New Design for iPad, iPhone, and iOS 12 📱

James O'Connell

Im a long time Logos user and now use Logos mostly on my iPad like everything else. I’m an app dev so I’m sympathetic to the challenge in bringing robust features to iOS.  I’d love to see us rethink our Navigation in iOS.

What I like is full screen and easy reading. That’s after all half of why we use Logos. I also like the easy way to get into my go to Bible translation. I like the library sorting and viewing options  

Whats a challenge for me is the home screen slide up and done to close option.  The tab bar buttons confuse me at times, although I understand the challenge to depict icons that are all similar objects. The long menu is overloaded. The tab style browsing is not fluid and limited. The in app menu tools are also challenging.  

Id recommend moving your menu to the top left as a box button of the Logos icon that expands out horizontally when in portrait and vertical when in landscape. I’d add text to your icons to help differentiate between the similar objects such as Bible and Library. The menu should offer BIBLE, TOOLS, LIBRARY, NEWS, SEARCH, MORE. Bible would open your default translation. Tools would open your tools like passage guide, topic guide and some of our other tools like prayer, sermons, etc. I exploit the width and depth of our tools here by visually connecting the tools. For example, add the sermon editor, proclaim, presentations, and info from your home screen. Collecting the study tools together and the personal growth tools together can help us get to the purpose of our app use faster and encourage broader app feature utilization. For Library I would add the ability to add books to collections like in Kindle. I would also add a top shelf for favorites and unread Books. I would make the top two rows scrolling horizontally and the the whole screen scrolling up, similar to iTunes and Netflix. With that in mind, that’s a great place to feature new books. I think you would easily see a jump in adhoc book sales. For the NEWS feature, I’d merge your store and news or home page. Search should have the option to search Bible, Library instead of Basic, and Store. Last, under MORE I would lead with Groups but rename it Logos Universe and include your app collection with Faithlife apps. I would present all the tools under the categories of Study, Personal (prayers, reading list, etc.),  myLogos (feature showing my total library size vs. downloaded content) highlights, notes, docs, favorite, etc. and Help with settings, help, etc. 

Specifically for the guides and using opened library assets and tools, I’d love to see some portioned screen spacesl each zoom able to the full screen. At the top (portrait) or left (landscape) I’d add an sub menu of the passage guide or tool or resource. This would be important to give the user a reference point for what they have opened and yet to explore. I would picture expanding, angled blades that adjust to whats opened. Imagine a submenu that shows each category of the tool (Bibles, Commentaries, Parallel, etc.). When tapped, a slide out shows the available items. Unopened categories and items would be colored and bold. Viewed categories and items would be gray and regular font. For the main screen layout, I would create three stacked frames (portrait) or a top frame and a second row with two frames (landscape). Pinching in, in any window would go full screen and offer font viewing options like font size and night mode. Pinching out any full window would reoreint the screen to the split view. I’d add an edit icon in the corner of each frame to pick a different resource. I would not make the frames adjustable to keep from accidental adjustment. 

I have some some ideas for new tools, but I wanted to present a concept of a new UX. Perhaps one idea that goes with this UX would be a SERMON BIN. While a user is studying they could add copied material to their Sermon Bin.  I would attach a music stand icon in the top right of the screen. Items dumped to the Sermon Bin would be copied to a blank note. When the user taps on the Sermon Bin icon, a slide out menu would offer OPEN or ADD. Tapping add would open a pop up to type a quick note for a quick note or a paste button for material copied outside of the Logos app. Opening the app would display the collection of notes and copied items for the user to edit, arrange, create slides, create notes, and use the other toolsin your Sermon tool.

I would also shift from calling things tools to apps. This will allow us to graphicalply layout our tools in a way thats more native. This will also increase the perceived power and function of each tool. Last, it will expand your ability to share your other Faithlife apps in the Logos “platform” as integrated extensions of our ministry. 

I hope this helps. Please read with an encouraging tone to move from a great product to a greater product,  not a criticism. I’m happy to discuss these items further or create wire frames. My team always needs to see wireframes.