14 DAY TRIAL // Salah, the official prayer of the Islam, must be practiced by each adept of the religion five times per day, in prostration to Allah. Regularly, the prayers are done at dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset and nightfall, and missing them is considered to be a sin. They are also compulsory to all those who have reached puberty and are Muslims and of sound mind. For this very population segment, experts at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed the Sun Dial application, which lets users know when it's time to pray throughout the day.
Though it's doubtful that fundamentalist Muslims would ever use the application, or even the mobile phone for that matter, the researchers at the GIT have produced it on account of the fact that there are numerous religious people throughout the world, of various creeds, who purchase more and more technology, and especially mobile devices, to help them organize their daily lives even better.
The market for this type of applications has not yet formed in a true sense, but the GIT team is taking a proactive approach to the matter.
“We have to understand religion because it's such a central part of peoples lives. Efficiency and productivity tend to be driving forces when designing technology for offices, but these are not as central when designing applications for the home or religious settings. Why would you design a device that makes someone pray faster?” GIT College of Computing and GVU Center doctoral candidate Susan Wyche explained the invention.
“Unlike similar systems, ours relies on graphics rather than text and graphs to communicate prayer times. Users drove this choice by telling us that tracking the sun was the most religiously valued method to determine prayer times. Sun Dial provided more than functionality or a prompt to the prayer times; it also contributed to users' religious experience by reminding them they were part of a larger community. More broadly, carefully considering imagery is important when developing mobile phone applications, particularly ones that support personal and emotional activities, which may be sacred or secular,” she added.
The Sun Dial system is clearly visible on the screen of the mobile phone, and the times for prayers are highlighted through little green rings. An image of the Sun appears on the display as well and gently moves from one end to the other over the day. Whenever it passes through a circle, when the time for a specific prayer has come, the screen changes and an audible alert is played. The process then repeats five times during the day, in moments that coincide with the time of the area people owing the phone are living in.