We have a new product coming out (sorry for the shameless self promotion!) and it was a doozy to design. I thought you might like to read what we learned from making it:

One day, during one of my meditations, I had a hair-brain notion of making cards that help people think about spiritual subjects. Well, it just so happens that I work for a company that already designs cards with prompts; perfect! I messaged one of the company’s founders, Sam, to ask if he thought this would be a good idea. It turned out he had already been thinking about doing something along the lines of spirituality, even more perfect! I can’t speak for the others, but my vision of the product was to invoke deep thinking for an individual or deep discussion for a group. The kind of thinking/discussion that may not organically happen but would lead to enriching conversation nonetheless. 

So with this in mind, we moved on to the design process. We each (Decker, Sam, and I) came up with our spirituality-based prompts. My conception of spirituality is fairly definite and fleshed out. I attend a consciousness-based university and study topics relating to consciousness and meditation, so this stuff was right up my alley. However, we faced a conflict when it came time to share what we each had written. What felt spiritual to one person could not easily be labeled as spiritual to another. Questions were posed from one creator to the other along the lines of “How does this connect to spirituality?”

Perhaps the more significant issue is this: if spirituality is felt rather than strictly defined, how do you explain why something is spiritually meaningful to you? With no strict definitions of “spiritual,” how are spiritual ideas conveyed from one person to the other? If they are, do they lose some of their meaning? Typically, one may not be faced with the task of defending or explaining their beliefs to another person; however, in our situation, with a product to design, we had to develop some justification for each of our prompts. This is in consideration of the audience. If one of us was confused about the connection between a prompt and spirituality, the audience would also likely be confused.

So we had to compromise. We kept what we could justify and removed what we couldn’t. We loosely defined spirituality as a connection to something greater than yourself. With this relatively broad definition, we had room to include different religious and spiritual traditions but also had to be mindful of not getting too keyed in or specific to one tradition. In designing the product, we experienced what we hope to create for users of the product: trying to respect one’s relationship with their spirituality while also trying to understand it. Being inquisitive about another person’s personal beliefs can be a very enriching experience that can empower your beliefs. However, it is also crucial to respect their connection to those beliefs and not overstep.

We hope to inspire deep, difficult, respectful conversations with our new Conversation Cards about Spirituality. The kind that can be informative about other people’s spiritual belief systems but that can also deepen your own personal connection to your belief systems. I like to think that a world with an openness to others’ definition of, and relationship to, spirituality is a world that is much closer to harmony. – Dylan