IDEO and Fotile have had a relationship since 2009, working together on projects including a unified design language for product offerings, retail environments, and IoT strategy. For the dishwasher, IDEO and the Fotile research team came together for design research, shadowing Chinese families in different cities as they prepared meals from start to finish. Together they discovered that unlike in Western cooking, where several kinds of cookware are used for different dishes, Chinese cooks tend to use the same cookware to prepare all of their dishes.

That meant that the cookware needed to be cleaned several times during a single meal preparation, rather than once at the end. In this context, the sink serves different purposes over the course of cooking—it’s a place to wash and store prepped ingredients, rinse the cookware, and deep clean the dishes used in food prep and during the meal.

Based on this insight, IDEO made a list of product design recommendations that became Fotile’s Sink Dishwasher—a counter-level, multi-purpose appliance that specifically suits Chinese cooking habits. IDEO’s design guidance gave Fotile the confidence it needed to launch its product into the market, and served as a blueprint for the future iteration of Fotile’s Sink Dishwasher.

On March 25, 2015, six months after the project ended, Fotile launched the world's first sink dishwasher designed for Chinese families. Eight months later, its market share exceeded 30 percent, setting off a wave of innovation in the Chinese dishwasher category.

In 2016, Fotile introduced a three-slot dishwasher with an added compartment for cleaning fruit and vegetables—a direct response to a research finding that Chinese families are concerned about food safety. When this new model hit the market, Fotile’s dishwasher market share jumped to 41.1%. In China, Fotile is now synonymous with “sink dishwasher,” and the company has a widespread reputation among consumers as a symbol of a safe and healthy Chinese family kitchen.

Since its founding in 1994, Fotile’s Chairman, Mao Zhongqun, has made it his goal to “do nothing but build a high-end Chinese family brand.”

30%

Fotile Sink Dishwasher’s share of the market in China, just eight months after launch

41%

Fotile’s dishwasher market share after it launched a three-slot version in 2016

#1 selling brand

in the mainstream price segment of the Chinese dishwasher market as of August 2023

BoAo Group’s idea to design a new baby car seat was fueled by a newly revised minor protection law, which made using child safety seats mandatory beginning June 1st, 2021. As ZUOWE and IDEO looked around China’s emerging car seat market, the team noticed a singular focus on safety and safety features across most international and domestic brands. There was a clear opportunity for a new product that could meaningfully differentiate itself by not only providing safety features but also meeting the needs of modern Chinese parents.

To kick off the project, the IDEO team needed to answer two questions: What matters to the new generation of parents in China? And how will their style and approach to parenting affect their expectations for baby car seats? Taking into account the potentially different consumer needs in different geographies, the IDEO team headed to Shanghai, a city with more than 25 million people, and the city of Taizhou in Zhejiang province, which has a population of 2 million. They conducted in-depth home visits to local families, visited many brick-and-mortar mom-and-baby shops, and interviewed people like specialized nurses, parenting experts, and child psychologists. 

Despite the differences between the two cities, IDEO discovered commonalities during consumer conversations. Young Chinese parents were experiencing a perceived identity gap. As individuals, they felt they had distinct personalities and a clear sense of self. They actively expressed themselves through their clothes and belongings. But when they became parents, this sense of self weakened or disappeared completely.  Their identities shifted to being someone’s mom or dad overnight. This new generation was eager to show their unique approach to parenthood as they used to express their sense of self. But many products were designed for children, with little regard for parents. 

This core finding helped set the direction for the new baby car seat design and brand Maple&Co. However, there were still two significant challenges to overcome. One, IDEO needed to design a product with stringent technical regulations and standards on a tight timeline—ZUOWE wanted to launch the new car seat at an important industry trade show within the year. And two, the team had to help the organization transform its thinking and ways of working to be more consumer-centric.

BoAo’s strength lies in its 20 years of experience developing and manufacturing car seats for major domestic and international automotive brands. This gave the company an edge in overcoming technical barriers and driving mass production. But its engineering and manufacturing mindset had become a barrier to transforming into a D2C brand. With such ingrained ways of working, pivoting to a more creative process can be hard. 

To address this hurdle, IDEO set up co-creation workshops, bringing together ZUOWE’s newly formed baby car seat team and manufacturing experts from their factories to discuss design direction and details early on. The benefits of the collaboration were clear: It was easy to share feedback in a timely manner and make product design decisions very quickly. When IDEO presented a design that emphasized natural textures during a workshop on brand positioning, a member from Bo Ao’s manufacturing team said, “This feels very different. This could become a major selling point,” and that they had “never seen” anything like it done by other baby car seat brands.

