Learn Tarot

Why?

I developed an interest in the Tarot as part of my creative practice. I found it intimidating, with centuries of developed thought, interpretation, symbol and allusion. I soon found myself completely lost. I tried various books and websites and eventually landed on little red tarot. It found a good balance between accessibility and depth.

But using the website was distracting when I was trying to meditate and look inward. I'd need to find cards I need in a page of 72 links, open them all up as tabs, scroll down, and switch between them. When I was offline, on vacation or retreat, I couldn't access this useful resource.

Learn tarot makes all this knowledge from little red tarot quickly accessible in a single page optimized to find and read just the cards you need. No distractions so you can focus on your practice, and on your inner life. It's a single html file, allowing you to save and use it even when you are offline.

How does it work

• All the tarot cards are spread out before you in a horizontal scroll
• Type in your card in the search bar at the top of the screen, autocomplete will help you
• find the card you are looking for
• When found, the card will be pinned in front of you
• Simply type in additional cards to pin them too
• Tap on the header of a card to pin/unpin
• Draw three will draw three random cards for you
• Save the file to your computer to access this offline

What did I learn?

Working with the grain

I kept things as simple as I could, working with the grain of the web wherever I could. I used a simple search field with typeahead, built with minimal code by reusing the HTML spec [datalist elements?] that most browsers now support.

Basics of web "apps"

In addition, I simplified things even more by putting everything into a single html file. The user could simply save the file to their hard disk, and it would continue working offline. You can't beat that for simplicity of "installation".

To build practices, we need stability and simplicity

A core need for this tool was to help me build a ritual of reading the tarot. This needs simplicity, to keep my focus on my reflection. Web apps for all their accessibility advantages can also be frustrating because they foist change onto users, forcing them out of their rituals and practices. Keeping this as a HTML file that can be saved offline, allows the user to trust it to be stable.