I’ve been making my way through This is Learning Experience Design by Niels Floor, and I came across this passage the other day. It reminded me of an important leadership principle around how we decide whom to program for and how. I’m starting to think about the fall and planning for a new season of ministry, and Niels’ passage today was a good reminder.
“In the case of interaction design, you spend a lot of time worrying about things such as navigational structures, information architecture, feedback, and visual aspects like color schemes, font sizes, and layout. A user doesn’t care about any of this. They are interested only in reaching their goals and getting to a desirable outcome. The catch here is that it’s just so easy and seductive to think you know better, and you’re doing the user a service by deciding what’s best for them.” — This is Learning Experience Design by Niels Floor
In my blog post Programming for Self is a Part for One, I make the case, as Niels Floor does, that it’s “seductive to think you know better.” In leadership, we lead a group of people, plan events, create training, etc., all the time—but often we use ourselves as the lens by which we measure success or failure, or we see ourselves as the target audience.
But the reality is this: we are not the target audience. Our staff, volunteers, students, kids, parents, or church community are—and we need to create with them in mind. I have called this “programming for self,” and it’s really easy to do without even realizing it. Niels is writing from the context of creating amazing learning experiences, and he challenges the reader in this section to find a way to get as close to your target audience as possible—to understand and design with the learner in mind.
Bring It Together
I’m not sure when you will be reading this, but slow down enough to ask the question: Am I programming for self? Have I fallen into the seduction of thinking I know better? If your answer, like mine was, is yes… then you need to get to the source—and the target audience—because the only cure is to invite more people into the process.
Fresh Challenge
Here are three things you can do this week to avoid programming for self:
- Invite others into the conversation who will use or benefit from the work you’re doing. Think of them as a focus group.
- Have a brainstorming session where anything and everything is on the table. Don’t worry about limitations or problem-solving—just focus on creating piles of ideas.
- Book some one-on-one or small group time with key team members and let them tell you about their experience.
Fresh Ministry Consulting 