D4V is a Tokyo-based early stage Venture Capital in partnership with IDEO. Two years ago, D4V invested in healthcare startup Ubie, which develops a service called AI Monshin Ubie. The digital service was created with the goal of reducing the burden on healthcare professionals working long hours, under harsh conditions. AI Monshin Ubie automates a number of patient registration and documentation processes through digital tools, enabling doctors to spend less of their time on manual paperwork, and to dedicate their valuable skills and attention to the patients themselves. Currently, the service is installed in 200 medical institutions in 41 prefectures across Japan.

With AI Monshin Ubie, patients fill out preliminary forms on a tablet, rather than paper, entering information about their health history and current symptoms directly into their digital medical record. As patients fill out the questionnaire, the Ubie AI generates questions in real-time according to patients’ responses, which results in more appropriate and accurate data. The patient’s responses are automatically formatted for the doctor to review prior to and during the consultation. As a result, doctor consultation times and facility operation times are drastically reduced.

With the Coronavirus raising fears of a possible health system breakdown, Ubie has made improvements to anticipate and possibly prevent in-hospital infections. Until recently, Ubie’s services have been primarily used by large hospitals; but in light of the global health crisis, Ubie approached D4V—who partners with IDEO—to help rethink the onboarding experience and quickly facilitate the introduction of AI Monshin Ubie in regional clinics across Japan. D4V and IDEO have been working with Ubie for many years to collaborate in various areas, including UX, rebranding, international research, and more. Therefore, they had a foundation of knowledge from which to build these new features.

Typically, AI Monshin Ubie has been introduced to new hospital clients through direct, in-depth instructional visits from Ubie sales staff. This approach has worked well for rolling out the product to Japan’s 8,000 large hospitals; but for the 100,000 smaller clinics, Ubie needed a more efficient onboarding method to enable staff to get set up smoothly and independently.

During research, D4V and IDEO team members engaged with many different clinic staff members, including full-time doctors, part-time doctors, nurses and receptionists. The researchers found that staff tend to react skeptically to new tools and services, with a common preconception that they will add to their workload. One clinic director’s first impression of AI Monshin Ubie was, “It looks complicated.” But once he actually used the service, he realized that it was very user-friendly.

The team quickly understood that it was important to remove preconceptions by clearly communicating Ubie’s benefits and ease of use. They created a two-minute animation and designed three separate guidebooks. The animation adopted a friendly tone and expressed empathy for doctors, staff members and patients, highlighting how Ubie can bring benefits to each of them. The animation showed how Ubie fits into the existing workflow and explained complex systems in a straightforward and accessible way.

WATCH: A short video clip explains the benefit of their product and service to avoid the users’ concerns in advance.

The guidebook for doctors and directors explains how Ubie’s AI smooths the patient consultation experience and greatly improves the quality of medical care. It also introduces concrete how-tos around set-up, implementation, and ideal workflow. FAQs were also included, addressing concerns about whether or not elderly people would be able to use it.

Ubie business development leader Kenji Yamada says, “D4V and IDEO have a deep understanding not only of design, but of our entire business. They provide inspiration by bringing experience and knowledge that comes from working with other industries and clients outside of healthcare. We appreciate that they can share the knowledge that they’ve obtained with our business.”

Read the Japanese-language version of the Ubie case study here.
When You Feel Unwell, Ask Ubie: Check your symptoms for free
Learn more about Ubie: Global Company Website

In the emergency room, an intervention that’s administered too slowly could cost a patient their life. With COVID-19 fueling a surge in acute respiratory conditions, intubation—a procedure that involves inserting a tube through the mouth or nose and into the airway—is more common than ever. For patients struggling to breathe, the tube can be connected to a ventilator that pumps oxygen to the lungs, keeping them alive.

While a laser-focus on the present is critical for successful patient outcomes, hospitals and physicians often don’t have time to look ahead and anticipate the future of the operating room experience. As technology rapidly improves, there is a ripe opportunity and pressing need to evolve medical equipment to be more innovative and intuitive. Verathon Medical, a global medical device manufacturer, is supporting health care providers at the cutting-edge of care.

