Alexa—the digital assistant by Amazon—has been spying on me.
My husband is a computer consultant who enjoys new tech, so I bought her for John as a birthday gift last November. Our kids expanded the gift at Christmas by adding a couple of Echos (to take Alexa to other rooms) and some devices to help her interface with other technology in our home.
It's a little surprising how quickly we've come to rely on her as part of our daily lives. When John and I cook dinner together, as he pours pasta into the boiling water, I call out, “Alexa, set a timer for 11 minutes” without even pausing my onion chopping.
As I gather my things to head out the door each morning, I ask Alexa for the weather. When I use the last battery from our stash, I shout, “Alexa, add batteries to my shopping list.” At bedtime, when I'm perfectly snuggled under the covers, I ask Alexa to turn on the white noise machine. And John commands—at the most random times, “Hey Alexa, tell us a joke.”
Earlier this week, someone in my office who knows I'm a fan of Alexa, sent me a link to the recent SNL sketch about the Amazon device. Later that evening as my friend and I were talking in my kitchen, I mentioned, “Hey Jenny, you should look up the Alexa Silver sketch on YouTube.”
Without missing a beat, Alexa interrupted, “I don't know about that.” (Which is a recurring quote from the sketch.)
Whoa.
AI-based assistants are developing rapidly
WIRED Magazine in a January 2017 article reports, “In the year or so since Amazon opened the Alexa developer kit, no end of companies have integrated simple voice commands into their products.” Amazon reported at CES that the smart speaker has over 7,000 skills—including the ability to order pizza. This is just the beginning.
Alexa, Siri, Cortana and the other virtual assistants that the digital world supplies are astonishingly capable. They make things easier. Not only do they replace the mouse and touchscreens we usually rely on to get information, they support us the same way a normal assistant would. They take notes, schedule appointments, remind us of things, they read us our texts aloud while we drive... Personal assistants—which were once available only to those who could afford to pay a salary—are now accessible digitally at a much lower price point.
What feels somewhat alarming to us is that this technology is surprisingly human. (And we've watched enough robots-taking-over-the-world science fiction movies to be a little alarmed by that.)
The real problem the technology shift is creating for churches
While an essay in “The Atlantic” proposes that AI will present a theological challenge for churches, the real challenge is much more practical.
People are becoming used to a level of efficiency and responsiveness that most not-for-profit organizations aren't used to delivering.
The easier the interactions with our technology become, the more difficult it is for us to navigate interactions that are slow, bureaucratic or inefficient. This isn't just a problem for churches. This is a challenge for every storefront, workplace, entertainment venue and service organization.
There is a massive culture shift toward speed, shared control and accessibility.
And the digital world is delivering. Rapidly.
Software creators rely on user experience designers (UX Designers) to make their tech friendly and easy to use. They are the ones who inject the banter that make the digital assistants enjoyable. (Try asking Siri, “what is zero divided by zero?” or Cortana, “what does the fox say?” Ask Alexa to sing you a song.)
Experience design takes technology from something that is cold and impersonal and makes it connect at a deeper level.
What if our organizations could do the same?
Three connection points where churches can benefit from applying UX design.
1. Giving.
My friend, Jenny, (the same one in my kitchen) told me of a sad story where a lack of thinking about the “user experience” had disheartening consequences. When her church launched a capital campaign, she and her husband were excited to participate. They made a commitment that was commensurate with their income. But Jenny's husband was laid off that summer. They fell behind—not just in their payments to the church, but everything. Jenny came home discouraged one day to a stack of bills in the mailbox. Her eyes lit up at the church letterhead. She needed the encouragement. Instead, there was a bill for the unpaid balance on their commitment to the capital campaign. Jenny burst into tears.
The church had an automated system for sending out these types of letters. Efficient, right? The problem is, that they didn't think about what the experience might be on the other side in receiving them. They had a chance to get it right when Jenny reached out to them by phone, but unfortunately the automated voice mail system and slow response in returning the call left her feeling like the church didn't care at all.
How might the church have designed a better experience? Well, maybe by not formatting the letter as an invoice. Or by shifting the copy of the letter to gratitude for what had been given rather than expectation on what had not. Or by calling people rather than relying on a form letter. The person who signed the letter could have included a cell number for quick access to a real person. My guess is that the church didn't have the conversation about the experience when they sent the invoices—which gave them the unfortunate role of looking like a collections house.
2. Volunteering.
When is the last time you asked yourself what keeps people from volunteering? It's easy to assign bad intent—laziness or lack of commitment—but what if that isn't the case?
Tools like Planning Center Online and Ministry Scheduler Pro make it easy for churches to make requests of people, and even for people to respond, but it's often the actual experience that people have volunteering that makes the difference in how often they want to come back and do it again.
When I had the opportunity to interview Debbie Carapiet of Bayside Church in Granite Bay, CA about their café ministry—a ministry that runs solely with a staff of volunteers—Debbie responded that her work had nothing to do with coffee at all. “You have to understand, I didn't know anything about coffee—I drink decaf—but I do know about people. My job was to make sure people were trained and that they had ownership, then to make sure the volunteers were well cared for.”
Part of Debbie's “experience design” is to connect people on the same schedule so that they become friends over time. For her, the mission isn't about serving coffee, it's about connecting people in friendship—in which coffee can play a role.
Want to improve your volunteer experience? Try a little UX research.
While you can call volunteers about why they've dropped out, chances are they won't be candid. Most will just say they are busy. So, what if you put yourself in their shoes? Find a church similar to your own and volunteer at a low-level role for a few weeks. It can give you fresh eyes and add perspective.
You can also pull together a few people to brainstorm what the experience is like from your volunteers' point of view. What's it like to work 50+ hours a week at a day job, have a family at home then serve on a Sunday morning? Or what's it like to be a student chasing a degree? What does that student want to learn? Or what's it like to be retired? What does a retired person need out of the experience? Shifting the conversation from what the church needs to what the volunteers need can have big payoffs in experience strategy.
3. Communications.
It isn't just that digital assistants like Alexa are helpful. We actually like them. They are friendly. And that is by design.
The banter that makes them fun to interact with is why we talk with them when we don't actually need anything. It's why we prompt each other: “Ooooh. Ask Siri why the chicken crossed the road!”
What in your church's communications could be made more enjoyable? Not cheezy. There are enough Instagram feeds detailing bad church signs to not repeat those mistakes. But what would make it more lighthearted?
Proofing your church communications with an eye on EQ—the emotions they generate—can improve your ability to connect. And while that may seem daunting when we have deadlines to get things out the door, taking another read just might make someone smile when they get your e-mail or visit your website.
Which is what the good UX designers have tried to achieve all along.
Where does the conversation go next?
Expect larger churches who are producing their own apps to begin designing for the voice activated systems. The Bible App has been available on Amazon Echo since 2015. It allows you to ask Alexa for the Verse of the Day.
Don't be surprised if churches start employing their own UX designers to create what happens next.
