Why this works
The bento grid groups services into three clear categories: temple actions, astrology, and festivals. Every service is visible without scrolling.
Key design decision
Grouping by intent rather than service type meant elderly users could locate what they needed by context, not by reading every label individually.
This layout was carried forward into all remaining screens as the established home screen pattern.
Familiar patterns like horizontal scroll are invisible barriers for elderly users
Grouping by user intent is more scannable than grouping by feature type
Each iteration solved one problem and revealed the next, that is normal, not a failure
User flow - Onboarding
Get started with temple discovery and bookings
User flow - Ritual Booking
From discovering temples to exploring details and completing a ritual booking. This flow covers the core transactional journey of the app.
Flow diagram
Sreen flow
Hi-fi screen designs
Users can browse and discover temples by location and preference, accessible from the home screen or bottom navigation.
Design decision
Temple list shows the name, distance, and primary deity upfront. The three details elderly users most frequently asked about first. Detailed information is revealed only when a temple is selected, keeping the list screen scannable. The screen shows both popular temples, as well as the nearby ones.
Detailed temple information including history, highlights, and available services, with a clear option to book rituals.
Design decision
History and cultural context are placed above the booking CTA deliberately. Research showed users needed to feel connected to the temple before committing to a booking, especially for emotionally significant, lesser-known temples.
A list of available rituals for the selected temple, letting users explore and select what they want to book.
Design decision
Each ritual name is paired with a plain-language description — a direct response to user research showing that many users, especially those in the diaspora, were unfamiliar with the Sanskrit or Malayalam names of specific rituals.
Users complete the booking by selecting the associated deity, adding beneficiary details, and providing shipping information if needed.
Design decision
The form is broken into clearly labelled groups rather than presented as one long scroll. This reduces performance load for elderly users and makes it easier to spot and correct mistakes before submitting.
Displays selected poojas in the cart, allowing users to review, update, and proceed to checkout.
Design decision
The cart acts as a deliberate review checkpoint before payment — a confirmation screen principle applied to a transactional context. Users see a full summary of what they are paying for, which reduces anxiety and accidental bookings, particularly for first-time users.
User Flow - Booking Priest Services
A guided booking flow that helps users choose the right pooja, find a suitable priest, and schedule rituals at home with clarity and confidence.
Flow diagram
Sreen flow
Hi-fi screen designs
Users can explore the available rituals and choose the one they wish to perform.
Design decision
The rituals list presents the ritual name and its purpose upfront. The two details users most often look for when choosing a ritual.
This helps users quickly understand what each ritual is meant for without needing to explore further. Additional details are revealed only after selecting a ritual, keeping the list clean and easy to scan.
This screen serves as the starting point of the priest booking flow, helping users confidently choose the right ritual before proceeding.
Everything you need to know before you book. The occasion, duration, and what the app provides (Pooja Materials).
Design decision
The ritual detail screen presents all essential information needed to make an informed decision in one place. It includes a visual reference, a clear explanation of the ritual’s purpose, what’s included in the pricing, and any preparations required beforehand.
The content is structured to answer common user questions upfront, while keeping the layout easy to read and digest. This helps users understand the ritual clearly and proceed with confidence in the booking flow.
Pick a date and confirm the address so the app displays the priests available.
Design decision
The scheduling screen captures the date, time, and venue upfront, the key details users need to confirm before booking a ritual.
These inputs are grouped and presented clearly to reduce confusion and make the process feel straightforward, especially for elderly users.
Contextual options, such as available time slots and venue selection, are revealed progressively based on user input, keeping the screen uncluttered. This structured approach helps users complete the scheduling step with confidence and minimal effort.
Browse priests who match the ritual and are free on the chosen date.
Design decision
The priest selection screen displays only the priests who are available for the chosen date and time, and who perform the selected ritual,ensuring relevance and reducing decision fatigue.
Key details are presented upfront to help users compare options quickly
By filtering and surfacing only suitable priests, the screen keeps the experience focused, making it easier for users to choose with confidence and proceed smoothly in the booking flow.
Displays selected pooja, date and venue, selected priest and payment summary before proceeding to payment.
Design decision
The booking summary screen brings together all the key details, including the selected ritual, date, time and venue, chosen priest, and payment information, in one place before proceeding to payment.
This allows users to quickly review and confirm their selections without navigating back through previous steps. The information is presented in a clear, structured format, helping users spot any errors easily while keeping the screen simple and reassuring.
This final checkpoint builds confidence and ensures users can proceed to payment with clarity and trust.
Impact
Temple Connect was shelved before launch due to business reasons outside the design scope. But the work itself left a strong impression.
Stakeholders responded positively to the overall design quality and the structured process behind it, from research through to hi-fi delivery. The end-to-end thinking was noted as a clear strength.
Multiple people highlighted how well the design understood its audience, particularly the attention given to elderly users and the diaspora. The cultural grounding of the visual language resonated strongly.
Beyond the core stakeholder team, the project received positive feedback from a wider audience, including designers, potential users, and community members who saw it as a meaningful and well-considered product concept.
Why the project was shelved
Temple Connect was shelved due to shifting business priorities and timing constraints. The stakeholders initially aimed to launch the app during the lockdown, but by the time the designs were finalized, restrictions had eased, reducing the urgency. As a result, the project was paused due to business and funding considerations, not because of any issues with the product or design, which had been positively validated.
If this project continued, here is what I would have done next
Contact
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