Portfolio Case Study · UX / Product Design

Sriyam

Where ancient temples meet modern healing

UX Research Product Design Mobile App Cultural Tech Spiritual Wellness AI

A personal journey that began at a temple in Kanchipuram during a difficult season of life — and became a product that bridges spiritual heritage with daily mental wellbeing.

2025
Year Founded
Born from personal need, not a brief
380+
Hidden Temples Undocumented
Thousands of stories waiting to be told
1
Designer. Solo founder.
Every decision documented here
Scroll to read the story

● Introduction

Hear it from the designer

A 60-second walkthrough of what Sriyam is, why it exists, and what problem it solves — straight from the person who lived through the problem first.

● The Story

How Sriyam began

Every great product has a human story behind it. This one started not in a studio, but in a season of personal difficulty — and in the quiet presence of a 1,000-year-old temple.

01

Origin

Early 2025

● The Spark

A family crisis. A temple. A realisation.

In 2025, I was navigating serious personal family problems and needed something — not therapy, not productivity apps — just a quiet daily anchor for the mind. A spontaneous trip to Kanchipuram changed everything. The temples there weren't just architecture. They were full of life resonance — stories of discipline, surrender, patience, and faith that mapped perfectly onto modern struggles.

› Read more

The Emotional Need

  • Needed daily mental grounding
  • Existing apps felt clinical, not cultural
  • Wanted something rooted in identity

What Kanchipuram Showed Me

  • Every temple story mirrors a life lesson
  • Local knowledge was oral, scattered, dying
  • Google Maps showed locations, not meaning

The Designer's Eye

Standing in that courtyard, I saw a gap: emotional, cultural, and product-shaped. Not just a travel app. A daily companion with ancient wisdom at its core.

02

Research

Mid 2025

● Discovery

Travelling cities. Documenting hidden temples.

Before any wireframe was drawn, I travelled to cities across Tamil Nadu documenting hidden temples that don't appear on maps. Every story was recorded — the legend behind the deity, the life principle embedded in the ritual, the architecture's meaning. This wasn't desk research. It was immersive, personal fieldwork.

› Read more

Research Methods

  • On-ground temple visits
  • Interviews with priests & locals
  • Competitor audit (Google Maps, temple apps)
  • Surveys on spiritual app usage

Key Insights

  • Google Maps shows where, never why
  • Hidden temples = zero digital presence
  • Users want emotional resonance, not info dumps
  • Temple circuits are a proven pilgrimage model

The Gap Statement

"There is no product that connects the emotional depth of temple heritage with the daily wellness needs of modern urban Indians."

03

Business

Mid 2025

● Strategy

Defining the product model & revenue logic

With a clear problem, the next challenge was: how does this become a sustainable product? Key decisions were made about target audience, monetisation, content strategy, and what Sriyam would deliberately NOT be.

› Read more

Target Segment

  • Urban Indians 25–45
  • Spiritually curious, not dogmatic
  • Goal-oriented (health, discipline, finance)
  • Cultural identity seekers

Revenue Model

  • Freemium: 3 free temples/month
  • Premium: Unlimited + circuit planning
  • Poster downloads as soft paywall
  • B2B: Temple tourism boards

What We Chose NOT To Be

  • Not a travel booking app
  • Not a religious platform
  • Not another meditation app

04

Design

Late 2025

● Product Design

Designing the core experience loops

The core design question: how do you make someone feel connected to a 1,000-year-old temple from their apartment? The answer lay in three experience loops — the goal system, the daily temple insight, and the journal + poster reward mechanic.

› Read more

Core Feature Set

  • Goal selection (discipline/health/finance)
  • Day count commitment (7/21/40/108 days)
  • Daily temple insight + life resonance
  • Journaling with prompted reflection
  • Downloadable temple poster reward
  • Circuit planner for physical visits

Design Principles

  • Calm over stimulating
  • Depth over breadth
  • Ritual over habit
  • Story before information

Key Decision

Chose NOT to use push notifications. Instead, users set their own sacred time. This was informed by research showing notification fatigue in wellness apps.

