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A complete rebrand and end-to-end redesign of a live consumer app with paying users , built for serious Muslims who want nikkah, not endless swiping.
See it live on the App Store →
Sunnah Match is a Muslim marriage app for practicing Muslims who value faith, family, and long-term commitment. Unlike mainstream dating apps designed around swiping and instant gratification, Sunnah Match is designed around intention — every interaction is built to lead toward nikkah.
The product had been live since 2021 with an existing paying user base. By late 2023 it had outgrown its original interface. The visual identity didn't match the seriousness of the product, the UX was inconsistent, and several core features — chat, profile, filters, monetization — needed to be reimagined for a more mature audience and a more global one.
I joined as Lead Designer in November 2023 to rebrand the product, redesign the app end-to-end, and ship new features alongside the founders and engineering team.
Redesigning a live consumer product with paying subscribers is one of the harder problems in mobile design. You can't ship something disruptive — every change has consequences for users mid-conversation, mid-subscription, mid-relationship.
The constraints shaped the work:
→ A live app with active users — every redesign decision had to respect existing mental models while elevating the experience
→ Subscription-driven business — design changes had real revenue implications; the new UI had to convert as well or better than the old one
→ Faith-specific design constraints — every interaction had to feel halal, respectful, and aligned with Islamic principles
→ Multi-region, multi-cultural users — practicing Muslims across the UK, USA, Canada, UAE, Saudi Arabia, with different norms and expectations of digital products
→ A small team — solo designer, founders, engineering. No researcher, no PM. Every decision had to be reasoned through and owned
End-to-end ownership of design at Sunnah Match from November 2023 onward:
The first design principle: every interaction should feel deliberate. No infinite swipe. No algorithmic feed. No notifications designed to pull users back. Sunnah Match's UX is built to help users find someone and leave — the opposite of most consumer app patterns.
This shaped everything from the home screen to how requests work to how chat is structured.
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The Sunnah Match onboarding is 25+ steps. Most designers would cut this down. I argued for keeping it long.
Why: serious users want to be asked serious questions. The depth of the questionnaire signals respect for the user's intentions. Each screen carries one decision, with culturally specific copy — like prayer frequency options written with terms only practicing Muslims would recognize ("Regularly — pray 5 times always", "Rarely — pray when I can").
The onboarding closes on "BarakAllahufeek" — a moment of religious blessing rather than a generic "You're done!" screen.
Most matchmaking apps lead with photos because photos drive swipes. Sunnah Match leads with deen and values because that's what its users actually care about.
The profile system I designed is structured across six categories: Basic info, My Life, Relationship, My Islam, Appearance, and Interests — in that order. Photos are supporting context, not the lead. Each category is shown with a progress state, and a "profile strength" meter that gamifies completion without manipulating users.
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When I designed chat, it wasn't just a messaging feature. It's designed within the constraints of Islamic conduct — time-limited conversations that lead toward marriage rather than drift into casual exchange, with structure and tone that respect Islamic principles without policing users.
Limited monthly requests. Expiring match windows. Subscription gating. Each of these is friction that would hurt a traditional dating app — but for serious users, the friction is the feature. It signals: this app is for people who are committed.
The design challenge was making friction feel like care, not constraint. Every limit is paired with a value reason: "5 requests a month" sits next to "Request profiles that catch your eye" — framing scarcity as quality.
Most apps polish the happy path and ignore the rest. Sunnah Match's emotional stakes are too high for that. I designed every state:
Settings is the most underdesigned section in most apps. For Sunnah Match, it's where the most sensitive moments happen: deleting an account, hiding a profile, logging out, ending a journey.
I redesigned this with care:
Most apps make leaving painful. Sunnah Match makes leaving dignified.
Sunnah Match's users are making one of the highest-stakes decisions of their lives. Motion design — through Lottie animations — became a tool for emotional pacing: slowing down moments that matter, softening rejections, celebrating connections with restraint rather than fanfare.
What I learned
The app runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro. Each context required different layout logic — but the brand, the principles, and the emotional tone had to feel continuous across all of them.
