As the curtain parted on moooi’s 2022 exhibit, the audience was treated to a multi-sensory performance unlike any other: four synchronized robot scent diffusers telling a story through dance. As the robots—called Piro—swayed and dipped to the beats of a custom-designed soundscape, it was easy to forget the performers were made by a team of industrial designers and engineers in San Francisco.

The work expressed a future vision for what it means to humanize technology. Rather than design technology to make our lives more efficient, what if instead we designed technology to make life more beautiful?

For twenty years, moooi has seduced the world with bold, imaginative design. The firm, named after the Dutch word for beautiful, made its name by designing furniture and home goods that appeal to an interest in pushing the edges of form as much as function. Moooi came to IDEO looking to create an exhibit for the largest furniture fair in the world that might provoke the audience to imagine a world where design’s primary function was to inspire joy.

“Defy Gravity”: one of several experiential “worlds” moooi created for the 2022 Salone del Mobile. Each room had its own scent, soundscape, color, and digital experience.

Our process started by going wide. We presented 20 potential conceptual designs to the team, one of which moooi founder Marcel Wanders lovingly referred to as the “farting pet,” a robot scent diffuser that could walk around the home.

A scented smoke ring lingers in the air after Piro’s final crescendo.

From there, a team of IDEO designers enlisted the support of Catie Cuan, a choreographer who specializes in human-robot interaction, and Dutch sound design firm KLOAQ, to refine the concept into a four-minute performance piece.

Piro learned to mimic balletic human gestures.

The final result was technically involved: four robots moved independently, controlled by custom electronics and software designed to mimic the movements and grace of ballerinas. But in the performance itself, the complex mechanics disappeared, allowing the audience to experience not just what technology can do, but how it can make us feel.

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What happens when a designer and a classically-trained choreographer collaborate? Attendees of Salone del Mobile.Milano, the largest furniture fair in the world, got to see for themselves.

To build a climate-resilient future, we need an all-hands-on-deck approach across industries and organizations, as well as the leadership and collaboration of frontline communities themselves. 

To that end, IDEO and CSAA Insurance Group worked together to unite nine partner organizations, including Aon and the Environmental Defense Fund, to launch an open call for solutions to help communities prevent, prepare for, and recover from climate-related disasters. The goal of the Challenge was to surface actionable and scalable ideas that experiment with new technologies, models, and partnerships, then provide innovators with the support and funding they need to get their ideas off the ground and into the hands of frontline communities.

IDEO set these entrepreneurs up for success throughout the submission process, holding one-on-one conversations with participants, sharing constructive feedback on potential solutions, and developing their ideas and skill sets. The team also hosted workshop and panel sessions to grow community bonds and provide expertise on critical topics, including assessing climate risk and storytelling for impact. Hundreds of ideas came in from around the world, ranging from harnessing the power of AI, to building resilient infrastructures, to democratizing access to climate data, and more.

Once all of the ideas were in, a cohort of judges with a wide diversity of work and lived experience screened for concepts that were relevant, impactful, novel, community-informed, and equitable. At the end of the Challenge, the team chose 13 winning concepts with high potential for impact and partnerships, including Reef Rocket, which seeks to fabricate natural biocement reefs that reduce coastal flooding and erosion, and BurnBot, which is working to prevent wildfires by conducting controlled burns at scale.  

For these winning entrepreneurs, the end of the Challenge is just the beginning. Now, they are equipped with critical early funding, as well as a cohort of climate entrepreneurs, along with mentorship from IDEO, CSAA, and the other organizations. It’s a big step forward as they introduce new forms of equitable and transparent data, promote the voices of BIPOC communities, and bring to market new technologies that will protect and support frontline communities through this ongoing crisis. 

Read the Challenge Impact Report to learn more.

In the US alone, climate-related disasters cause $120 billion in damages annually. That figure is five times greater than 50 years ago, and projections are $2 trillion by the end of the century.

Nearly 90% of counties in the US declared a natural disaster over the last decade.