05

Challenges

Throughout

● Pivots

What broke, what changed, what got cut

The honest part. Building a culturally sensitive product as a solo designer while navigating personal hardship meant several pivots — some painful, some liberating.

› Read more

Early Assumptions That Broke

  • "Users want all temples" → they want curated, emotional stories
  • "AR would be cool" → scope killed it in v1
  • Community feed → removed, too noisy

Hardest Decision

Cutting the social layer entirely. Early users loved comparing streaks. But it turned the app from sacred to competitive. Removed it to preserve the calm.

What It Taught Me

  • Constraints create clarity
  • Emotional products need emotional boundaries
  • The best UX decision is sometimes subtraction

06

Outcomes

2025–Present

● Results

What Sriyam became — and where it's going

From a personal coping mechanism to a designed product with a defined market, a tested feature set, and a clear cultural mission. The UI is built. The stories are documented. The next step is launch.

› Read more

What Exists Today

  • Full UI built using AI - Google Antigravity (React Based)
  • Temple content library — 40+ temples
  • Life resonance framework documented
  • Poster design system created

Validated By

  • User interviews with 12 target users
  • Prototype testing — 4 rounds
  • Positive response on circuit planning feature

If I Did This Again

I'd start with content, not features. The stories are the product. The app is just the delivery mechanism. I learned this 6 months in — not at the start.

● Problem Space

Three gaps nobody was filling

The existing landscape of temple apps, spiritual tools, and travel platforms all missed the same thing — emotional depth. Here's what Sriyam identified.

🗺️

The Discovery Gap

Google Maps shows temple locations but strips all meaning. Hidden temples — the ones with the richest stories — have zero digital presence. Pilgrims rely on word-of-mouth or deteriorating pamphlets.

🧠

The Emotional Gap

No product connects ancient temple narratives to modern daily struggles. There's no bridge between "Shiva's story of patience" and "I'm struggling with discipline this week." Sriyam builds that bridge.

📿

The Continuity Gap

Visiting a temple is a one-time spike of meaning. There's no tool to sustain that resonance daily, build a ritual around it, or plan a purposeful circuit across multiple temples over weeks.

● Research Documentation

Everything I found, documented.

This isn't a summary deck. These are the raw research documents compiled across field visits, user interviews, competitor audits, and content mapping — the full foundation that every product decision in Sriyam was built on.

🛕

Temple Field Notes

Stories, rituals, deity legends, and life resonance points documented across 380+ temples visited in person.

🎙️

User Interview Notes

12 interviews with target users — affinity mapping, pain points, and key insight clusters that shaped the product direction.

🔍

Competitor Audit

Teardowns of Google Maps, Shaivam.org, Headspace, and 6 other apps — feature mapping, UX gaps, and opportunity areas.

🗂️

Content & Resonance Framework

The mapping system that connects each temple's story to a specific life goal — the intellectual backbone of the entire product.

📋

Full Research Archive

View the complete research docs

All interview notes, field documentation, competitive analysis, and the content resonance framework — compiled and organised on Jigjam.

Open V1 Research Docs

Opens in Figjam · No login required · Version 1

● Product Flow

The core user journey

How a user goes from first open to daily ritual — the key screens and decision points in the Sriyam experience.

Onboarding

Set goal & days

Entry
Temple Match

AI matches temple to goal

Personalisation
Daily Insight

Temple story + resonance

Core Loop
Journal

Reflect & write

Engagement
Day Complete?

Streak check

Decision
Poster Reward

Download & share

Reward
Circuit Plan

Physical visit planner

Deepen

● Business Metrics

The numbers behind the product

Projected and validated metrics from user research, competitor benchmarking, and product assumptions — the business case for Sriyam.

