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      • Course 1. Listening Deeply
      • Course 2. Concepts & Summaries (analysis part one)
      • Course 3. Cultivating Patterns (analysis part two)
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      • Course 6. Framing Your Study
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Essays & Recordings

Essays & Recordings

ESSAYS
TALKS
OTHER RECORDINGS
PUBLISHED ARTICLES
CONTRIBUTIONS
COMICS
FEATURED ARTICLES

Essays

Read more on Medium

A Team that Is Switched On

what does non-hierarchical collaboration look like?

Sep 25, 2020 / Read More

How to Wield Empathy

This is what I mean by empathy. I tried thinking like Daren would think.

Aug 25, 2020 / Read More

Generating Focused Ideas Through Practical Empathy

Building awareness of cognitive bias, and solving for it with thinking styles and problem space research

Aug 24, 2020 / Read More

Remote Collaboration Tips

Time travel with me back to 2003, and discover the through-line.

Aug 24, 2020 / Read More

Whose Voice?

About those “well meaning” notifications …

Aug 24, 2020 / Read More

Research Tips

Questions I often hear during workshops that I teach

Aug 22, 2020 / Read More

Framing a Study

use a person’s purpose to frame problem space studies

Aug 14, 2020 / Read More

Eavesdropping

four exercises to practice your active listening skills

Aug 13, 2020 / Read More

Yes to Problem Space Research

organizations are starving for knowledge, and they think everything is fine

Aug 08, 2020 / Read More

Watch past talks

Events archive . Watch more on Youtube

7-Dec-20 HMRC Home Office Conference
People, Purposes, Patterns & Problem Space
How can your org go deep? How can it find 1000 more opportunities to support by studying the patterns that come from people's inner thinking as they pursue...
TRANSCRIPT
3-Dec-20 UX Alliance Masterclass Conference Conference
Keynote: The Courage to Understand People Deeply
[Note: slide at minut 20 has typo ... the outer ring is "solution space"] When we set out to create solutions for people, we often believe we know what the...
TRANSCRIPT
16-Oct-20 IxDA SF Workshop
Listening Deeply - Understand People Before Solving Problems
(1st of 4 classes on Listening Deeply. See the Course List for more.) Empathy is not about trying to solve the problem, but trying to understand the person. In...
TRANSCRIPT
11-Mar-20 Design for Digital Conference
Closing Keynote: Paying Better Attention to the Problem
“The idea is the place to start.” “Fall in Love with the problem.” “Get out of the building.” Our practice knows the foundation of a well-deserved...
TRANSCRIPT
24-Feb-20 Apex Webinar Webinar
Paying Better Attention to the Problem
(recording is free but requires sign-up at Apex) Design Thinking begins with empathy. JTBD focuses on what a customer wants to accomplish. Both of these...
TRANSCRIPT
12-Dec-19 Rosenfeld Media: Advancing Research Webinar
Paying Better Attention to the Problem
In tech culture, everyone is hell-bent on coming up with answers and solutions. We all assume we know what the person’s problem is; rarely does tech culture...
TRANSCRIPT
 

Listen to other recordings

Events archive

Podcast
16-Dec-20 UX Radio
Podcast episode chat with hosts Lara & Chris and Indi as the guest.
A chat about purpose, problem space, patterns, and thinking styles.
TRANSCRIPT
Interview
8-Oct-20 Orange County UX
Monthly Meeting: AMA with Indi Young
Join us for a chat with the warm and engaging Indi Young who may touch on cognitive empathy, listening deeply, mental model diagrams and investigating the...
TRANSCRIPT
Podcast
18-Aug-20 We Get Real AF
A Session On Empathy, Cognitive Bias, & Listening in an Overstimulated World
Season 1 Episode 13: Indi is an independent qualitative data scientist who provides organizations solid data to guide product design strategy and spark...
TRANSCRIPT
Podcast
5-Aug-20 Superhelpful
Indi Young on problem-space research for cultural organizations
Talking to the museum folks about deep understanding
TRANSCRIPT
Podcast
17-Jun-20 UX Broadcast "Live With Lee"
Can Empathy Be Taught?
Joe Sokhol and Lee had a conversation about empathy in the episode prior, so they bring Indi on to answer the question, "Can empathy be taught?"
TRANSCRIPT
Interview
10-Jun-20 24 Hours of UX
Indi Young & Brian Sullivan Fireside Chat
A grassroots UX extravaganza on June 10th 2020: An ask-me-anything session exploring mental model diagrams, practical empathy, and opportunity research.
TRANSCRIPT
 

Published articles

Removing Bias from Your Solutions

Jan-2021 – User Research Explained, A Charity Collection of Essays for Pandemic Relief;


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Launching Problem Space Research

Jan-2018 – Interactions Jan-Feb 2018 XXV.1, page 66;


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PDF

Look at It Another Way

Sept-2008 – A List Apart, issue 267, September 09, 2008


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When You Listen, What Are You Thinking

Nov-2019 – Design Management Institute dmi:Review “Innovative Thinking on Diversity & Inclusion,” Vol. 30, Issue 3, November 2019, page 22;


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PDF

Product Strategy: Clinging to Assumptions

Jan-2016 – Interactions May-June 2016 XXIII.3, page 66;


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PDF

Intelligence vs. Understanding

Sept-2008- Scroll Magazine, inaugural edition, September 2008


PDF

Contributions

3 Ways to Select the Perfect Method for your Research Goal

Dec-2014 – UXmas – Advent Calendar for UX folk


Read article

UX Design for Startups – Foreword by Indi Young

Jan-2013 – UX Design for Startups by Marcin Treder;


PDF

The Squabble Over Personas

Dec-2013 – UXmas – Advent Calendar for UX folk;


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The Cast of Personas

July-2012 – Johnny Holland


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Comics

Developing valid personas

Created by Indi Young & Brad Colbow

This comic introduces the basics of creating behavioral audience segments. The examples shown in this comic are labeled as roles by accident, so ignore that. .


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Mental Model Diagrams Cartoon

Created by Indi Young & Brad Colbow

Designers focus on the details of experiences–flow, layout, connection to other channels, tone of voice, etc. The goal is to be as “user-aware” as possible, yet there are different kinds of users. How can you support them more completely? For that matter, how can you support even one segment of users in a manner that aligns with their inner thinking?


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Featured Articles

Designing with Mental Model Diagrams – An Introduction

by Tiago Camacho and Leah Connolly

Understanding people and what they’re trying to achieve is a key part of a solid design process. Mental model diagrams are a powerful way to achieve this, as they help you map people’s experiences in-depth and in a scalable way.


Read more

Building Mental Model Diagrams

by Tiago Camacho and Leah Connolly

In our previous article, we introduced mental model diagrams, some of the theory behind them, and the kind of value we believe they offer organisations. In this more hands-on article, we’ll take you through our process of collaboratively building a comprehensive mental model diagram.


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How I apply Indi Young’s problem space research approach in coaching my mentees

by Pei Ling Chin

Understand your mentees deeper and go beyond ‘what went well’ and ‘what went wrong’.


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How I apply Indi Young’s problem space research approach in coaching my mentees (slideshow)

by Pei Ling Chin

It almost sounds silly to attend a talk on listening, because surely we know how to listen. But do we, really? I discovered during and after this talk that a lot of team issues can be resolved if only teams learn to develop empathy, and empathy can only be developed through listening deeply.


Read more

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