Verathon approached IDEO to redesign the existing product system for laryngoscopies and bronchoscopies—procedures that examine parts of the throat through intubation. During these examinations, a tube with a camera embedded in the tip is inserted through the patient’s nose or mouth. The doctor can then see inside the throat on a video monitor, and therefore more easily and quickly intubate and perform the exam.

To create a groundbreaking device, the team observed over a dozen laryngoscopies, bronchoscopies, and intubations. They noticed that many anesthesiologists relied on fixed equipment during the procedures. For example, some had grown accustomed to looking over their shoulder—away from the patient—to view the monitor.

During interviews, physicians and residents expressed difficulties with the current technology, sharing that the small screens aren’t conducive to team viewing or student instruction, and they must often use a separate computer to record patient notes. Others reported frustrating workflows, needing to constantly divert their attention and move their hands between the patient, prep tray, monitor, sterile bin, and disposal bin. These inconveniences and inefficiencies are not only cumbersome, but can increase the risk of infection and fatality.

The team relied on these insights to start designing a next-generation product. Through sketching, storyboarding, and building in real-time alongside doctors and clinic staff, designers quickly teased out additional findings and validated concepts.

This work led to the creation of the GlideScope Core: an all-in-one, portable product system that supports both video laryngoscopies and bronchoscopies. The base of the device—a wheeled cart—has built-in storage units for tools and a disposal bin, offering more mobility and accessibility for medical professionals.

The product’s tagline, “see more, do more,” points to the improvements made to the video system, including a large 10- or 15-inch high-definition touch screen monitor. Displayed images can be enlarged and rotated 180 degrees for improved visualization, team viewing, resident training, and classroom demonstration. To help doctors keep both the patient and monitor in their line of sight, the detachable screen can be secured to an adjustable arm that can be positioned directly over the patient. Additionally, the monitor’s patient annotation feature gives staff access to more of what they need in one device.

The product has been especially valuable for providers and patients during the coronavirus pandemic, when it’s imperative for doctors to keep their distance from patients’ mouths and noses. The GlideScope Core’s movable, detachable, and large, high-definition monitor makes it easier to take this precaution and intubate more quickly. This usefulness is reflected in the 5-fold increase in cart-based device orders for Verathon. While most providers typically order anywhere from 1 to 20 devices for airway procedures, one hospital system requested 600 GlideScope Core systems to meet current intubation demands.

Through modern technology and a focus on human needs, the GlideScope Core supports improved patient outcomes and creates a more seamless operating experience for medical professionals. The product underlines the key but often overlooked fact that often, in order to ensure the healthcare industry is patient-centered, medical device manufacturers and hospitals must also focus on improving the experience of providers.

Healthcare is notoriously difficult to change. Rules and regulations present complex barriers; health practitioners and organizations often have entrenched ways of working; and lives are literally on the line. Despite these significant barriers, the leaders at Newton-Wellesley Hospital (NWH) boldly committed to improving patient care through a new approach.

NWH is a community teaching medical center in Newton, Massachusetts. Because of its proximity to Boston—a city known for world-class healthcare institutions—NWH needed to differentiate itself. The hospital's new president, Dr. Michael R. Jaff, reached out to IDEO for help: "I knew that providing an unparalleled patient experience would set us apart from our competitors." But, Dr. Jaff’s particular approach was unique. He and Dr. Jodi Larson, Chief Quality and Experience Offer (CQXO), saw an opportunity to drive better patient outcomes through cultural and organizational change.

"You cannot learn any more than when you get to listen to your potential patients say why they would never walk into your place." —Dr. Michael R. Jaff

IDEO partnered with NWH for a year of work together, kicked off by defining the vision for NWH and ramping up to in-hospital prototyping and the launch of several new initiatives. A pilot project with the Women's Imaging Center (WIC) focused on solving departmental and employee challenges to provide a better experience for women getting mammograms.