418

submissions

13

winners

$1M

in prizes

Every year, the NSF provides around 30 teams with up to $750,000 and a year’s worth of coaching, training, and collaboration to develop solutions for research areas like sustainable ocean use or combating fake news. Over the course of nine months, the teams learn how to uncover insights about human needs and design durable solutions for end users. But many of the scientists and experts in the program felt stretched by the idea of putting the needs of end users in the mix with their scientific testing—something few of them have been trained to do in their previous work.

To make that process feel more achievable, the teams built out prototypes and received guidance on refining and pitching their ideas along the way. IDEO joined the project as an innovation partner, facilitating hands-on workshops and creating “Science TV” episodes that could help the program reach a broader audience, deepening its impact now and in the future.

To help grantees get vulnerable, and evolve their ways of working, IDEO sent grantees to improv training  so that they could learn to build off each other. The team also took them to magic shows and on ghost tours in downtown San Francisco to learn the value of compelling storytelling in their work. The fun was part of the plan—gelling as a team and building relationships meant participants could make mistakes in front of one another. Being wrong doesn’t come naturally to academics, but it’s a key part of the design process, and a crucial part of solving complex problems .

Each year, a select group of teams move onto the next phase of the “coop-etition,” receiving up to $5 million in additional funding. And all of the participants leave with valuable new skills they can use to break out of their own silos and create human-centered, ground-breaking solutions for the rest of their careers.

When the NSF launched the Convergence Accelerator and made the radical move of bringing together teams from different disciplines, these academics, scientists, and industry partners didn’t have a shared language to move their ideas forward, and needed a structured approach to coming up with new solutions.

164

trained research teams

$200M

in federal support granted to AI-driven innovation, quantum technology, food security, sustainable materials, opportunities for people with disabilities, and more

IDEO and The Earthshot Prize built a nine-month Fellowship program and a five-day, in-person retreat to give Finalists the best shot at reaching the Prize’s ultimate goal: to scale the solutions that will repair our planet this decade.

To build out the new Fellowship, IDEO took a deep dive with the previous year’s Finalists to uncover where they needed critical support. This research revealed that the Finalists needed more ways to leverage the Earthshot platform, connect with potential partners to help scale their ideas, and build community with each other. The IDEO team then used those insights to create a set of recommendations The Earthshot Prize team could implement to create a more supportive and structured experience. Ideas they took forward included assigning a designated “Leap Advisor” who could provide guidance and assistance for each Finalist, as well as an advisor from the Prize’s Global Alliance Network who could partner on specific growth initiatives, like scaling product design, or policy change. 

Next up: the design of the retreat itself. Together, IDEO and the Earthshot team had three goals for the cohort’s week together in Windsor: focus on new forms of leadership and movement building, spur action through storytelling, and foster community.

The team developed the curriculum with leaders from Google X and Speed & Scale, alongside startups like UPSIDE Foods. They designed moments to build community, like paired walks and a chocolate-making workshop where Finalists could get to know each other away from the noise of meetings. 

Photographers captured the event to create assets for Finalists to use when pitching their ideas, and Finalists honed their storytelling skills. But what most remember is the magical moments of coming together as a cohort of next generation climate leaders who will help each other make an impact on the problems facing our planet, long after The Earthshot Prize has concluded.

The problems facing our planet are enormous, spanning industries, borders, currencies, and regulatory environments. Meaningful solutions will require leaders who can work across those lines.

30

climate solutions accelerated in first two years

He created The Magic Patio, a custom-made stage and theater outside his building where he hosts invite-only, speakeasy-style events. The Magic Patio is specifically designed for a small, intimate experience of classic illusion, because Evans aims to recreate a bygone era of magic—specifically, 1890-1910—when the best illusions in the world were being performed at a tiny theater in London called Egyptian Hall, for an audience of about 100. I recently featured the Magic Patio for San Francisco magazine’s “Hidden City” issue (read the article online here). For Labs, Evans revealed some of the design and technical details hidden behind the curtain.

You built the box for your saw-the-lady-in-half illusion in IDEO’s shop. What did your fellow engineers bring to the project?

