Keeping diabetes in check isn’t easy. Between checking blood sugar multiple times a day, keeping a detailed activity record, and logging food intake, staying healthy can be daunting.

But a recent advance in smart diabetes management—Ascensia’s CONTOUR NEXT ONE blood glucose meter and the CONTOUR DIABETES app—can give patients more clarity and control.

The CONTOUR NEXT ONE is the latest product to spring from a multi-year collaboration between IDEO and Ascensia Diabetes Care (formerly Bayer Diabetes Care). In 2009, Ascensia and IDEO developed the award-winning CONTOUR USB blood glucose meter—the first meter to plug directly into a computer, providing patients and their doctors with instant access to blood sugar data and personal trend reports.

Buoyed by the success of the first collaboration, Ascensia asked IDEO to help design a next-generation diabetes management system (and the company’s first internet-connected device).

To help reduce the stigma of checking blood sugar in public, IDEO designed the CONTOUR NEXT ONE to look and behave like today’s modern tech devices. The highly simplified, seamless system allows patients to upload blood glucose readings automatically to the app, which helps guide informed, real-time decisions. The meter’s red, green, or yellow smartLIGHT feature gives instant feedback about whether blood sugar levels are below, within, or above the target range.

Seeing contextual data, which includes physical activity logs and photos of meals, paired with recent and historic blood sugar levels, nudges patients toward healthier lifestyle choices and better control of their condition.

For doctors, the accuracy and quantity of the data combined with the app’s easy-to-read pattern views invites more comprehensive, actionable conversations with patients.

The CONTOUR NEXT ONE hit shelves in Europe in 2016 and is now available in the U.S. Ascensia is poised to develop more products enabled by rich, personalized data to help people with diabetes live longer, healthier lives.

What if we could use the sky to provide alternative solutions to these problems, creating more space for living and transportation? What exciting future awaits us?

At JAXA’s Aeronautical Technology Directorate (ATD), researchers are conducting research and development on aviation science and technology for the future. They are working to affect positive impact through research like noise reduction of airframe and an integrated aircraft operation management system for disaster relief and crisis management.

Normally, JAXA begins their projects by examining the needs of the aircraft industry or comparing themselves against global technology standards. This approach often leads to ideas that are merely an extension of the current technology. JAXA needed a new approach in order to create radical ideas and real change.

The key question was: What solutions would emerge from prioritizing people’s needs over the most advanced technological possibility—taking a human-centered approach to tackling the most pressing societal challenges?

JAXA ATD voluntary partnered with IDEO to attempt to answer this question, identifying new research areas by envisioning people’s needs in the near future. Together, JAXA and IDEO developed four scenarios of future societies.

The scenarios do not necessarily focus on technologies. Rather, the focus is on telling stories that help readers put themselves in the shoes of the four personas. At the same time, the team worked with industrial designers to illustrate convincing demonstrations of the vehicles and machines of the future.

JAXA’s team embraces the belief that “technologies developed at JAXA should incorporate emotional aspects to blend seamlessly into people’s lives.” Driven by this philosophy, the visual design of the four scenarios used a friendly illustration style intended to be approachable and understandable for people of all ages.

In order to develop human-centered concepts from scratch, the IDEO and JAXA team first undertook research and inspiration-gathering. They skydived, observed cities from above, brainstormed with students from the department of architecture at Waseda University. They interviewed airline employees, a former Judo world champion, skyscraper lovers, a business producer who focuses on new working styles. Throughout the research phase, the team explored the possibilities of the sky as a “living space,” not just a place for transportation.

The team was surprised and excited when they learned from a former fighter pilot that old cockpit designs were inspired by the Japanese tea room, highlighting a historic precedent for taking inspiration from real life to inform new technology designs.

The team synthesized their research and developed several concepts, each informed by a different social issue or pressing concern. Each issue was brought to life through a fictional personal narrative.