Fueled by this potential, the WIC team redesigned key work processes and created a set of experience principles that inspired new service prototypes. Guided by principles like "Express mutual gratitude" and "Honor every voice," the WIC team tested ways for patients to acknowledge outstanding caregivers and created tools to gather better feedback from patients and adjust quickly. The experience of designing better services inspired the WIC staff to become ambassadors for the power of design thinking across other departments inside NWH and they continue to build on the work through new prototypes and experiments.

Next, IDEO partnered with NWH’s ambulatory surgery group. They took an analogous research trip to Boston’s Logan airport to see with fresh eyes how other high-touch customer service organizations provide customer value in a complex setting. Insights from the trip were applied through live prototyping of several new experiences inside the hospital, including a pre-surgery visit summary and pre-operation care carts.

Analogous research helped us realize that we can learn from other industries and incorporate some (cool) best practices if we allow ourselves to get over the ‘that would never work in the hospital’ mentality. - Dr. Jodi Larson

One of the most impactful prototypes was Care Modes, a tool to empower the NWH care teams to tailor their approach and interaction with patients based on the patients’ unique needs, beyond simply their clinical requirements. Four distinct approaches were identified for engaging a patient before surgery—Explain, Partner, Embrace, and Encourage. The Care Mode is determined based on the provider's understanding of a patient's degree of self-advocacy and their confidence that surgery is the best solution to their issue.

Historically, care providers have been trained to deliver consistent care above all else. However, Care Modes powerfully acknowledge that patients respond differently to different types of care. The Care Modes empower the team—from surgeon to nurse to anesthesiologist—with a clear framework for how to interact with and provide care for patients so they feel most comfortable. Based on the prototype's success with patients and impact on the staff culture, NWH has incorporated Care Modes into EPIC, the hospital's electronic medical record.

The importance of being patient-centered has been central to the healthcare conversation over the past thirty years; but new explorations reveal that there’s far more potential for innovation and improvement when the provider experience is considered in tandem with the patient’s. Each enables the other, and design for both together yields stronger solutions and better outcomes. IDEO's work with NWH demonstrates this vital shift in user-centered healthcare—one can't design services and experiences for patients without designing for their providers’ culture as well. When these go hand-in-hand, meaningful institutional change in healthcare is more than possible.

The mission of Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) is to inspire children to achieve their full potential in the fields of science, technology, medicine, and engineering. Leaders at MSI realized they needed to drive day-to-day operations and maintain historic exhibits while focusing on where to go next. To prepare for its next decade, MSI worked with IDEO to create a new business focus to support the museum’s aspirations for the future. The plan would allow MSI to respond to the demands of the marketplace and raise the funds to get there.

At the beginning of the project, MSI laid out its priorities: improve equity of access, enhance the museum experience, and create a more innovative culture. To dive into each of these areas, IDEO conducted immersive research with families, teachers, donors, and staff.

IDEO brought together 60-plus donors, board members, and staff members to engage in a design thinking exercise to unpack and address the tensions that come with choosing a new strategic trajectory. Instead of having a standard ballot vote, the IDEO team encouraged participants to get up and vote with their feet, helping the group of stakeholders physically align on the museum’s new direction.

At the end of the research and prototyping phases, MSI and IDEO developed a vision called Provoking Minds, Inspiring Futures, creating six detailed design briefs to equip MSI teams to bring initiatives forward. The briefs laid out everything from recommending a new Department of Next, dedicated to ensuring that the future is at the heart of everything the MSI does, to MSI Runway, a place for experimental, small-scale, and limited-run exhibits. The ideas were brought to life with an interactive exhibit, built quickly with everyday materials like plywood and circuit boards, to demonstrate that creating an inspiring vision of the future doesn’t have to be an expensive endeavor.

The team also focused on insights that highlighted accessibility issues some families brought up early in the design process—travel across the city via public transportation can be lengthy, and the cost of admission to special exhibits could be prohibitive. To address these concerns, IDEO came up with the Mission Accessible brief: Inspired by casino buses, MSI bus stop signs would be posted in various low-income neighborhoods, signaling a way to take kids and families to the museum for free.

