Product Design · Publishing · Inclusive Planning
Ramadan Planner · Product Designer & Published Author
A planning product designed around the reality that motivation, attention and energy change across Ramadan. I used structure, colour, repetition and multiple planning formats so one missed routine would not make the whole system collapse.
The problem was not a lack of Ramadan information. It was making it usable every day.
The first planner began as an act of care for a close friend who had recently converted to Islam and was navigating Ramadan alone. The need was practical: fasting guidance, prayer, reflection and daily organisation existed in many places, but the experience of putting all of it together every day was fragmented.
I treated the planner like a product rather than a collection of pages. I worked through roughly ten iterations over three intensive days for the original version, repeatedly changing hierarchy, colour, page structure and the amount of information shown at once until the system felt usable rather than merely complete.
A core design principle was redundancy by design. If one organisation method did not stick, another one could. The planner combines goals, checklists, schedules, trackers, reflective prompts and visual cues so users can re enter the system from different points instead of feeling that a missed day means failure.
The emotional layer was just as deliberate. Daily check ins ask how the user feels rather than treating Ramadan as a perfect productivity challenge. Reminders are tied to the stage and experience of the fast, so the guidance feels context aware rather than like generic motivational copy pasted from the internet.
I owned the original product end to end, including the information architecture, illustrations, page layouts, content organisation and visual system. I also checked religious guidance with knowledgeable people around me because usability without trust or accuracy would have failed the user.
The digital planner spread organically and was later developed with Penguin Random House into a 208 page published title. During the publishing process I worked through design feedback while protecting the accessibility and neurodivergent friendly structure that made the original useful in the first place.
Read the Hyphen interview
View the Penguin author page
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Product decisions
Designed for different brains, not one perfect routine.
Multiple entry points
Goals, trackers, schedules, checklists and reflection prompts organise the same month in different ways so users can choose the structure that works that day.
Contextual content
Daily guidance follows the lived rhythm of fasting rather than serving generic reminders with no relationship to the day.
Emotional usability
Mood check ins create space for low energy and difficult days instead of designing only for the ideal user at peak motivation.
Iteration under constraint
Rapid early iteration established the core system quickly, then yearly revisions and the Penguin process refined it without losing the original accessibility intent.
Why I describe this as product design
The output happens to be a book, but the work is recognisably product work: a specific user problem, information architecture, interaction through repeated daily use, rapid iteration, inclusive design decisions, stakeholder feedback, content systems and a real shipped outcome.
The lesson I carry into digital product design is simple: a system is usable when it supports the person on an imperfect day, not only when they follow the intended journey exactly.