How might we relieve city congestion and pollution using the sky, while still keeping it clean and blue? Floating public lights, a skyway that regulates air traffic, camouflaged planes that keep the sky blue—concepts introduced in this scenario were the closest to the technologies already being researched at JAXA ATD. They show us how the sky could become an infrastructure that supports our daily lives. Meet Ayame, a girl from Gunma prefecture, ready to begin her college life in Osaka.

How might we make travel feel easy for people of all ages, no matter how far they need to go? While the researchers at JAXA ATD are working to improve the mobility of aircraft, like reducing air friction or increasing the engine efficiency of aircraft, this scenario explored how people could travel door-to-door through the sky with or without aircraft. A day-in-the-life of Naoto, a 72-year-old man who commutes twice a month from Tottori to Tokyo for medical checkups.

How might we leverage the sky as a resource for reusable energy and economic growth? One of the criteria of JAXA’s R&D activities is to improve the environment. While JAXA has been focusing on “protecting” the environment, this scenario focused on “creating” new environments. A day-in-the-life of Toshi, who runs a “sky-to-table” farming business.

How might we help people live with peace of mind, even during a disaster? JAXA’s disaster relief technologies have been extremely valuable in countries like Japan, which frequently suffers from natural disasters. In this scenario, we approached the problem from victims’ point of view while exploiting the potential of a network of aircrafts and other flying objects. Here's the story of Yuri, a victim of an earthquake in Tokyo who reunites with her family after evacuating to the sky.

The purpose of the project website is not to present answers, but to introduce new directions towards an exciting future. By presenting JAXA ATD’s vision through these four scenarios, the team invited people from all industries and of all ages to participate in co-creating the future.

Just like movies, cartoons, and novels from childhood stimulate the imagination, this project aims to spark new conversation and vision for a radically different, positive future.

By illustrating and communicating a more human-centered future to a wider audience, Japan’s top aeronautical technology development agency may already be changing the future of the sky for the better.

The speed and scale of change in our world are unprecedented. As more people relocate to cities, our lives are impacted by urbanization problems such as pollution, congestion, depopulation of rural areas, resource, and energy deficiencies.

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For factory operators, a smart valve is a game-changer. It gathers data on how smoothly the system is running and feeds it to an app, making it easier to troubleshoot from anywhere. And when things get overheated, it can automatically shut down the machinery, avoiding a meltdown.

Georg Fischer (GF), the Swiss-based, B2B industrial manufacturer collaborated with IDEO to design that valve, along with a system that adds value for generations of engineers to come.

And there were some surprises along the way. When the team set out to interview customers, they learned a lot about their real needs. “We showed a customer a sacrificial concept of a smart valve and asked, what do you think about this?” says Laura Barrabia, GF’s Head of Corporate Design Thinking. “The customer answered, we don’t want your valve to be smart, we want to be smart. If GF is providing a smart valve, where is my value?”

For GF Piping Systems, these insights helped shape initial prototypes and guided the direction of the design to something that would tie parts together into smart systems and more efficient industrial facilities—a competitive advantage.

Yves Serra, GF’s CEO, recognized early on that his company needed to strengthen its customer-centricity and digital capacity, so he approached IDEO to begin shifting GF’s culture from engineering-led and procedural to customer-focused, multidisciplinary, collaborative, and flexible. That kicked off a decade-long relationship that would help GF take a design-based approach.

Learn what it means to move from being technology-driven to being truly customer-centric.

To help GF identify clients’ pain points and address them with new digital offers, IDEO proposed three “lighthouse” projects, one for each of GF’s divisions: Piping Systems, Casting Solutions, and Machining Solutions. Lighthouse projects (also called “Beacons”) are proofs of concept that light the way for an organization and help it shift its way of working.

For example, GF Machining Solutions built a prototype for an application that uses real-time data to help customers identify and fix problems in the machines, laying the foundation for truly predictive maintenance. Making data streams more transparent for customers also simplified life for the GF service engineers, who keep the machines running.