380+
Temples Documented
With stories, resonance points & photos
12
User Interviews
Conducted in research phase
83%
Felt Emotional Connection
During prototype testing round 3
4
Prototype Rounds
Iterative testing with target users

● Product KPIs

These are our post-launch targets — not current numbers. Sriyam hasn't launched yet. These are the benchmarks we're designing toward, based on comparable wellness apps in the Indian market.

Daily Active Ritual 40%

Target by Month 3 after launch. This means 4 in 10 users open the app and complete their daily temple insight. Industry average for wellness apps is 20–25% — we're targeting above that because the ritual format creates a stronger daily habit than generic content feeds.

Journal Completion Rate 55%

Target by Month 2. Of users who read the daily insight, we expect 55% to also write a journal entry. The prompted reflection questions are designed to lower the barrier — you don't start from a blank page.

Poster Download Rate 30%

Target in Month 1, growing to 50% by Month 6. When a user finishes a goal cycle, they unlock a downloadable temple poster. If they download it, it signals real emotional investment — and drives organic word-of-mouth without any marketing spend.

Premium Conversion 8%

Conservative target for Month 1, growing to 15% by Month 6. Most freemium apps convert 2–5%. We're targeting higher because the premium paywall unlocks genuinely useful features — unlimited temples and circuit planning — not just an ad-free experience.

● Competitor Landscape

ProductDiscoveryEmotionalRitual
Google Maps ✓✗✗
Shaivam.org ✓✗✗
Headspace ✗✓✓
Sriyam ✦ ✓✓✓

● Design Decisions

Why it looks and feels the way it does

Every design choice in Sriyam was intentional — rooted in the emotional brief, validated by user feedback, and informed by cultural sensitivity.

01
Design Decision

No push notifications — ever

Users set their own sacred time. Research showed notification fatigue breaks the ritual quality of spiritual apps. Sriyam respects the user's intention, not the algorithm's agenda.

02
Design Decision

Goal-first, not temple-first

Counterintuitively, we don't start with "pick a temple." We start with "what are you working on in life?" This makes the product emotionally relevant before it becomes culturally interesting.

03
Design Decision

Poster as reward, not feature

The downloadable poster was almost a subscription feature. Testing showed it works better as an earned reward — it creates completion motivation and organic social sharing without any push.

04
Design Decision

Calm visual language over temple maximalism

Early mockups used traditional temple colours — loud, busy, ornate. Testing showed users wanted the app to feel like stepping into a temple, not looking at one. Muted tones, generous space, deliberate calm.

● Challenges & Pivots

The honest part

What broke, what got cut, and what forced a rethink. This is where the real learning lives.

01
→ Pivot

Community feed was removed entirely

Early users loved comparing streaks and sharing journal entries. But it turned a personal, sacred space into a performance arena. The app's emotional safety collapsed. We removed the social layer completely and user satisfaction scores jumped in the next round of testing.

02
→ Scope Cut

AR temple overlay was deferred to v2

The original vision included an AR layer where users could point their phone at any temple and see stories overlaid in real-time. Technically ambitious, beautifully aligned with the mission. But as a solo designer, it was scope that would have killed the launch. It's still on the roadmap.

03
→ Assumption Broken

"More temples = better" was wrong

The first prototype had 200+ temples to explore freely. Users felt overwhelmed and disengaged within 3 minutes. The pivot to a curated, goal-matched single daily temple completely changed retention signals. Constraint was the feature.

● Final Outcome

What Sriyam is today

"I started this project to heal myself. I ended up building something I believe can help thousands of people feel at home in their own culture again."
📱

MVP UI Built

Complete AI Generated prototype, initially build with Google Antigravity - ready for handoff and development.

🛕

Content Library

380+ temples documented with stories, resonance points, and original photography.

🗺️

Circuit Framework

A planner system for multi-temple journeys mapped to 7/21/48 day goal programs.