A year after working together, ZUOWE Technology launched Maple&Co and the new Maple baby car seat across its main e-commerce channels. Modern and minimalist in soft natural colors and wooden veneers, Maple appeals to the aesthetics of young parents in China. Despite a series of micro COVID outbreaks in China, within three months, Maple had already achieved better-than-predicted sales and received favorable comments about the look and quality of the car seat from parents. Fast forward two years, additional collaborations with IDEO have enabled the young startup to grow its child travel portfolio from a signature car seat into a more holistic offering that includes highly functional, fashionable, and adaptable car booster seats and strollers that thoughtfully address the needs of modern Chinese families across various life stages at home—and on the go.

China's minor protection law mandated the use of child safety seats beginning June 1, 2021.

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Despite incoming regulations fueling a surge in purchases, car seats on the market rightly prioritized safety but did not consider the emotional needs and lifestyle preferences of a new generation of Chinese parents.

1 year

after the project ended, a new, differentiated baby seat product and brand, Maple&Co, launched

Top 6

during the 2023 “Double 11” shopping festival, Maple&CO secured the 6th spot on Tmall's new brand pre-sale list

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“Over a year ago, I had to take my cat to the vet for an unexpected and expensive surgery,” says one Card Member. “To be honest, I still don’t know if I’ve paid the bill off.”

Many crave the flexibility to pay for large purchases over time, but also want to avoid the pitfalls of debt. Others rely on debit or cash for small items—no one wants to accumulate interest on a cup of coffee, lunch with a friend, or box of Kleenex—but then miss out on valuable rewards.

American Express worked with IDEO to help them attract new customers by understanding what financially stable young adults wanted in a credit card. The team began by interviewing more than 120 millennials to understand their payment behaviors around debit and credit, and how they think about borrowing and spending.

One person described the monthly panic of receiving his bill—described as “statement shock”—and his habit of making multiple payments before his billing cycle closed to ease this anxiety. Others were wary of credit because of a large veterinarian bill or financial mistakes made in their 20s, and relied on debit because it felt safer than accruing a balance to pay off. Overall, the team learned that many consumers experience anxiety about paying their bills. And while financial products that offer more flexibility and control have been needed for years, they are especially valuable in times of economic uncertainty like today.

Based on this research, IDEO prototyped, iterated, and refined two concepts, with frequent feedback from users and the client. Called Pay It Plan It, this feature offers financially responsible consumers more transparency, confidence, and control.

Pay It allows Card Members to quickly pay for small purchase amounts under $100 with a few taps in the American Express mobile app. When that purchase shows up on their account, they can choose “Pay It” and still earn rewards on the purchase. This ensures Card Members can take advantage of rewards while lowering their monthly bill by paying for smaller items throughout the month.

With Plan It, Card Members can split up larger purchases of $100 or more—like an emergency trip to the vet or a new sofa—into equal monthly payments, with a fixed fee and no interest. When the purchase appears in their account, they can select “Plan It,” and will be offered up to three monthly payment plans, ranging from three to 24 months. Each plan comes with a fixed monthly fee and no interest. Card Members know exactly how much they have to pay each month, so there are no surprises. And if they pay the purchase off early, they no longer have to pay any future plan fees.

The design of Pay It Plan It did not come without challenges: Bill pay is critical, complex, and highly regulated. Pay It Plan It required a significant internal financial and technical investment, which was achieved after IDEO shared many of the emotional, compelling stories from credit card users with leaders at American Express.

The team worked closely with the American Express regulatory and digital teams to ensure compliance and seamless integration into the mobile app and website’s user experiences and interfaces. To heighten the sense of competence, control, and transparency for users, the designers focused on small interactions like status animations, proactive suggestions, and straightforward language. These interactions help Card Members anticipate upcoming payments and clearly understand Pay It Plan It.

Plan It was designed with transparency, control, and accessibility in mind: The payment plan fee is displayed in dollars to give the customer certainty over their total costs.

Initially, the team set out to create a new credit card with the needs of young adults in mind. But IDEO and American Express realized that Pay It Plan It could be scaled across existing credit card products to ultimately benefit and attract more Card Members. Now, almost all U.S. American Express Consumer Card Members have access to Pay It Plan It through credit cards, co-branded cards, and the well-known Green, Gold, and Platinum Cards. Since launching in 2017, Card Members have created nearly 5 million Plans, totaling nearly $4 billion in purchases, with an average Plan size of $789. Millennial and Generation Z Card Members have created approximately 44 percent of these Plans.