This is a design by illusion designer Jim Steinmeyer called Modern Art. It has slides that let the top half of the box slide over, and they create a sort of rail, like train tracks. But if you’re doing illusion design, the question is always how you can make it look like a piece of furniture as opposed to a magic prop. Not that the box actually looks like a piece of furniture, but if you actually have a rail sitting on top of it, it’s clearly a rig. I worked with Peter Bronk from the shop, and what he designed is genius. The slides are countersunk into the table, making them completely invisible. They’re milled on the CNC out of Delrin, which is a super low-friction material. The tolerance is to like one ten thousandth of an inch, and you can’t lift the top half up because it has T-slots that lock underneath. Magicians look at this prop and they’re like, “How did you get that?!” This is engineering, not a theater prop. When you’re doing tricks five feet away from the audience, it’s got to be super top notch, like product-design quality. There was no way I could have done this without IDEO.

How does your immersion in IDEO’s engineering community help you develop your craft as a magician?

This show, “Illusions of Grandeur,” is meant to be the first act of a two-act show, and the second show, “Vodvil,” which is going to premiere in May, will be all new tricks, three of which are the most complicated I’ve ever conceived of. By far the most complex trick is completely original, and it’s inspired by engineering, not magic. It’s based on a really cool technique, a visual principle, that doesn’t seem to be used very much anymore. Without giving anything away, I can say that it takes incredible control of audience and lighting, which you can have when you have your own theater.

You take advantage of total control to design surprisingly small details, such as scent. Why?

When I designed the experience, I was thinking about how many juxtapositions we could play with, which is key because it’s this show from 100 years ago that’s staged in 2015. There is a transition between entering from the street and arriving on the patio, in which you first walk up this super sketchy alleyway. It smells like pee, but we very purposefully didn’t change that. When you go through the door into the lobby, there is a specifically designed scent that we put into the room. A perfumery called Tigerlily on Valencia Street worked with me for a month trying to find the right scent. It plays with indoors and outdoors, so it’s got some woods notes to it, but then it’s also got a lot of warmth, something seductive and mysterious, a little musky. So you go from pee smell to that, and to complete the transition to outdoors, we have a different scent that we use on the patio. It’s very woodsy, and it’s also from a perfumer in San Francisco.

You’ve said that good designers and good magicians share the ability to create a sense of wonder. What does that mean you, and how did you express it with the Magic Patio?

Childlike wonder is a beautiful concept. Kids have not experienced half the world, so everything new they encounter changes the way they see the world around them. That’s the definition of wonder that I like—something that changes your perspective of the world. If you’ve been in this world for 30-plus years and then suddenly something you see makes you be like, “whoa, whoa, whoa… wait a second,” that’s a beautiful moment. But beyond that instant during a magic trick, I hope that when people leave the Patio, they think, “What else am I maybe not looking at closely enough?” I get emails after the show saying, “I just left there in this state of non-alcoholic buzz, and I was walking through San Francisco in awe, thinking, ‘I love this city! What else does it have to offer?’” Those are the responses that make me think we’re doing this right.

How do you balance your commitment to magic with your work as a designer?

I made my full living doing magic for two years. The reason I don’t do it full time is that it’s a very lonely pursuit—it’s me on my computer writing scripts, practicing magic in front of a mirror, taking video of myself, watching footage. When shows are coming up, sometimes I’ll spend a full 40 hours a week preparing, on top of IDEO work, but it fulfills me very personally and creatively. Simultaneously, IDEO gives me culture and people. It’s a beautiful pairing.

Keep a close eye on Andrew Evans—he might be an innocent-looking product designer in IDEO’s Palo Alto studio, but he’s also a professional magician and a master of sleight of hand. Evans travels around the world speaking about the intersection of design and magic, and now, he’s made his San Francisco apartment a nexus of the two.

Over the last three years I have been creating interactive experiences that bring some of these unexpected moments back to the Internet by putting emphasis on smiles and little else. No clients, no social media sharing, no analytics, no SEO, no log-in, no users, no brand, and no monetary objectives—smiles have become my motivation and my currency. Late at night, I stare intensely into my glowing rectangle, firing code into it, and imagining how I might turn the drab, emotionless faces of everyday, seen-it-all web surfers into expressions of delight.