Learn how Georg Fischer is moving from hardware offerings to digital solutions.

For GF Piping Systems, the design team developed the GF Digital Line, a set of products, apps, dashboards, and other services that help customers plan, install, and maintain water and chemical piping systems. GF teams went back to customers to test several prototypes and gather feedback on the Digital Line and make sure it addressed current and future needs. They also built internal capabilities to support product development, laying the groundwork for future innovation.

Lastly, IDEO helped GF Casting Solutions escape the “commodity trap” of competing with foreign automotive suppliers. To better understand the pressures car manufacturers face, the design team explored the development cycles of two car manufacturers. They learned how challenging it is to implement solutions to reduce vehicle weight—essential for cutting fuel consumption. As an expert in aluminum die casting, GF was well positioned to help manufacturers meet that challenge, not just with quality parts, but also with digital engineering to deliver cutting-edge lightweight casting solutions, which are harder to replicate.

By the end of these lighthouse projects, GF had rolled out a global design thinking training program that had touched more than 1000 employees. After the training, employees throughout the organization adopted a new way of working and became passionate ambassadors. The enthusiasm spread from the R&D department to HR to finance and many other departments.

Today, GF has permanent design thinking and digital teams to continue this work. All three divisions aim to launch the first releases of their lighthouse projects by early 2019. And with every project, GF’s business—and solutions—get smarter about how to meet the needs of a fast changing world.

IHG’s ambition is to grow in service of its guests around the world. IHG’s Atlanta-based team had identified a major opportunity for hotels in the midscale space—a market segment known for its inconsistency.

Alongside colleagues at London-based forpeople, IDEO was invited to help IHG shepherd that business opportunity into a human one, by asking how IHG might reimagine the everyday travel experience for people relying on this category of hotel. What kind of offer might resonate equally with guests and with the owner/operators who’d need to buy into a new brand and bring it to life?

IDEO began by talking to travelers to better understand their lives, values, and needs—travelers who spend one or two nights on the road a few times every year; travelers who regularly take short trips to small cities or away from city centers; and travelers who live on the road, moving from hotel to hotel. These included court stenographers, medical technicians, consultants, conference-goers, and more.

Early research insights evolved into two distinct concepts for a new hotel brand, which were built out into two full-scale physical prototypes at IHG’s design center in Atlanta. Over three weeks, IDEO and its IHG partners led potential guests and hotel owners through each model, gathering their feedback on new formats for breakfast offerings, service details, booking experiences, and overall tone.

The investment in prototyping paid off with surprising and actionable insights. Despite wide variation in occupation and income, these guests are sophisticated and self-reliant; they know what’s out there, and they know what’s reasonable to expect. In fact, many describe a syndrome IDEO dubbed “anticipation anxiety:” the sense of dread that comes from not knowing whether a lower-priced hotel is going to be clean or safe, or provide a bed that enables restful sleep. Many have so little confidence in the cleanliness of hotels in this price range that they travel with their own packs of wet wipes.

IDEO, along with the IHG team, recognized these behaviors as an unanswered cry in the market. The purpose of the new brand crystallized around extinguishing that anxiety and rewarding guests with something much better. avid hotels exceeds its competition by doubling down on quality in just a few select areas: an extraordinary mattress; rigorously high standards of cleanliness; a focused, high-quality, grab-and-go breakfast and coffee experience; and an overall tone of warmth and straightforwardness.

These guests made clear that for trips like this, they aren’t interested in bells and whistles, or communication that isn’t frank or to the point. That led to an insight that upends an industry truism: for these guests—and there are many of them—choosing a hotel is rarely only about the price of the room. avid guests can often afford to stay in a more expensive place for a honeymoon or a vacation or a trip with friends; they’ll spend more when they need more. But for functional stays of one or two nights, it just feels wasteful. It goes against their values and their principles.

