How we think about the world affects what we do, and design has a huge role to play here. The 'imaginaries' we have—the stories we tell ourselves about our lives and our ideas for the future, the language and metaphors we use, our mental models and mental imagery (all part of asking "How do we understand?") are becoming increasingly important as we become enmeshed in complex systems of technology and nature, from climate change to AI to social and political challenges at many scales.

Designers' work is affected by all of this, but designers also have a big opportunity to offer new perspectives and help change the way people think and understand. Design methods developed for doing user research around new products and services can be adapted to investigate bigger questions about human understanding, and complement research in social and cognitive sciences with a practical, experiential layer. Design can also help us go beyond characterizing what we have already, and actively develop and propose new ways to understand, and new ways to live, supporting people’s imagining and helping them conceive of new perspectives. In this talk, I'll explore these areas through practical examples drawing on my work, with colleagues, in Europe and the US tackling topics including energy use, design for behavior change, new kinds of interface, and helping people map their own mental health.