The flexibility and control offered through Pay It Plan have earned American Express positive press, including a call-out in The New York Times for being among solutions that “make it easier for their customers to borrow money, and to manage their monthly cash flow.”

At first glance, design-led innovation may seem difficult to achieve in large, established organizations like American Express, operating in a highly regulated and deeply rational industry. But the IDEO and American Express team successfully found ways to introduce new behaviors like rapid prototyping, cross-discipline collaboration, and leading with emotional customer stories within the existing organizational culture and structure. American Express has since established a permanent Pay It Plan It team dedicated to evolving the feature. Made up of employees across departments, this points to a new and collaborative team structure for the company.

By seeking to understand the human behind the Card Member, American Express has transformed credit and financial services for the better, helping both to be defined by empathy, utility, and transparency.

For more than two centuries, The Times held a strong reputation as a storied British newspaper. Then came the digital deluge. Publication after publication began adopting a relentless online publishing schedule aimed at capturing eyeballs and subscribers, and guarding against waning advertising sales and print readership. But The Times and its sister publication The Sunday Times thought there might be a different way forward.

As Editor John Witherow explains, “the power of an edition” had long endured at The Times, but began to erode amid a round-the-clock breaking news cycle. Witherow didn’t want to do away with editions, but rather to update the model for the digital age. Times owner News UK approached IDEO in 2014 to explore exactly that: what the edition of the future might look like and how its design could drive revenue and subscribers.

IDEO’s research and design phase included interviews with readers, journalists, editors, and marketers at News UK. The team found that people’s reading modes vary—some reflecting new digital behaviors and others adhering more closely to paper-reading styles.

Readers, the team learned, chose The Times for its editorial opinion: a perspective that cuts through the overwhelming flood of information. They viewed the daily Times and weekend Sunday Times as one paper, despite the organizational distinction. And they were proud of their choice, valuing the papers’ consistency, trustworthiness, balance, and authoritativeness. Readers wanted these qualities distilled in a digital edition, whether on a smartphone, tablet, or on the web.

Those insights led to strategic recommendations spanning digital products, editorial, advertising integration, online membership offers, and social sharing. But the boldest among those was a publishing strategy that seemed to run counter to media trends: abandoning a real-time approach in favor of publishing separate digital editions.

The Times in March 2016 introduced an editions-based publishing schedule, with new editions available across all platforms four times each weekday: overnight, 9am, noon and 5pm; the weekend schedule shrank to three editions. A year in, they had broken that schedule fewer than a dozen times—making exceptions for major moments like the terror attack in central London and David Bowie’s death—but even in those cases, The Times refrained from incessant updates, instead resuming its regular pacing.

“The way we’re publishing now, taking our time over news...taking a more considered view of the world, it’s helped us offer something different from everything else,” digital news head Alan Hunter told Digiday in 2018. Readers demonstrated that this different approach was something they’d been wanting.

In the first half of 2016, new paying-subscriber sales were up 200% as compared to the same period in 2015. At the end of June 2016, there were 413,600 subscribers to The Times and The Sunday Times, up 3.4% from a year prior. Of those, 182,500 were digital-only subscriptions—a 6% rise and a notable figure given how much online news can be obtained for free.

Through collaboration with IDEO, News UK's own digital teams capabilities grew, enabling them to implement and evolve their new digital strategy. The capabilities of the newsroom grew, too: “The decision to move to four editions a day has freed up tremendous resources to focus on big stories,” says Emma Tucker, Editor of The Sunday Times—the kind of stories that "supercharge engagement." The approach is working: By August 2019 digital subscriptions had increased 19% year-on-year to 300,000, showing the progress the legacy publisher has made in attracting readers to its online proposition. Total subscribers for the two titles' print and digital products now stand at 539,000, and their websites total five million registered users.

More than 230 years after its first edition was published, the new Times has established solid footing in the digital age and designed its own future—one based not on the habits of its competitors but on its legacy and the reading behaviors of its audience.

I had been asked to create a newspaper for kyu, the design collective of which IDEO is a member, and I was ready to perform.

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My desire to explore the world using rhythm and sound on one hand and ink and paper on the other started when I was young. I was very quiet as a child. Instead of playing with friends, I created my own playground in a sketchbook. I listened to stories on a cassette player as I drew.

My mom, a violinist who played in an orchestra, taught me how each sound communicates a different feeling. Together, the instruments create a pleasing harmony.

