"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 experience begins with understanding the user. But our world is still full of generic software written "for everyone." The way to fight past our current state is to pay attention to what comes before ideas, and to pay attention to people before they even become a potential user. It's not about generating ideas. It's about understanding the purposes of different people.In this talk, Indi will outline methods for approaching this problem space with empathy and demonstrate techniques to explore problems and bring creative solutions, taking what can be a touchy-feely topic and breaking it down into something tangible, understandable, and actionable.