The challenge

Secular Totem is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the value of reason and science in a modern society.

Secular Totem wanted to create an iOS and WatchOS app supporting reason and science, supporting the latest Apple core technologies. It needed to provide a simple way to find inspirational quotations, biographies for philosophers, scientists, authors, and other influencers, a glossary, commentary, and more.

The WatchOS app needed to focus on quotations with abridged biography info, suitable for a quick glance on a tiny screen. And a Notification Center Today extension should likewise expose daily quotations with extended content.

All of this needed to provide a great user experience, with a modern user interface design.

Secular Totem

Industry

  • Non-profits

Project timeline

  • 6 months to MVP

Blue Sequoyah Technologies services

  • Bandwidth and traffic analysis
  • Github source code repository management
  • Native mobile app development
  • Rapid prototyping
  • Technical research, consulting
  • User experience strategy and design
  • User interface design

The result

The solution was a 64-bit native iOS app that hit all the marks. In addition to the core app features, we also implemented content favoriting, and content sharing through the iOS sharing sheet. The WatchOS app not only showed users the quote of the day with a photo and mini-biography, it also featured a "Next Quote" button allowing users to get lost in inspiration right on their Apple Watch. We also brought the Quote of the Day navigation feature to the Today extension.

A powerful, multi-threaded search was also added, allowing users to quickly find quotes, people, glossary items, or commentary. And to aid in content discovery, a "Recently Added" section was added to each tab, allowing users to see the newest content after an App Store update.

Summary

  • 64-bit native iOS app
  • Native WatchOS app
  • Notification Center Today extension
  • Multi-threaded search
  • Favoriting and sharing via the iOS sharing sheet

Technologies used