I chose to play the cello, as its sounds comforted me. When I felt sad, I could play and the sadness was transformed into something beautiful. When I felt alone, the cello's mid-tones communicating with and supporting the other instruments made me feel less isolated.

I went to high school in New Zealand and focused on photography, art, and music. Playing in orchestra, string quartet, chamber orchestra, and musical show orchestra required rigorous practice, and I discovered that it was only with disciplined repetition that the ear could learn to hear the subtle distinctions between an almost perfect note and an imperfect one, between good enough harmonizing and exquisite music. Constant practice not only created perfect harmony, it also trained the soul.

Like music, calligraphy embodies many feelings. That was my father’s gift to me. He guided my hand, drawing with me. At first, I stood in his shadow, but I gained confidence over time. The calligraphic technique I now use involves moving very fast, every stroke following right after the one before, never taking time to look back.

The companies that make up kyu share a belief that creative collaboration will yield new solutions. To visualize the collective, I drew the first dot directly with the brush and then started to draw circles. Dots and lines, the basis of musical notation, helped me orchestrate the story visually. Rough strokes conveyed complexity and sometimes chaos, while the diffusion of ink into paper illustrated the calm conclusion of a journey. When the magazine reached a crescendo, the dots began to jump around wildly. The combination of ink and water unified sense and sense, and the story of the newspaper came to its happy end.

Just as each calligraphic mark and each musical instrument is unique, so too is each company in the kyu collective. Independent, but also located within the same “circle.” Sometimes the music of a page is the message.

“Music is the ultimate teacher.” ― Wassily Kandinsky

The day I got the assignment, I ran to the art store and bought brushes, ink, and a grindstone. I set the tools on my desk, which became the stage. I was the conductor, interpreting the text like a musical score.

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The secret is in iOS 11 Live Photo Effects. To make your own, access this feature, take a live photo, then, in the photos app, swipe up to reveal the Live Photo Effects.

Easy, right? Yes and no.

Creating a live loop is easy, but creating a cinemagraph requires a bit more planning. The difference is in the framing—too much movement, and you’ll just get a live loop. Here are a few tips to ensure you nail the combination of still photo and limited motion:

1. Find the shot: To create a beautiful cinemagraph, find a shot where most of the image will be still, and only a piece is in motion—perhaps a tree blowing in the wind, or raindrops on a puddle. If there’s too much movement in the frame, the shot will feel chaotic.
2. Plan it out: While it’s possible to pull off a clean loop without a tripod, don’t just point and shoot. I like to turn on the grid in my photo settings—these lines help me see if I’m holding still or wobbling slightly (I always use the grid to help create a level horizon or position subjects, anyway). Try to lock your body by leaning on something, or even by putting the camera on a table to keep it as still as possible.
3. Stage it: Don’t leave it to chance! When you can, control the shot. The pool shot below took a few tries, and it really helps that there were no other people wandering through.

Sharing the live loop

So you’ve perfected your technique and have a gorgeous loop to share! The problem is, iOS doesn’t exactly make it easy.

If you try to share natively to Instagram, it’ll tell you the loop needs to be three seconds or longer. And iOS doesn’t offer a lot of options to help—there’s no easy way to export your Live Loop into a format that’s shareable for Instagram. I found this out the hard way while I was traveling in the Philippines, and since I didn’t have my computer with me, I had to figure out a way to solve for this using only my phone.

One of my goals was to use only free apps—buying a bunch of apps I wasn’t sure were going to work didn’t sound very fun. After much Googling, trial, and error I created the workflow below. The first time through might take you a few minutes, but now that I’ve done it a few times, I can go from live loop to Instagram in less than two minutes.

Get the apps

First, download these three free apps:

1. Lively: Exports your Live Loop as a video
2. Splice: A free video editor that lets you extend the length of the loop to meet Instagram’s minimum requirements
3. Video Crop: Removes any letterboxing (black bars) in the video export

1. Lively

Start by using Lively to open the loop you want to export. In the top of the export panel select “Movie” and then tap “Export”, then save the movie.

2. Splice

In Splice, tap the + icon on the top right to create a new project and select the video you exported from Lively. Click “Add (1)” on the top right to add it to your project.

On the Add Audio screen, tap “Skip” on the top right.

Name it however you like, and use these settings:

• Format: Select Landscape for wide photos or Portrait for tall ones
• Default transition: set to “None”
• Outro: set to “Off”

Now you should be in the editing screen; all you have to do is tap your video and select “Duplicate.” Do this three or four times until your video duration is at least 0:05 or longer.