While there are a number of projects on my site Fuzzy Wobble Dot Com that exist in the “smiles-as-currency” domain, I am going to share one of my favorites with you today: GIF DANCE PARTY. The name should give you a hint as to where this is headed…

The animated GIF was invented in the late '80s, but when GIF DANCE PARTY began back in 2012, they were still primarily used in blinking web banners for sleazy ad campaigns. Tumblr was the only mainstream site at the time with a GIF vernacular.

My fascination with both Tumblr and animated GIFs was surging at this time, and I could sense that there was an opportunity to bring animated GIFs out of the depths of Tumblr and into a more familiar context. This idea lead to an eight-hour coding session that resulted in the first release of the GIF DANCE PARTY website, which allowed visitors to create and share their own digital dance parties.

Despite my sub-mediocre coding skills at the time, the site was surprisingly functional. As with damn near everything in web dev, all the integral parts of the site had been executed thousands of times before, and with a little Googlin' and digital glue, the concept was realized. The code base was solid, although a serious problem remained: Transparent GIFs were extremely rare, never mind transparent dance GIFs, which were imperative to the concept. After many web searches, I found only four—not enough for a respectable digital dance party by any online standards.

So I asked my friends to help me with the tedious process of removing the backgrounds from GIF dancers, pixel by pixel, frame by frame, to generate the collection of transparent dancers featured in the first GIF DANCE PARTY release. Now, three years later, the GIF DANCE PARTY website has amassed an arsenal of more than 120 iconic dancers.

Over the years, GIF DANCE PARTY received millions of hits from around the world. The captivating nature of the animated GIF, injected into a familiar party context, touched the Internet in all the right places. I even had a collection of dancing cats in there for good measure. Today, GIF DANCE PARTY continues to make the rounds. On November 2, 2015 it made it to the front page of Reddit again, where one user commented:

The project was quite well received by my colleagues at IDEO, so we decided to set up a green screen and make our very own IDEO Boston (now IDEO Cambridge) GIF Dance Party.

It was extremely rewarding to maximize the smile-to-effort ratio with a project that could have so easily been discredited as "silly" had I not been surrounded by such creative and supportive people.

But the unfortunate outcome of this, a project that stemmed from a drive to create smiles, was that I could never see any of those smiles. At one point I considered turning on users’ webcams to use face detection and count the smiles, replacing the Facebook “like” widget with a smile counter (pretty sure this would have deterred a number of visitors). The only way to witness these smiles was to create an IRL experience—A GIF DANCE PARTY installation.

With the use of projectors, 3D cameras, and countless lines of code, we would be able to digitize partygoers into dance GIFs. These dance GIFs could become part of a wild and dynamic visual spectacle, projected for all to see. Together, the GIF DANCE PARTY VJ and partygoers would work together to create an otherworldly GIF DANCE PARTY digital dance floor.

There was no chance my Googlin’-and-digital-glue approach was going to work on a project of this scale. I put out a call for creative coders, which was answered by an exceptional team: Matt F., Wes T., Joe S., and Matt G. For many, many Saturdays, we met in hungover or otherwise compromised states and managed to stab away at the massive challenge of bringing GIF DANCE PARTY to an installation space with C++ and OpenFrameworks. Six months later:

We had a hit installation. We started booking frequent gigs. Jaws were dropping. What started off as not much more than a "cool art installation" evolved into a project that had a massive positive impact on partygoers. As we observed: This is the evolution of the photo booth. We have tapped into the selfie-lust habits of the modern day partygoer. But unlike the conventional photo booth experience, we went hyper dynamic, we went hyper visual, and for the first time in photo booth history, we introduced selflessness to the selfie. An experience for you, and an experience for all.

Partygoers were able to interact with the party environment in a way that was unprecedented. While traditional photo booths disconnect partygoers from the environment, our experience blasted them right into the center of it, no different than installing a Slip'N Slide down the middle of the dance floor.

As a team of artists, coders, and designers, we continue to experiment and evolve the experience. From website to installation, GIF DANCE PARTY has been a delightful project, not just for the users and participants but also for the creators. Smiles all around, and more to come.