IHG and IDEO heard a clear call for a sense of focus and affordability—but never at the expense of quality. Guests should be able to access a simple booking process, rooms designed for sound sleep, and a quality breakfast, all at a fair price. And hotel owners ought to be able to deliver that experience with confidence and consistency, at costs that build a compelling case for their own business.

That’s what avid hotels is designed to deliver, every single time. Early traveler reviews have been exceedingly positive and have noted specifically the unique differentiating offers avid brings to the market.

Within a year of partnering with IDEO, IHG had issued 150 avid hotels licenses to franchisees in the US, Mexico, and Canada, and announced a development deal for 15 avid hotel locations in Germany over the next five years—a scale of success that came at unprecedented speed for the industry. The collaborative, inclusive design process is now serving as a model for how to develop robust, guest-centered hospitality brands that deliver where it matters for people.

Creativity Challenge #9: Define a problem to work on.

Innovators often face the task of which challenge to focus on, or how to frame a challenge they are given. At IDEO, we use the term “Phase 0” to describe all the activities that take place before the problem is fully defined.

Talking about problems doesn’t necessarily inspire ideas, or energize you to act on them. Nor does wishful thinking. The Dream/Gripe Session helps you translate those discussions into creative thinking challenges you can start to tackle. This tool was adapted from an exercise in the Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit, developed by IDEO in partnership with Riverdale Country School.

Tool: The Dream/Gripe Session
Participants: Pairs in groups of any size
Time: 15-30 minutes
Supplies: Pen and paper

Instructions

Step 1: Decide on a topic for discussion. The dreams and gripes may relate to internal matters like the culture of the organization or external ones like interactions with customers.

Step 2: Pair up with another person and select one person to go first (Partner 1).

Step 3: Partner 1 airs their dreams and gripes for five to seven minutes, while Partner 2 listens and takes notes.

For example:

DREAM: “I wish we could get our customers to read the instructions.”
GRIPE: “It’s so noisy around here that I have trouble concentrating.”

Step 4: Partner 2 reframes the dreams and gripes into open-ended questions that make for good innovation challenges. We usually start with the phrase “How might we...?” A good “How Might We” question should not be so narrow that it suggests a solution (even if it’s a good idea). Initially, you're just trying to capture the problem, not jump to possible solutions. It should also not be so broad that it stymies the flow of ideas (rather than generates them). A good “How Might We” question should allow someone to easily come up with 10 different ideas.

Partner 2 should aim for three to five well-framed innovation challenges and share them with Partner 1.

For example:

GRIPE: It’s so noisy around here I have trouble concentrating.
Challenge that’s too similar: How might we reduce noise so you don’t have trouble focusing?
Challenge that’s too narrow: How might we create more private offices so employees can concentrate better?
Challenge that’s too broad: How might we help people focus?
Challenge that’s just right: How might we design the space to accommodate a range of working styles?

DREAM: I wish our staff got their expense reports in on time.
Challenge that’s too similar: How might we get people to be more timely with their expense reporting?
Challenge that’s too narrow: How might we use a smartphone app to speed expense reporting?
Challenge that’s too broad: How might we get people to have more respect for deadlines?
Challenge that's just right (with empathy for the employee): How might we simplify the expense reporting process so that people can complete it more quickly?

Step 5: Switch roles and have Partner 2 air dreams and gripes while Partner 1 listens and then offers “How Might We” innovation challenges.

Step 6 (optional): If you are doing this in a group setting, compare lists of all of the innovation challenges across the pairs. Look for patterns, themes, and common issues. This should help focus the discussion and suggest an opportunity for what innovation challenge to take on next.

This post was taken from Chapter 7 of Creative Confidence. Purchase the book for more on how to use creativity to solve problems, or read more from this series of creative exercises on the IDEO blog.