During the project, the IDEO team identified some low-hanging fruit, like rethinking ticketing and improving the student field trip experience, and helped the museum create cross-functional innovation teams to apply design thinking skills towards solving those challenges. They researched, brainstormed, and pushed forward new concepts, meeting weekly to share and build on ideas. At the end of the four week period, each team prototyped their ideas—new outdoor programming, software tools for visiting tour groups—and pitched them to each other.

In 2019, two years after the conclusion of the project, the collaboration paid off. With its new strategic plan and additional resources, the museum has renewed its commitment to serving youth, and MSI’s team, including donors, are aligned on a collective vision of the future. MSI raised more funds than in any previous year, including the single largest gift in its history—$125 million, nearly half of its $380 million fundraising goal—that will help ensure the years ahead.

I wanted to correct this discrepancy—to honor my friendships with the same sense of ceremony as a graduation. So, a few weeks before the big robes-and-tassels day, I created handmade portraits for each of them using my favorite art form: collage. Collage is more visceral than other traditional forms of art-making. Rather than relying on a pencil or paintbrush as an intermediary between hand and paper, it is 100 percent hands on.

Each collage I made was roughly 4x4 inches and took about 45 minutes.

My collage portrait process:

1. Gather materials. Pull old magazines from the recycling bin. Grab any scraps of paper you've collected. (A friend who also loves collaging brought a vintage Playboy for me to use. As she said, “It’s great for finding skin tones, obviously.”)
2. Comb through all the materials and rip out pieces until you have a few piles of various skin and hair tones and interesting textures.
3. Use a photo of your subject as a reference, draw a light sketch of their basic features onto paper.
4. Trim your pieces to size, use your favorite glue, and assemble the collage on top of your sketch.

In one instance, the portrait-making session blossomed into a full music-and-snacks event, where friends and I gathered to make collages of each other and exchange them. The party itself brought an unexpected moment of closure to our time in design school—to see everyone’s visual style, matured over four years together, coalesce in a scrappy portrait.

Giving—and receiving!—these portraits filled in a missing piece of what a graduation is supposed to feel like. And now, with college fresh behind me, I wondered how I could build the practice into a habit: How might I continue to use my favorite art form to show thanks to people who have been pivotal in my life?

After graduation, I moved from North Carolina to California to return to work at IDEO, where I'd been an intern the year before. And, in celebration of mentors and friends at IDEO whose support helped make all of this possible, I collaged a few portraits of coworkers:

I continue to search for more people and moments to memorialize in collage. It might be my new strategy for repurposing ticket stubs and brochures from travel adventures. Or a new, budget-friendly holiday gift tradition. Or a way for me to simply mark another year lived, making a self-portrait with materials collected over the past year. Collage has a poetic, “circle of life” quality to it, transforming human-made ephemera into a recycled treasure worthy of display.

As my college graduation approached this past May, I realized something about the commencement ceremony. While it celebrates all things you—your hard-won GPA, your winding list of extracurriculars, that new foil-stamped degree—what gets lost is a celebration of the relationships that helped get you there. Where was the homage to friends and mentors who, honestly, probably shaped my success more than any test score or honor club?

The work was done in collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Jeff Norris, one of the NASA crew, described how people react when they experience OnSight:

"When they first encounter this project," Norris says, people "have a feeling of, 'Wow, I've lived to see this.'"

That's precisely how I felt. Mic. Dropped. It left me wanting to know a lot more about Riccardo and his work. I'll let him take it from here:

In one sentence, who are you?

An Italian, beardy guy who likes to travel and observe people, learn about the world, and wonder how to make it a better place. (It turns out you can get paid to do that.)

What do you do? How did you learn it?

I’m leading the NEXT’s (New Experiences and Technologies) incubation team at Microsoft. We work on a number of new secret devices and experiences that have not been announced yet. Most recently, the Microsoft Hololens and Windows Mixed Reality. I learn by doing. In fact, I’m still learning how to do my job, and I expect to never stop.

