What if the most honest things your users have to say are the ones they never say to you directly?

In Open Source UX, we step beyond the wireframe, beyond the lab, and beyond the product itself—into the open, unfiltered world where users actually live. This is a book about listening where most designers don’t. It’s about transforming UX research through the overlooked power of OSINT: Open Source Intelligence.

Rooted in the rigor of intelligence gathering and the presence of mindful design, OSINT reshapes what it means to understand users—not by asking them questions, but by observing their realities.

This is not about surveillance.
This is about compassionate insight at scale.
This is about gathering data not to exploit, but to empathize.
This is about discovering how to see users in the wild—in their own words, their own frustrations, their digital communities, their anonymous outcries and unspoken patterns.

OSINT is not surveillance. It is awareness. It is mindfulness in data form.
It is the sacred art of watching with compassion, collecting with consent, and drawing insight from what users say when they believe no one is listening.

Open Source UX is not another manual of methods. It is a field guide for those who want to design with eyes open and hearts attuned.

Open Source UX offers a new vision of design—a practice where clarity rises from chaos, and relevance emerges from resonance.

For designers, strategists, and researchers who know that empathy doesn’t end at the edges of a screen.

It begins where our tools usually stop.

Whether you’re building platforms for veterans, mapping journeys through healthcare systems, or designing for trust in a disinformation age, this book will help you see beyond your assumptions—into the radiant complexity of real human behavior.

If you've ever felt that user research was too thin…
If you've ever known there was more happening beneath the surface…
If you've ever wished for a way to bring clarity and conscience together—

This is your book.

Open Source UX doesn’t just teach you to design better.
It teaches you to see differently.
To draw your own Enso—your own moment of clarity—
and design from the stillness it reveals.

More Than a UX Book

Open Source UX is a call to reimagine what research can be:
Alive. Honest. Unfiltered. Whole.

If you’ve ever sensed there’s more happening beyond the edge of your product…
If you’ve ever wanted to design from a deeper truth…
If you believe research is not just about asking questions, but learning how to see—

This book is your circle.
This is your brushstroke.
This is the moment design transforms into something larger.

Eric Infanti