Everyone is creative. This belief runs through everything we do at IDEO, and in 2013, it led my brother David and me to write a book that would help others—even those who don’t think of themselves as “creative types”—to unleash their creative potential. Creative Confidence has inspired thousands of people to adopt a creative mindset and apply it to the diverse real-world challenges they face. In this series, we’ll share some exercises from the book that can help you approach your challenges from a new perspective.

It would be decades before design would become widely understood as a practice beyond decorative arts. In fact, the interviewer asked, “How would you define yourself with respect to a decorator?” And Eames replied succinctly: “I wouldn’t.”

It’s rare to find such a concise encapsulation of design’s power and potential, but Eames summed it up with admirable simplicity. There are no boundaries to the problems we face, of course; but there’s also no end to the ingenuity we can bring to bear in our pursuit of solutions.

Framed this way, it’s easy to see why design—as a creative approach to solving problems—is such an effective tool for business. In a highly interconnected world transforming at unparalleled speed, business leaders must attend to an ever widening set of concerns. Threats and opportunities come from unexpected places, and it can be hard to see through the fog. Design helps us navigate that ambiguity. It provides a framework for making decisions, identifying needs, devising solutions, and articulating values.

At IDEO, we know the magic that can result from combining design thinking, business acumen, and the possibilities of new technologies. We see it every day with our clients and teams, and we hear stories from our network of partners and collaborators.

Now, we have a place to share those stories: The IDEO Journal, a new digital publication featuring insights, inspiration, provocations, and lessons from the world of design-led business.

Today we are thrilled to launch this publication on IDEO.com and through a biweekly email newsletter. We begin with four perspectives: Lawrence Abrahamson, Senior Design Director at IDEO New York, shares an insight he had while chatting with a facilities manager for a large real estate corporation—recognizing new ways to unlock value in the work space of the future. Deborah de Vries, Senior Portfolio Director at IDEO San Francisco, shares the four key pillars to building an innovation lab that successfully shepherds its parent organization into the next era of its business. Senior Portfolio Director Hailey Brewer presents a thought exercise on the language we use when we talk about business—and how changing our words might change our outcomes. And Owen Sanderson, a business designer, alongside Maura Cass, a design research lead in our Cambridge studio, share an example of how looking outside your own industry can be the best way to inspire change within it.

Forthcoming stories will include a case for embracing friction when starting a new corporate venture; and an interview with Dawn Laguens, the former Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood who now sits with us as expert-in-residence at IDEO. We’ll have explorations of creative leadership, digital transformation, entrepreneurship, and much more.

The convergence of design and business has followed a long trajectory from the early business consulting work of Charles and Ray Eames. It would have been hard to imagine in 1969 just how widely design could be applied. Even IDEO co-founder David Kelley, looking back on our firm’s 40 years, remarked: “And to think, when we started I thought we were going to forever be designing plastic parts for Silicon Valley computers and that would be enough to be fulfilled.”

Computers themselves once seemed like one of the most complex and interesting problems design could tackle. Now, of course, the physical components are just an interface for whole realms of experience nobody foresaw. While we can never predict the future, we can equip ourselves to respond to it with creativity and intelligence. By applying design and business—together—to the problems of our time, we expand the boundaries of possible solutions.

In a 1969 interview, the legendary designer Charles Eames was asked, “What are the boundaries of design?” Without skipping a beat, he turned the question around and asked, “What are the boundaries of problems?”

They were right, of course. At IDEO, we’ve seen time and again how environments design can create a more appealing, nimble, and resilient workplace. But we’ve also learned that a more profound change—and higher returns—can come when we look beyond the “hardware” of floor plans and furniture to the “software” of human relationships, activities, and work habits.