Lastly, tap the “Export” button on the top right and select “Save.” I always pick 1080p HD for the best quality.

3. Video Crop

One last step: Remove the letterbox (those pesky black bars) on the side of the exported video. Open “Video Crop,” tap the big red button, select your video, and tap the check mark on the top right.

Now use the crop tool to trim off the black bars, then tap the export button on the top right. When it’s done processing, tap “Save.”

Very Instagrammable

Cinemagraph loops look amazing on Instagram or Facebook, and they give you a unique way to share your experiences (Let’s be real—we’ve all seen enough Boomerangs.)

It takes a few steps, but once you get the hang of it, the process is quick and easy. And when your friends ask how you did it, you can point them this way.

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I’ve always loved cinemagraphs—those endless, hypnotizing loops where part of the frame is still while some areas are gently in motion. When I discovered that I could create these loops natively with iOS 11 (iPhone 6S or newer), I couldn’t wait to try it out.

Through the Swedish Energy Agency and its partners, the nation is focusing on reducing pollution from the transportation sector. It plans to reduce (but not entirely eliminate) the need for private car ownership by improving alternative travel options for people in everyday life.

In more wonky language, the focus is on sustainable mobility as a service, an approach that brings all means of travel together. It combines options from different transport providers into a single mobile service, removing the hassle of planning and one-off payments. It’s an environmentally sound alternative to owning a car, and an approach to mobility now being propelled by urbanization, economic shifts, artificial intelligence—and the social and economic impacts of climate change.

Through its initiative, A Challenge from Sweden, the Swedish Energy Agency invited IDEO to join the effort. Here are three lessons we learned along the way through working alongside our Swedish counterparts.

1. Get outside

Swedes live for fresh air and natural landscapes. Even the most committed Swedish city slickers retreat to a cabin at the weekend, or dream of an escape to the countryside. The natural world is imagined and felt as replenishment—as a valuable resource to be respected and enjoyed.

For our design team, it was a reminder to take our research far beyond Stockholm or Gothenburg, especially as we considered designing for a nation of travelers. We took long train rides to meet people in smaller towns, and walked as much as we could. It felt good, and it was necessary.

Going outside also means seeking out inspiration from beyond your own context. We were inspired by examples of civic and societal change from around the world, and brought them into the project, almost as if we’d discovered precious acorns on the forest floor.

2. Engage tradition

Cultural traditions and norms might seem strange or twee to outside eyes. But they almost always hint at a deep societal agreement. We discovered that in Sweden, for sure. Fika is not merely a coffee break during the day: it’s an invitation to pause, to reflect, to reconnect with one’s thoughts or emotions, and to restart.

We introduced fika in our project space, and observed it when we were with the team from Sweden. It added a note of calm and confidence to our work and to our individual energies, even as the work accelerated in intensity towards the end.

Similarly, we drew on Nordic storytelling tradition to share the story of our research in Sweden. Instead of using dry descriptions to describe the different ways Swedes might be triggered to make new transportation choices, we told a three-dimensional fable that told the story of a mythic waterfall, and the different paths that four people took to find it and use it.

The fable allowed us to invite our collaborators into a instinctive understanding of what we’d all learned together, as well as a logical one. The story resonated, it brought joy into an otherwise serious, complex topic, and it was easy to repeat.

3. Be brave

The scale of Sweden’s ambition is remarkable, but—in Sweden itself—commonplace.

Swedes recognize that their country is small, their population tiny, and their contributions to global climate change negligible. But they also understand that, by leading with bravery, they have earned outsized influence in the world. Other countries look to them as an example of how to set goals and make change in service of healthy, sustainable growth.

Sweden has set a goal of achieving a fossil neutral transportation sector before 2030. That’s a big ambition, and an exciting one.

Through a global innovation challenge, Sweden is now inviting engaged political leaders and some of the world’s most capable companies to help make sustainable mobility as a service a reality.

In other words, Sweden is going places fast.

Find out more about Mission Innovation 3 and A Challenge from Sweden.

Through IKEA, Sweden has already transformed the world of contemporary furniture and home furnishing. Now Sweden is taking on an arguably even more ambitious goal: leading the world in tackling some of the thorniest causes of global climate change.

Here are three juicy ones to get started thinking more deeply about blockchain, the unique experiences the technology enables, and how it could be integrated into our everyday lives.

