Core members of Brooks’ design, marketing, merchandising, and development departments dove into the IDEO design process, collaborating side-by-side from day one. To uncover the role running played in people’s lives, we went on in-context interviews and shopalongs with “non-core runners” age 25-35 throughout the United States and Europe, a group that included new runners, lapsed runners, and people who run three or less times per week. Together, team members ran with various running groups, met with experts in analogous industries such as automotive design and fashion, and conducted “unfocus groups” where consumers were given a buffet of prototyping materials to build their perfect running shoe. The team learned that these runners wanted a simpler, more stripped down running experience, yet also wanted the reassurance of a credible, authentic, true-to-running shoe.

In May 2010, Balanced Body partnered with IDEO to update the Allegro design to appeal to a broader audience. The team discovered during user research that many people new to Pilates find existing reformers intimidating, so designers collaborated with Balance Body’s in-house engineering team to improve the user experience without compromising the reformer’s functionality. This was a quick-turnaround project; IDEO’s challenge was to maximize the reformer’s functionality while simplifying all the interaction points within eight weeks. The outcome was the invention of a metal frame that makes the Allegro more intuitive, flexible, and compact. The new Allegro frame also hides many of the necessary mechanical elements inside the reformer’s frame and carriage.

Additional improvements include:
• Greater functionality and adjustability of the footbar, ropes, and shoulder pads;
• Lower cost due to reduction in the number of wheels; and
• Creation of a seamless, easy-to-clean surface from body cushion to head cushion (nothing gets caught by the mechanism).

Balanced Body on the new Allegro frame: “The original Allegro Reformer is the most successful reformer ever made. We wanted to maintain our market lead and we had to do it right. The new Allegro Reformer reaffirms our reputation as the most innovative firm in our field. We believe it will appeal to new markets as well as our existing clientele.”

Sealy partnered with IDEO to bring Posturepedic into the 21st century by developing a new product that clearly delivered on the long-running promise of the brand. The design team set out to build upon Posturepedic’s heritage of health expertise, which began during the era of advertised endorsements and finishing schools. The first task was to sort out how back health has evolved culturally and professionally.

To this end, the design team explored holistic back health care, which is far more complex now than it was 60 years ago. In its early years, Posturepedic was endorsed by orthopedic surgeons, an emerging and cutting-edge specialty. Today, however, orthopedic physicians are the last people anyone wants to see: visiting a surgeon generally means one has severe back problems and needs surgery. In contrast to the early days, today’s consumers are far more proactive in their physical health—chiropractors, yoga trainers, massage therapists, and physical trainers have become part of people’s everyday lives. Recognizing this shift, the team brought this holistic evolution to the brand—and made sure that the mattress product itself had physically demonstrable benefits.

The resulting free app, released in July 2011, is available for download in the iTunes Store. On The New York Times ArtsBeat blog, Patricia Cohen wrote that the new app would “make it easier to navigate the smorgasbord of events and venues.” An enthusiastic iTunes reviewer from Easton, Pa. wrote, “I love it! I’ve been waiting for an easier, more intuitive way to find out what’s going on at Lincoln Center, and this app has it all.”

What made success possible in eight weeks was IDEO’s unique pairing of human-centered design and agile software development principles from project beginning to end. Through IDEO’s partnership with Pivotal Labs, a New York based software development firm, programmers and designers were able to work side-by-side from day one, enabling maximum efficiency.

For Oregon Manifest, the utility bike is the transportation mode of the future for millions of Americans who want to live healthier, more sustainable lives, but don’t think of themselves as cyclists. But the two-wheeled revolution, according to the organization, won’t come on the saddle of a race bike or a specialty bike — and that’s the challenge.

Read more about the Faraday here and cast your vote at OregonManifest.com/collaborations.

IDEO also had several INDEX finalists including Lars Hinrichs’ HackFwd, OpenIDEO and AskNature.org. Read more about the 2011 awards here.

To read more about IDEO’s prior work with the American Refugee Committee read here.

(PDF下载)

For more on the awards, read here.

Gold

• Bedsider for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy (Service Design)
• Long-Haul Travel Experience for Air New Zealand (Research)

Silver

• The Design for Giving Contest for Riverside School (Service Design)
• Long-Haul Travel Experience for Air New Zealand (Transportation)
• Redefining Self-Service Banking for BBVA Group (Commercial & Industrial Products)
• node Chair for Steelcase (Office & Productivity)
• ’Wounded Warriors’ for Clark Realty (Research)

Bronze

• Balloonimals iPhone app (Interactive Product Experiences)
• Bedsider for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy (Research)
• Bedsider for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy (Design Strategy)
• Long-Haul Travel Experience for Air New Zealand (Interiors)
• media:scape for Steelcase (Office & Productivity)

For more on the winners, read here.

After a challenge topic is chosen, the foundation designs an X PRIZE competition in which international teams race to craft the best solution—and vie for a cash prize. By making the R&D process fast-paced, public, and lucrative, the contest has enabled new discoveries in aerospace (SpaceShipOne), automotive (cars that get 100 MPGe of gasoline), and other industries.