We began a series of site visits, meeting with people across different roles and observing how they used their workspaces, from executive offices to call centers. At one location our guide was a “floor manager,” as they called him. Technically, he was responsible for the upkeep of the physical environment, but he quickly revealed himself to be far more than that. He remembered birthdays and anniversaries. He knew when teams had completed a big project and how best to celebrate it. He was also an astute observer of the quirks of human behavior in space, like the routes people paced when they needed privacy on a personal call. He was invaluable for our learning process, and we realized he was invaluable for the bank too. He bridged some of the work of a receptionist, human resources specialist, custodian, and audiovisual tech. Above all, he helped people connect personally to their environment, and in doing so he made it better and their work easier to do.

But, as in so many organizations, his job was in jeopardy. Rather than see the value of his dedicated attention and accumulated cultural knowledge, the bank had decided that it no longer needed a manager for each floor. His role was seen as expendable, and his presence a cost burden. His “hard” tasks could still get done in a more administrative capacity, but the “softer” work would disappear.

This was a moment of insight for us. Amid the inconsistency of changing workplace conditions and mobile employees, this floor manager was a constant for the community. Far from being an unnecessary expense in a lean workplace, he was what allowed a lean workplace to thrive. He embodied its culture and created returns that couldn’t be easily captured on spreadsheets. We started to think of him like the starter in a sourdough recipe—the little bit that carries the unique flavor and texture of the organization forward.

The case of the big bank floor manager is indicative of larger trends that I have seen evolve over the last decade. For many years, facilities professionals, just by doing their jobs, enabled huge returns for their companies. They brought value by modernizing space, boosting technological efficiency, and cutting square footage. But when there is little left to cut, returns must be generated in other ways. In order to unlock new value, the realm of facilities must expand to encompass not only visible details of design and culture, but also less visible organizational factors like strategy, structure, process, incentives, and talent. In turn, the role of the facilities manager evolves from someone who optimizes for today, to someone who helps cultivate tomorrow.

In searching for more ROI, some organizations are choosing to locate their teams in white-label workspaces that offer glossy services and amenities, while alleviating some of the ambiguity inherent in preparing for the future. However, these places can be more like interchangeable hotel rooms than permanent homes. The occupants are connected by proximity, but not by a shared purpose.

At IDEO, we consider that sense of common purpose to be an essential part of the software that makes the workplace—and the organization—thrive. Our challenge is to better program that software—to think not only in one-off designs, but about the broader life and behaviors in an environment. In a project for Planned Parenthood, for example, we suggested shifting the role of receptionist from a stationary processing officer to a responsive guide—someone who could assess patients’ particular needs and help them navigate the space accordingly. The furniture and floor plan changed, too, to improve the patient experience; but it was in the use of human services that the overall design was activated. The people inside would play just as important a role as the walls and furniture. The outcome was both a strengthening of internal culture and relationships, and a more favorable outside perception of the brand as one that foregrounds human relationships. It showed what can happen when we consider people and interactions as part of the design.

In a very different type of project—the redesign of a hedge fund’s trading floor—we similarly looked at the interaction between human activity and physical environment. The client’s hunch was that more portfolio managers talking with each other and exchanging their expertise and research would produce different, better scenarios to trade on. Their teams had been siloed and hierarchical, with minimal interaction between fiefdoms. We quickly realized that while the brief asked for “the trading floor of the future,” we were undertaking a cultural change project. You can’t get people to exchange ideas if they don’t even address each other in passing.

We designed a space that had teams sharing amenities like conference rooms, call booths, and support service stations, and we also left room for spontaneous interactions and conversations away from the desk. The physical environment was enriched by the design of programmatic experiences like learning and development opportunities that brought diverse employee groups together; as well as intentional consideration of teams’ internal language and communication. At first, those at the top of the hierarchy resisted organic interaction with those lower down the ranks. But in the end, the value of cultural cohesion was clear. And data supports the experiential finding: Teams and organizations that collaborate across different functions on a daily basis are 38% more successful than organizations that do not. The best workspaces function like a sliding puzzle: there has to be a little extra to move into, otherwise everyone gets stuck in place. They consider the container as well as the contained.