1. Designing for ownership

The beauty of cryptocurrency is that it’s possible for you, and only you, to have access to your crypto wallet and assets. That means you get to have true ownership; your “account” information isn’t stored by a bank or central authority that can use or take away your assets at will (think of governments seizing funds, for example). Instead, the data is stored in a universal ledger across a distributed network that can independently verify who owns what—so it’s much more transparent than most of today’s banking systems.

Of course, that power also comes with great responsibility. There is no password or account recovery if you lose or reveal your private key (sometimes expressed in the form of a 24-word phrase), which is used to “unlock” your wallet. Giving that away is like dropping cash on the street—you likely won’t get it back.

Challenge: Design secure and user-friendly ways to store private keys.

A few questions to get you started:

• How might we design better ways to securely store private keys that balance security (keys cannot be easily copied or stolen) and ease of use?
• What are some digital and physical features for secure storage that we could utilize?
• How might we design ways to securely transfer ownership of private keys in case of loss or death?

Some inspiration:

• Fractional Custody: What are some ways you could divide up and distribute private keys among five of your most trusted friends and family members?
• Book of Codes: Inspired by Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes, what if custom die-cut cards could reveal your passphrase when placed over the right book?
• Multiple Points of Verification: Could you have a mobile app that verifies your identity through multiple social networks before revealing the passphrase?

2. Designing transparency in network transactions

Every time you transact in Ethereum, a platform for blockchain applications, you have to set your gas price—the amount you are willing to pay for the computation needed for your transaction be confirmed. An easy analog is paying more for expedited shipping to get your package mailed there sooner.

Those prices and speeds are not determined by any one party (like FedEx, for instance), but by how busy the network is, how many other transactions are waiting to be confirmed, and what gas price those other transactions are using. But information about current network state is rarely communicated to the user—adding frustration and confusion when setting your best guess at gas price. Too low? Your transaction might not go through for a long time (or ever). Set it too high, and you risk paying more than you need to.

Remember the early days of eBay, before they included shipping rates in transactions? You had to wait for a day or so until the seller got back to you with the actual shipping costs. Sometimes it was what you’d expected, sometimes it bit you in the butt.

Challenge: Design better ways to help users make a decision about transaction costs, or find ways to abstract it away all together.

A few questions to get you started:

• How might we make transaction costs and prices more transparent to the user?
• How might we reveal high-level and useful data on network status?
• How might we better automate gas estimates to remove friction from decision-making?

Some inspiration:

• The Slider: Could the user first select their desired transaction speed to reveal its implied cost?
• The Wallet Just for Gas: Could there be a separate wallet just for transaction costs, which gets topped off at regular intervals?
• The Toggle: Could you offer the user be a simple choice—speed vs. value?

3. Designing for readability

Crypto wallet addresses currently look something like this: 0x04De111196aCE9764b6eCAcC4f849b6b59193443—a string of 40 characters, which serve the function of being cryptographically unique (i.e. impossible to guess). While there are experiments like ENS, a human-readable domain system for blockchain addresses, they aren’t widely adopted yet. Sending a crypto transaction today means checking and double-checking 40 characters that look like gobble-de-gook. And you need to get it right the first time, since there are no refunds or rollbacks for crypto transactions.

That’s like having to type in the bank account number of every merchant or person you’d like to transact with, every single time. If it’s off by one digit—cue instant regret.

The challenge: Design ways to display blockchain addresses in a more readable or recognizable format.

A few questions to get you started:

• How might we use algorithmically-generated images or symbols to create visual recognizability?
• Are there industry standards (like checksums) that could help reduce errors in address entry?

Some inspiration:

• Cryptographic Visual Tags: How might we use unique color codes or symbols to tag address typologies or to verify addresses?
• 4-Digit Verifications: What are some industry standards that financial institutions use that could be relevant for these addresses? One such example is typing in the last 4 digits of a credit card number to verify ownership.
• Whitelist of Verified Addresses: Are there ways to maintain a registry of trusted addresses without relying on a central authority?

These are just three challenges (ahem, opportunities) that blockchain offers designers—there are (and will continue to be) many more. Have an idea? We’d love to hear it! Tweet your thoughts to @ideocolab.

Interested in collaborating with us on a future project, or got another blockchain-based design challenge you want to talk about? Reach out to IDEO CoLab, IDEO’s collaborative platform for emerging technologies, here or on Twitter!

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Despite all the media hype about the rise and fall of cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology is still in its infancy, meaning it’s an ideal time for designers to step in and help build new systems. There’s no shortage of challenges to address.

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.