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I remember my first introduction to the web back in the mid '90s. It was a place of mad discovery. There was a great deal of uncertainty when clicking a link—where you would end and up and what you would see. The Internet was not a serious place. It was more of a playground, full of unexpected moments.

The Greek Shepherd’s Pie. Coconut Meatballs. The Mediterranean Yacht in Linen.

You won’t find these unlikely sounding recipes in any other cookbook, and you certainly can’t eat them anywhere. But last summer, these culinary creations graced the table and palates of our London studio.

Eat My Dish came out of a desire to bring the studio together outside of our beloved social haunts (i.e, the pub). We wanted to do something that was hands on, creative and open to everyone.

The rules were simple. Everyone was given a £10 budget for their dish. They had to cook offsite, and had to feed the studio. Entries were grouped in four categories: Culinary Peacock, Student Throwback, Feeding The 5,000, and the Bone Idle Chef.

It was a resounding success. Every Thursday afternoon, we summoned the whole studio to sample the recipes of the week. Our resident chefs would watch nervously as a crowd of designers descended on their dishes brandishing spoons and napkins. They devoured everything, every week, mumbling grateful compliments to the chef between mouthfuls. Things even got a bit competitive, with several dark horses impressing the studio against all odds (one participating chef claimed at the time to not even own a chopping board).

The UK has not historically been known for the quality of its food (unless your definition of quality includes jellied eels and deep-fried Mars bars) but things have started to shift in recent years. London in particular represents every style of food going, from late-night hole in the wall noodles to Nordic Michelin-starred blow-outs.

The studio’s recipes reflect the city’s culinary diversity, featuring dishes with roots in Brazil, Hungary, Iran and beyond, and catering to every occasion, from quick bites to dinner party extravaganzas.

At the end of it all, we compiled the Eat My Dish recipe book. It’s been lovingly hand bound in four colours with neon thread and sent out to our studios around the world. We hope it inspires many a happy meal.

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A few of the microchips on my PCB had unexposed connections to the board that I couldn’t solder by hand. I thought I’d have to send it out to be assembled, which could take a couple of days.

The hack

Instead of sending it out, I took a tip from my colleague and simply put some solder paste (small balls of solder in a sea of flux) under the microchips and popped the whole board in a toaster oven at 450° for a couple of minutes.

Safety first

Common sense may tell you that baking electrical components is a bad idea, but if you pay close attention and remove the board immediately after the solder liquefies, it’s a killer quick-and-dirty shortcut. Once the board has cooled, you can attach more sensitive components like LEDs and headers—the icing on the cake, so to speak.

The Easy-Bake Circuit Board Recipe

1. Apply solder paste to the PCB on all pads for parts with unexposed or hard-to-reach connections to the board. (Note: You don't need a whole lot of solder paste. Too much paste can result in bridging pins and will need to be cleaned up later.)

2. Carefully align the parts to be baked on the pads with solder paste.

3. Place the partially populated (or fully populated, if all your parts can be baked) PCB into the oven and set it to 450°.*

4. Watch for the moment when the solder balls liquefy (the solder will go from dull to shiny), about 1-2 minutes. The flux will help the solder hug tightly to any metal.

5. Carefully remove the PCB from the oven a few seconds after the solder liquifies. The extra couple seconds ensures all the solder has had time to liquefy.

6. Turn off the oven.

7. Let the PCB and solder connections cool down.

8. If possible, check solder connections under a microscope.

9. Clean up any bridging and test the connections.

10. Populate the rest of the board with parts you can solder by hand.

IMPORTANT: Always check the part's datasheet for temperature tolerances before putting it into the oven.

Pretty sure Charles Strite, inventor of the modern toaster, didn't see this coming.

Big thanks to Dave Vondle for the hackspiration and Sophie Feng for the awesome video!

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I’m always on the lookout for shortcuts, especially when I’m on deadline for a project. Recently, another electrical engineer showed me a cool, time-saving trick that’s useful for all kinds of projects that involve a printed circuit board (PCB). I happened to be building up an LED test board for backlighting icons on a steering wheel prototype, a process similar to making a layer cake.

I help organizations cut through complexity by shaping how they show up, through brand strategy, identity, and storytelling.

