{"id":13625,"date":"2018-05-24T14:18:25","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T18:18:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ben-sternke-live.prev17.rmkr.net\/?p=13625"},"modified":"2025-03-07T18:54:58","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T22:54:58","slug":"evangelism-ux-designer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gravitycommons.com\/es\/evangelism-ux-designer\/","title":{"rendered":"Try Doing Evangelism Like a UX Designer, Not an Engineer"},"content":{"rendered":"

I want to talk about evangelism: how we typically think the wrong way about it, and how to think about it differently. But first I need to tell you something about my coffee maker.<\/p>\n

My drip coffee maker at home has three settings:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Regular<\/li>\n
  2. 1-4 Cups<\/li>\n
  3. Bold<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I’ve made thousands of cups of coffee using this coffee make over the past several years, and my observation is that the \u201c1-4 Cups\u201d setting and the \u201cBold\u201d setting seem to do exactly the same thing.<\/p>\n

    Basically, both of those settings send the water through the coffee grounds a bit slower. This is a good thing to do when you have a small amount of coffee brew (1-4 Cups),\u00a0or<\/em>\u00a0when you want to extract a bit more flavor from the grounds (“Bold”).<\/p>\n

    It’s (probably) the same setting, but since there are two applications for the setting, it got listed as two different “settings.” So this got me thinking about the differences between engineers and user-experience (UX) designers.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    The difference between UX designers and engineers<\/h2>\n

    If my coffee maker indeed only has two settings (\u201cregular\u201d and \u201cslow\u201d), the engineer\u2019s<\/em> impulse would be to indicate there are only two settings, and label them as such. The engineer’s tendency is to\u00a0give the raw information, and let the\u00a0user sort out the various applications and implications of those settings.<\/p>\n

    The engineer thinks from the product\u2019s perspective, and trusts the user to discern and discover how to use the product (because most engineers think that everyone thinks like an engineer!).<\/p>\n

    However, the UX designer thinks in the opposite direction, from the user\u2019s experience back to the product.<\/strong> So a UX designer who knows that a slower-paced brew is good for both small amounts of coffee\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0for bolder-flavored coffee will create three<\/em> settings instead of two.<\/p>\n

    The engineer thinks, \u201cThere\u2019s only two settings,\u201d but the UX designer thinks, \u201cThere are three applications,\u201d thus making it easier for a user, who isn’t an engineer, and thus isn’t thinking about how fast the water is passing through her coffee grounds. She\u2019s thinking about how much coffee she wants to brew and how strong she wants it. This is why UX design is important.<\/p>\n

    Anyway, this got me thinking about evangelism. (Hang with me, we’re almost there.)<\/p>\n

    UX designer evangelism vs. engineer evangelism<\/h2>\n

    Too often I think we approach evangelism like engineers. We think that our job is to explain a theology of atonement, and hope that people can work out the implications and applications on their own\u2026 we think from the theology\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n

    But this isn\u2019t how Jesus did evangelism. To follow his lead, we need to learn to do evangelism like UX designers.<\/p>\n

    Instead of starting from the mechanics of how salvation works, we\u2019d be better off starting from the experience of the hearer, doing the work of discerning implications and applications so we can make those clear to people at the outset. Probably way before they understand anything about the theology of salvation or atonement.<\/p>\n

    Most people aren\u2019t walking around thinking, \u201cI sure feel alienated from God. I wonder how I\u2019ll ever be reconciled to him.\u201d No, they\u2019re thinking on a much different level, like,<\/p>\n