I grew up in a small town in Italy, which was a great place to live, but there were not many opportunities. So I moved to London and started working as a developer there at Unit9 before moving back to design. I have a mixed background that reflects my many passions: I studied electronics and design and learned how to program on the side.

Since then, I have lived in Stockholm, New York, and now Seattle, always looking for new opportunities to learn and grow.

Chrome WebLab by Google

What are your three favorite possessions?

1. Old family photo albums.
2. All my books, now spread across two continents, which I dream of reuniting as one big library.
3. And of course BMO [a stuffed, plush video game console from Adventure Time] because it makes my niece laugh out loud when we play together.

What does a typical work session look like for you?

You could argue that what I really do daily is to press a lot of buttons, scribble on a whiteboard, and discuss with people. Sometimes I travel.

As a creative leader, I strive to build inclusive environments that foster creativity and enable every individual to learn, grow, and express their full potential. Every day is different. We research, brainstorm, sketch, build, discuss, and learn as much as we can to iterate and constantly improve.

What I personally do daily evolves pretty much every year, and I believe the role of designers and creative leaders will keep evolving with the rise of artificial intelligence. I would be surprised if my current job still exists in ten years.

How do you get over creative block?

Sometimes all it takes me is a shower, a nap, a walk, or a good dinner with friends. It helps me to read a lot of books, travel, meet new people, and be immersed in new realities that are far from my daily bubble. And it’s good to have a creative process, both as a reference to give you confidence when you feel lost, and as a framework to break away from when you are inspired.

Introducing Microsoft HoloLens: Transform your world with holograms

How do you see the world in 2078?

Um...let’s see. In 2078 I’ll be 94, maybe somewhere in the countryside in Tuscany surrounded by my grand kids, and hopefully I'll still be curious to travel, learn, and give back to the next generation. It might be a good idea to plan to be somewhere in the hills, just in case global warming makes my hometown a beach town.

It’s hard to make predictions, and too easy to fall into the trap of describing a dystopian future.

As designers, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to influence what future we want to live in. It doesn’t matter how small our contribution will be, it’s worth trying to push for a desirable future scenario.

My desirable future scenario looks like this:

• New generations will learn to live together, respecting our differences, understanding each other, fighting inequalities, and respecting nature and our planet in a deeper way.
• We will fulfill the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
• Education will be highly respected as one of the most important values.
• Religion as we know it will transform or disappear in favor of a shared philosophy and values.
• Democracy will change, evolving to a better system (probably with a different name), immune to populism and propaganda.
• There will be no more borders that divide us, centralized governments will disappear, and so will human-vs-human military conflicts.
• Communities will be as small as a town, but globally represented and connected beyond their geographical position.
• Money as we know it will disappear, replaced by other ways to measure our impact and value to society.
• We will work much less (thank you, technology), spending most of our time studying, exploring, and enjoying life. We will look back at our generation wondering why we spent our lives working eight hours a day, five days a week. We will use that time to re-discover the pleasures of the simple things that nature gives us every day.
• Autonomous robots will take care of most activities (and jobs), freeing humankind from committing their lives to repetitive tasks.

We might have learned how to control our planet's energy, gravity, climate, and resources. Some of us will live (probably with machines) on other planets, in the ocean, or the thermosphere, working hard to give us all an alternative to extinction and overpopulation. We will find new ways to help animals stay alive. We will learn how to balance ecosystems, maybe even to re-introduce extinct species, or introduce new human-made species that will help us fight illnesses and colonize new planets, making them habitable.

The meaning of being human might change in our lifetime. We might be super humans by then, and we will have to be very careful, as there is a huge risk of creating new inequalities based on who can afford what extension. There might be incredible innovations in brain-computer interactions, connecting us to technology and each other via a collective mind.

There might also be supermachines, hopefully like R2-D2 and C-3PO, to assist us and help us be better humans.

Who are you crushing on lately?

I really like Bret Victor’s way of thinking.

Ivan Poupyrev's work is excellent and always surprising. Ishac Bertran and Claudio Guglieri are good friends, great designers, and some of my favorite people.