In 2011, the X PRIZE Foundation sought to change the selection process. Previously, the organization vetted the list of potential challenges that its advisers considered during the Visioneering workshop. This time around, the X PRIZE Foundation asked its advisers to help set the agenda by asking them which global challenges they wanted to tackle next. They did so using a private, invitation-only online forum—a collaborative software platform set up by OpenIDEO—that allowed advisers to share potential prize concepts, propose challenge questions, and discuss topics of interest. Given the exclusivity of the Visioneering event and the X PRIZE Foundation’s commitment to delivering high-touch service, the OpenIDEO team worked closely with the Foundation throughout the challenge to provide rapid support and troubleshooting to its network of luminaries.

Unilever, which is a household name in many corners of the world, sells health and well-being products in more than 180 countries; more than 50 percent of its business comes from emerging markets. The company was looking to develop a suitable toilet/collection service to provide a complete in-home sanitation solution. Sanitation is an area of interest because there is tremendous need and the company sees healthier, happier people as more likely to buy its other products.

《中国企业家》杂志跟随IDEO全球首席创意官Paul Bennett踏上在上海的创意体验之旅，感受着一个创新组织的强大气场和身为中国人遗失的文化自觉。

At IDEO, we’ve been using similar processes, methods and tools for years in tackling some dauntingly complex challenges. More often than not, we’ve experienced how Design Thinking helps to get to the next step. That’s why we are excited to see how it can impact the world of education. The partnership with Riverdale Country School has enabled us to create this toolkit and make it publicly available.

This is an invitation to experiment with the design process. Let it inspire you to approach challenges differently, and experience how Design Thinking adds a new perspective to your work.

Enter AED, a nonprofit organization that works to find enduring solutions to critical problems in health, education, civil society, and economic development worldwide. AED believes that, to create lasting social change, societies must have stable civil and political structures. The group works not only to provide local leaders with the skills and tools they need to serve communities, but also to support citizens in mobilizing and influencing policy. To this end, AED and its partners are implementing Democracia Activa Perú (Active Democracy Peru), a program that aims to strengthen democratic values and increase voter participation nationwide.

In addition to the Focus Electric’s unique instrument panel, which helps drivers monitor their energy consumption behind the wheel, Ford wanted to develop a memorable, market-leading application suite—a website and mobile app—that would make BEV ownership simpler, easier, and more engaging. Having worked with IDEO on previous in-car technology projects, Ford wanted to collaborate on a differentiated digital experience that would give consumers yet another reason to choose the Focus Electric over others on the market.

Unlike drivers of traditional gas-powered cars and hybrids, who can quickly refuel their cars by pulling up to any gas station, BEV drivers have to learn new charge-to-charge driving behaviors. Currently, mass-market electric cars can sustain up to an approximate 100-mile range before they need to be recharged via standard 120- or 240-volt household outlets. For drivers who don’t live near public high-speed charging stations, found mainly in dense urban locales, this means leaving their cars parked in home garages for several hours to fully recharge.

To gain a better understanding of the unique information needs of BEV drivers, the IDEO team conducted in-context interviews and drivealongs with current hybrid owners who expressed interest in BEVs, as well as drivers who had pre-ordered BEVs (during the research phase, the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt hadn’t yet been released). Out of the research emerged a hierarchy of needs, with two core needs shared by all BEV owners, and three secondary needs that depended on the individual user’s motivations and attitude.

Read more here.

The Ministry of Manpower strives “to maintain a globally competitive workforce and a great workplace, for a cohesive society and a secure economic future for all Singaporeans.” Its Work Pass Division processes work passes for foreign workers, who make up about 30 percent of the nation’s labor force. The division, which assumed responsibility for issuing work passes (work visas) in the 1970s, has taken considerable steps to improve speed and efficiency since then. Today it ranks among the best performers in international benchmarking studies.

In 2008, in the midst of its third round of Business Process Redesign for the Work Pass Division, the Ministry’s officials recognized that any future improvements would need to come from higher-quality policies, products, and offerings—including excellence in customer service. The Work Pass Division partnered with IDEO to achieve that fundamental shift. The resulting project was an intensive collaboration that spanned the whole spectrum of research, design, and prototyping.

ARC is launching a new humanitarian aid program in Somalia in 2011. Plagued by civil war and insurgency since 1991, Somalia is often maligned in the mainstream media, which uses words like “terrorists,” “jihadists,” and “pirates” to describe Somalis both here and abroad. Several Minnesotan Somalis, in particular, had been the subject of much negative press in recent years and were under investigation by the FBI, causing the entire community to be on edge.

Given these circumstances, ARC saw an opportunity to reframe the story. Minnesota is the home of the largest community of Somalis in the US. These people,  proud to be both Somali and American, were not a threat and would actually be a great asset in responding to the crisis in Somalia. But this would mean truly engaging them in the process and actually committing to a meaningful partnership.