Finding faith in UX

This is a short article on how I made a correlation between faith and UX. I recently had a delightful chat with a religious man, and it dawned on me how close the journey of faith is to the journey of UX. Faith is described as:

'Complete trust or confidence in someone or something'

Which sounds very similar to one of the pillars of effective user experience. Complete trust or confidence. Definitions are better with contextual meaning, so let me dive in and share my correlation.

I mentioned to the Pastor that when I read stories of morals from the Holy Bible to my twin boys, I can't help but notice that many of the stories are really dark tales of death. Entire cities turned to salt, pestilence, floods, killing sons etc. I understand times were different back then, but are these stories confusing our boys understanding of good and bad?

His answer opened my eyes to the UX correlation. He said to me, "I agree that the stories told in isolation are confusing and dark in nature, but if you see them as a connected narrative that shows the reader a journey of faith, then the picture becomes clearer."

Mind = Blown

Much like single UI iterations, such as a button colour change, copy update or form input field can be confusing when seen in isolation, if you place it as a connected narrative that shows stakeholders the journey of user experience, then the picture and context becomes more clear.

There are so many moving parts to any experience, both in the digital or physical realm, and the advice I learnt from this chat is, to ensure clarity we need to connect the isolated experience with the bigger picture early on. Once you have a connection, you will be in a better place to deliver complete trust or confidence in someone or something.