Indi Young
@indiyoung.bsky.social
1.4K followers 190 following 930 posts
Data Science that Listens - indiyoung.com Book - Time to Listen indiyoung.com/books/ Systems thinking research for solutions that support human variety. (Fully human made posts & illustrations; no use of AI)
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indiyoung.bsky.social
Here's a narrated version of the diagram that shows where/when to make durable knowledge about people (cognition) versus the cyclical #UserResearch that comes in the team's build space.

📣 This is part of the introduction to my upcoming NEW COURSE on Thinking Styles. It's gonna be SO GOOD!
Where/when to make durable knowledge about people
YouTube video by Indi Young
youtu.be
indiyoung.bsky.social
Teams that are used to making "one tool" that is supposed to serve "everybody" are often surprised to learn that they have averaged things out too much. If they shift to building for Thinking Styles, more nuance and more experiences can exist within the solution.


Learn more:
3: Recognize Missing Audiences
indiyoung.com
indiyoung.bsky.social
Instead of ignoring existing solutions, let's them. We can align them with people's cognition and see the gaps in a mental model skyline.
indiyoung.bsky.social
(We all use tools that we wish were better. We've all had experiences that could have been smoother, or that outright ignored our own situation.)
indiyoung.bsky.social
Mending existing solutions is a key type of #innovation.
But we call it "maintenance," and we don't glorify it. Some orgs actually despise maintenance work. It's like we only want to work on new "things"... when new _ideas_ are what help us fill in the cracks of systems that we have already created.
indiyoung.bsky.social
- Mental model skylines help you see approaches
- Thinking styles help you see cognitive variety
- Help/harm sparklines show your team progress
- Good scores show the value each thinking style gets toward their purpose/goal


Get your tickets here:
🔗 www.uxmasterclass.com/get-your-tic...
Tickets | UXmasterclass 2025
www.uxmasterclass.com
indiyoung.bsky.social
You don't make "one solution to rule them all." You already know that you are supporting humans, not "a standard process."

So, how do you lead your organization to support a variety of people?
indiyoung.bsky.social
When your org is trying to create better outcomes for people, so that people can address their own purpose/intention/goal in a way that suits their thinking style, their approach, your team is already in the right mindset.
indiyoung.bsky.social
We can finally make many solutions out of one!

📢 I'm giving a keynote at #UX Masterclass in #Bengaluru 📅 10-Oct-2025
indiyoung.bsky.social
- A summary of a concept is what the person means, their key point, not what we interpret or think they mean.
- An affinity group is people's focus of mental attention, not what we think makes the groups hang together.
indiyoung.bsky.social
- There are 40-120 concepts in each listening session that are about the person's past inner thinking, emotional reactions, or personal rules as they addressed a specific goal or purpose they have been thinking about a lot.
indiyoung.bsky.social
Use emergent data synthesis when you are building durable knowledge about people you want to serve with your solutions. It is the way we build mental model skylines.
indiyoung.bsky.social
Emergent data synthesis is the opposite of top-down categorization or tagging. It helps us perserve the intention and meaning of what people communicated to us.
indiyoung.bsky.social
Variety is the key to better products, better solutions, better economics, better society. Variety adds strength. It adds beauty. It adds humanity. It can rehumanize our system.


Learn more about the value of variety:
🔗 indiyoung.com/explanations...
Explanations – Thinking Styles
indiyoung.com
indiyoung.bsky.social
Creating solutions for a variety of thinking styles, works not only for new innovative paths but also works really well for mending existing solutions.
indiyoung.bsky.social
Thinking style is something that organizations have not considered. When we can see thinking styles, we can create solutions with variety to support those thinking styles. (I'm not talking 100 thinking styles. I'm talking two. Or five or nine.)
indiyoung.bsky.social
(Ever had a roommate whose approach to doing laundry was different than your own? Did you try to show them the "right" way to do laundry? 😆 That was just your thinking style vs theirs. You both ended up with clean clothes to wear.)
indiyoung.bsky.social
When we see someone do something using a thinking style that varies from our own, sometimes we judge them. We judge their ability.
indiyoung.bsky.social
A person has a skill or ability, yes. But that person also has thinking styles when they are using that skill. Their thinking style might reflect past experiences or current circumstances.
indiyoung.bsky.social
- Mental model skylines help you see approaches
- Thinking styles help you see cognitive variety
- Help/harm sparklines show your team progress
- Good scores show the value each thinking style gets toward their purpose/goal


Get your tickets here:
🔗 www.uxmasterclass.com/get-your-tic...
Tickets | UXmasterclass 2025
www.uxmasterclass.com
indiyoung.bsky.social
You don't make "one solution to rule them all." You already know that you are supporting humans, not "a standard process."

So, how do you lead your organization to support a variety of people? 👇
indiyoung.bsky.social
When your org is trying to create better outcomes for people, so that people can address their own purpose/intention/goal in a way that suits their thinking style, their approach, your team is already in the right mindset.
indiyoung.bsky.social
We can finally make many solutions out of one!

📢 I'm giving a keynote at #UX Masterclass in #Bengaluru 📅 10-Oct-2025
indiyoung.bsky.social
This is data science that listens.

––
Get the "I SPY: Data Science that Listens" game here:
🔍 indiyoung.com/wp-content/u...
indiyoung.com
indiyoung.bsky.social
In contrast, it's known that when people report _behavior_ from the past they can mis-remember or edit to avoid shame, etc. There are studies in psychology that explain how the mis-remembering is because the brain does not tend to form a memory of actions that do not seem significant at the time.