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Data science that listens

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Explanations

It’s not simple

Complex systems are beautiful. And powerful. They support all the players within the system.

Right now, our rules-based systems do not evolve nor flex to support everyone. Machine learning has no ethics. Big data only predicts big crowd behavior.

UX is created for individuals. Help your team shift their mindset to build complex systems in support of humans and the non-humans & environment.

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Why problem space? icon indicating that this link leads to a different page
What is purpose? icon indicating that this link leads to a different page
What are thinking styles? icon indicating that this link leads to a different page
Books
Talks
Podcasts
Opportunity Map

As a field, product creators have been trying to get organizations to focus on being human-centered. This effort has always struggled against business aims of more growth, more market, more “users,” or more profit each year. The two mindsets don’t mesh. Re-centering on people’s purposes is a way to actually serve these business goals. The opportunity map shows current gaps to fill in over the coming years. You can see gaps in how your solution supports people, by “tower” in the mental model diagram, by thinking style, and by lens (interior cognition caused by discrimination, physiology). You can benchmark these gaps by level of support (weak, good) or harm (mild, serious, severe, systemic), and going forward you can track improvements to your solutions in these benchmarks. Filling in gaps provides paths toward growth.

In a nutshell, the mindset shift is to move toward thinking as a person addressing a purpose.

There is a lot here. It’s powerful. It begins with listening deeply and developing cognitive empathy. Help your organization embrace ambiguity and treat humans as complex beings with agency.

the parts of a mental model diagram: like a city skyline there are towers, arranged into blocks, sometimes into neighborhoods. Each tower is made up of windows, which show what people said about their past inner thinking, emotional reactions, and guiding principles as they addressed a purpose. Thinking Styles can be layered on the windows, representing people's varied philosophic approaches to the purpose.

The opportunity map is laid out a bit like a city skyline. The city skyline is made up of towers with windows in them. Each window represents a summary of inner thinking or an emotional reaction, or a guiding principle (interior cognition) of people as they address their purpose. The patterns that form these towers emerge from qualitative data of listening sessions that were all framed by that same purpose.

(This is abductive research that shows the complex systems running through people’s minds as they address that purpose. Why abductive? Because it’s about understanding people addressing their purpose, not about understanding interactions with our solutions, not about generating new solution ideas. You will get there, but first you need this knowledge to be able to support a greater diversity of humans.)

The tower patterns often form into city blocks, and sometimes those city blocks form into neighborhoods. It depends upon the breadth and richness of what we are hearing in the listening sessions.

When patterns of thinking styles appear in the same data, then we can layer these thinking styles on top of the windows in the towers, allowing product strategists greater resolution into what parts of their solutions are intended for and successfully support different thinking style approaches to the purpose. This is also where you layer on lenses where interior cognition has been caused by ignorance or lack of intention in your solution, which results in discrimination and other harmful experiences.

The city skyline is also called the “mental model diagram” about that purpose.

Below the city skyline are the capabilities present in the solutions your organization has created. Aligning these capabilities beneath the towers forces your organization to see from a human perspective. The gaps, weaknesses, and unintentional harms that result are easy to identify.

The difficult part is prioritizing which of the different opportunities to provide better support are of importance to the organization right now. That is where product strategists and stakeholders can collaborate on initial direction and get started on the journey toward intentional human support. Of course, you and your stakeholders need to trust each other, first.

Books

Cover of the book "Time to Listen" with two people in cartoon sketch with a speech/thought bubble between them, with a dotted line to represent the thread of conversation (not all listening is audio format)

Time to Listen – 2022

Want to build more innovative, less biased products? Solutions that help, not harm? Start by making time to listen. “Time to Listen” is about how to use deep listening to begin healing the broken relationship between business and people.

The book is available from several channels: order a paperback through your local bookstore, purchase on Amazon (paperback or Kindle), or order other ebook formats on Draft2Digital.

Practical Empathy – 2015

Conventional product development focuses on the solution. Empathy is a mindset that focuses on people, helping you to understand their thinking patterns and perspectives. Practical Empathy will show you how to gather and compare these patterns to make better decisions, improve your strategy, and collaborate successfully.

Mental Models – 2008

There is no single methodology for creating the perfect product—but you can increase your odds. One of the best ways is to understand users’ reasons for doing things. Mental Models gives you the tools to help you grasp, and design for, those reasons. Adaptive Path co-founder Indi Young has written a roll-up-your-sleeves book for designers, managers, and anyone else interested in making design strategic, and successful.

Recent Presentations

Engagements Archive … More on YouTube
(you can search for transcripts noted in the archive)

20-Jun-24 UX Days Paris Presentation
Designing a Human Rhythm in a culture of infinite growth and productivity
We are witnessing a time of great upheaval. Geopolitics. Digital. Economical. Social. Everything is changing rapidly around us. At times this can seem scary....
TRANSCRIPT
21-May-24 BAInstanbul Conference Presentation
Listening Deeply: Supporting a Variety of Thinking Styles
This session promises to explore how organizations can go beyond incremental improvements to craft a strategic vision that significantly enhances user...
TRANSCRIPT
12-Jan-24 UXnow Delhi Presentation
Supporting a Variety of thinking Styles, via Listening Deeply
Product & service teams acknowledge the variety of humans in their market by describing them with big data. Big data reports who did what via a digital...
TRANSCRIPT
6-Jan-24 Empathy Center - Santa Barbara Presentation
Empathy Book Authors Summit
Authors of a book about empathy will have 10 minutes to share their motivation for writing their book and give an outline of what they covered in their book.
TRANSCRIPT
1-Sep-23 Front Conference Presentation
Measuring Value for People, via Listening Deeply
Ethics, harms, ecosystems, the planet, and the effect of dominating economic players–how can we address these through the work we do? The job we have? The...
TRANSCRIPT
11-Jul-23 BayCHI Presentation
There's More Than Enough in The Gaps
We want digital & design solutions to focus on and support people—the whole variety of people on our planet. And on our planet, too. Despite our growing...
TRANSCRIPT
 

Recent Guest Appearances on Shows

Engagements Archive

Interview
21-Jan-25 BTI
Episode #014: Indi Young – Data Science that Listens
Indi has redefined how we approach research by championing deep listening and cognitive empathy to understand users’ experiences truly.
TRANSCRIPT
Interview
3-Jan-25 Empathy in Tech
Data Science That Listens with Indi Young
Today on the show, we have Indi Young, who is known for data science that listens. Indi is a problem-discovery researcher who makes tools that support...
TRANSCRIPT
AMA
13-Dec-24 QRCA Qcast: Chat with Indi Young
Patterns in the Noise: The Art of Decoding Cognitive Context
In this thought-provoking talk, Indi will explore three paradigm-shifting reversals that challenge conventional wisdom in user research and cognitive...
TRANSCRIPT
Interview
23-Aug-24 The Ally Show
Healthy People for Healthy Products: The Art of Deep Listening
Ali chats with Indi Young about the impact of toxic work cultures on mental health and the need for broader protections in the workplace.
TRANSCRIPT
Interview
15-Jul-24 Fractional by Swarm
Creating Clarity Through Listening
In this episode of Fractional, we talk about how to conduct listening sessions, how to practice rapt attention, and how to unpack interior cognition to...
TRANSCRIPT
Interview
10-May-24 UXR Geeks
uxcon special: Deep Listening with Indi Young
Meet Indi Young, a renowned UX expert, as she joins host Tina Ličková to share details about her upcoming full-day workshop on “Listening Deeply.” Indi...
TRANSCRIPT
 

If you are curious, here is the story about the genesis of mental model diagrams, thinking styles, and opportunity maps.

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