I really enjoyed Sarah Doody’s article in UX Magazine called The Flâneur Approach to User Experience Design. Flâneur is a French word that means “to stroll.” Sarah explains:

The flâneur’s mind is always in a state of observation. He or she connects the dots through each experience and encounter that comes his or her way. The flâneur is in constant awe of his surroundings. In the article “In Search Of Serendipity” for The Economist’s Intelligent Life Magazine, Ian Leslie writes that a flâneur is someone who “wanders the streets with purpose, but without a map.”

In the world of product design and start ups, there’s growing pressure to focus prematurely on the solution, to connect the dots backward instead of forward, to design the system before you’ve addressed the story. But, as user experience designers, we know that our greatest purpose is to develop the most intimate understanding of the people we design for and the problems they’re facing. To do this, we must be flâneurs.

It’s really worth reading the whole article to see more of Sarah’s conclusions and advice.