Working at the intersection of brand and business, I bring an editorial eye and a bias toward making—turning ideas into tangible experiences that people can understand, trust, and believe in.

My work spans government, healthcare, financial services, media, and consumer goods, from launching Gen Z-focused ventures to building innovation labs and reimagining legacy brands. I relish moments of ambiguity and enjoy translating across teams, perspectives, and priorities to move ideas forward.

I started my career in editorial and digital design, shaping cross-platform experiences and identity systems in publishing and agency environments. That foundation still shapes how I work today: I’m detail-oriented, collaborative, and overreliant on the Oxford comma. I hold a BFA in Visual Communication from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

For 25 years, I've asked the same question: Who does this design exclude—and what are we going to do about it?

My work spans human-centered strategy, inclusive design, and qualitative research, with clients ranging from Microsoft, Google, and Verizon to the National Science Foundation, and San Francisco Unified School District.

Before IDEO, I taught elementary school in East Palo Alto and spent a decade doing design work with social service organizations—where I learned firsthand what it costs people when systems are built without them in mind.

I am currently writing User Error, a nonfiction book about digital access and the design decisions behind it. I live in Oakland, California.

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My expertise spans brand, communication, and product design across tech, education, the arts, and social impact.

I believe great work demands both high-level vision and obsessive attention to detail, and only happens through collaboration.

I bring an inclusive, hands-on approach and a deep understanding of business, which enables me to consistently deliver excellence while always asking why.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at the brand firms Pentagram and VSA Partners. I began my career as a designer, leading teams at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Milwaukee Art Museum. I hold an MFA in graphic design from Maryland Institute College of Art and a BFA in communication design from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, and have taught at some of the best design schools in the US.

I am responsible for IDEO’s long-term success in China and working with clients to use design as a tool to enable growth. Specifically, I have helped Chinese companies design holistic brand solutions through the development of their products, communication, services, and innovation teams, and I have helped multinationals expand their presence and influence in China.

I advise global leaders on developing China-led innovation and capabilities.

In over 15 years in IDEO Shanghai, I have worked on projects that use design to elevate the quality of the experience of healthcare products and services, streamline processes that increase productivity, create spaces and programs that promote and enable inclusive communities, and build next generation mobility solutions that are planet-positive.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at Philips Electronics and the Electrolux Group in Italy, the Netherlands, and Singapore on a number of breakthrough commercial products. I am a member of the Young President Organization in Shanghai.

Most AI products today are built for work—a space with clear problems and established systems. One founder noticed a gap: personal life is messier, harder to systematize, and mostly left behind by the AI boom. So she built Cue, a personal AI that lives inside iMessage and group chats, to go where the other tools haven't.

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In this episode, Becca Carroll, IDEO's Chief Strategy Officer, talks with Sida Li, co-founder and CEO of Shared Context Lab, about staying anchored to a human need while the technology around her keeps changing shape, why she treats her business model with the same rigor she'd bring to a product, and what it feels like to build a company at this particular, disorienting moment in AI.

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The conversation also gets into how Sida makes design decisions: the language Cue uses to describe itself, the tradeoffs behind building inside iMessage instead of a new app, and a real story about a business idea that didn’t pan out.

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This is the second in a two-part series profiling founders from IDEO's Startups-in-Residence program. The first conversation is with Johannes Seemann, founder of Sooner, on designing GenAI for the emotional side of money.

Most personal financial tools are built to run the numbers and optimize towards a budget. While that works for some, most people experience money as a lived relationship that does not neatly fit into a spreadsheet. Johannes Seemann and Becca Carroll discuss why money is emotional before it is mathematical, and what a human-centered approach to building a generative AI financial product looks like in practice.

Mina Seetharaman talks with Scott Shigeoka, author of Seek and Head of Curiosity Cultivation at the Eames Institute, about what distinguishes genuinely curious leadership from performative curiosity, how power dynamics shape curiosity, and why practicing curiosity can restore energy rather than drain it.

Mina Seetharaman talks with David Epstein, author of Inside the Box and Range, about why total freedom often produces average work, how leaders can design useful limits on purpose, and what organizations such as General Magic and Pixar reveal about the relationship between boundaries and creativity.