I feel very lucky to work with some incredibly interesting people from all over the world to help imagine the future. We are always facing new challenges—sometime solving problems for the very first time and defining experiences that have never existed before.

A lifelong space nerd, I was blown away when I heard about OnSight, a Microsoft HoloLens experience that allows NASA scientists to navigate the surface of Mars using imagery captured from the Curiosity Rover. I met a creative leader of HoloLens, Riccardo Giraldi, at a conference in Milan, and was so impressed by the work he and his team at Microsoft presented.

We decided to transform our drab and sterile office kitchenette (not the main one where the rest of the office eats) into a space that could be both a chef’s and a designer’s paradise—a space that actually asks you to play with your food.

The food industry is evolving like never before, and even at-home chefs are becoming more experimental. So, if you work in food or are outgrowing your home kitchen, here are a few ideas you might want to take to-go.

Our Top 4 Kitchen Design Rules:

1. Keep it versatile

A kitchen should be beautiful, but it should also feel like a blank canvas upon which wild ideas can be cooked up.

Our first priority was to create a clean, open space where different project teams could come in and set up how they see fit.

Since we only had a small space to work with, keeping the floor plan bright, open, and versatile was crucial to avoid feeling like we're cooking in a dark closet.

The main wall above the sink is made from plywood panels cut with a CNC machine to look more like pegboard. The design, which uses movable dowels, makes it easy to add or adjust shelves to meet the needs of the cooks.

2. Design for conversation and collaboration

Making the IDEO community feel connected to what we’re doing is just as important as being able to showcase our work.

While much of what we do is prototyping food on a near-scientific scale, we wanted our space to feel less like a lab and more like a home, with a warm, inviting color palette and wooden stools at the counter to sit and have a chat.

Even though it’s not technically a kitchen island, that counter was added with the same intent: to create smaller, more intimate spaces for the chef, but also allow them to face out to the space and chat with people sitting on stools on the other side. This always seems to be the gathering place in everyone’s kitchen.

3. Don’t try to do it all

The problem with redesigning a kitchen is that you never know how you’re going to use the space until you start using it.

We could have spent months iterating and reiterating on the floor plan, making sure every last knob was perfectly placed. Instead, we kept it simple, moved fast, and left room for modifications that we’ll inevitably need as the food industry continues to evolve.

This helped us save on upfront costs, and allowed us to finish the renovation much sooner.

4. Let the food speak for itself

Above all, we wanted the space to reflect how we feel about food, rather than distract from it. Sleek, minimalist design and large, neutral counter tops allow the inherent beauty of food to shine through.

I intentionally kept as many of the built elements—like the bookshelves—as low as possible. This makes the space feel more open and larger than it is. This is key when dealing with small spaces. Your eye goes to the long horizontal surfaces, elongating the space, as opposed to being confronted with tall cabinets or shelves that break your line of sight.

Everything we do revolves around food, so why not build a kitchen that allows food to be the star of the show?

Next time you remodel, keep these ideas in mind and apply some design thinking to your dinner.

Build to think. That mantra is imprinted on our brains from the moment we walk through the doors at IDEO. In our Design for Food Studio, we build by cooking. And just as our shop guys need to be able to make noise and be surrounded by their tools, we need a kitchen that inspires us creatively, adapts to our needs, and demonstrates to clients how we prototype in a tangible way.

I took this picture in the neighborhood where I grew up in Istanbul. The streets of Istanbul are very dynamic places, full of commerce, conversations, fights, love, drama. But they’re not always designed to facilitate all the different activities that take place there. So people regularly find ways to design the interventions they need.

In this picture you can see a table built around a tree to create more space for people to hang outside. An awesome way of working around nature and creating space for social encounters—tactical urbanism perhaps?

Human-centered design requires us to observe human behavior with beginner's eyes, so that we can spot the innate ways people interact with the world around them. We call these intuitive and unconscious reactions Thoughtless Acts, and IDEO designers collect photos of them to inspire their work.

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.