The two projects were certainly different, but both were emblematic of doing more with less, by focusing on the people in the space. We helped both organizations and their real estate teams steward a shift from merely managing their workspaces to cultivating the activity that goes on inside them. We studied unique human behaviors and then, through testing and prototyping, moved forward with elements tailored to each organization’s culture and its individuals. That process differs from what environments design typically entails. But we know that the software of a workspace still has a lot to give us all, in a way that’s complementary to the pressures many organizations are feeling.

I recently got back in touch with my client at that international bank. She told me they’re now adding floor managers—renamed “experience managers”—to their sites across the globe. That’s a small thing, but it underscored a more profound change in her role developing the bank’s myriad facilities. If before she was a value saver, now she sees the possibilities in being a value creator. Rather than working behind the scenes, she is an active player in her organization’s success. “It’s not just furniture,” she said. “It’s about how employees feel about the way they are spending time. Are they in an environment that supports their flow, their work style, and their work type? What can we do to make their work easier? How can I make them more successful?”

Those are profound questions for any organization, let alone for the professional field of real estate that is shifting from simply building the walls to enabling the activities that happen inside of them. When I think about the future of facilities, I think about all the potential we can unlock by holding the cultural and emotional components of work alongside legacy approaches to productivity and architecture. Our challenge—and our interest—is weaving those parts into a greater whole.

Unless otherwise specified, all statistics came from Creative Difference, a digital tool to assess, guide, and track the development of creative and innovative teams.

Visuals by Marina Muun.

A few years ago, a major international bank approached IDEO and asked our team to rethink their workspaces. They had a new CEO, a new mission statement, and a hunch that the physical design of their facilities could foster behavior changes in the organization.

Analogous research is a form of exploration that takes a team outside of its industry to find inspiration in the ways others have tackled similar challenges. These immersive experiences allow us to move beyond our expertise to see challenges with fresh eyes. In these moments, we build new levels of understanding and empathy that help us unlock aha! moments and generate ideas that we can ultimately bring to our own design challenges.

A few weeks into a project focused on redesigning the patient surgical experience with Newton-Wellesley Hospital (NWH), we saw an opportunity for analogous inspiration. Our client aimed to disrupt its industry by creating a service that focused not just on clinical outcomes but on the entire patient experience–from check-in to check-out. We assembled a team of surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, and hospital executives to help us design a better experience for patients. About halfway through the project, it became clear that they needed inspiration from outside the healthcare industry.

So we headed to the airport. Why? Because, like performing surgery, taking to the skies isn’t a simple process. It involves lots of regulation, moving parts, and coordination. While an airline’s mission is to deliver a passenger from A to B, its purpose is to deliver a seamless, customer-centric travel experience. Airlines have invested in products and services to create that kind of experience, but many surgical departments haven’t considered the entire patient journey–beyond what happens clinically under the bright lights of the OR.

We brought the hospital staff to Boston Logan Airport for a morning with JetBlue—an airline known for great customer service. When the docs on our team first caught wind of the trip, they were a bit skeptical. It’s not easy to convince a bunch of highly-trained surgeons to scrub out of the OR and go on a field trip. But they piled into cars and headed to Logan.

We started at check-in. The hospital team was issued mock boarding passes and asked to check-in for their upcoming flights. They had the option of using a kiosk, their phone, or speaking to a real, live person.

Almost immediately the team began to discover parallels between the patient experience and the traveler experience. The surgeons on the team quickly noted how many different pathways there were for customers—options for families, those with disabilities, and frequent fliers. “We only have one option for our patients, but patients aren’t all the same,” one surgeon said.

The lessons continued as we cleared security. The group stopped by the Just Ask counter, JetBlue’s customer service desk. Staffed with friendly crew members, Just Ask is exactly that—a place where customers can ask JetBlue anything. That includes getting directions to the bathroom, finding out the score of the Red Sox game, or asking to rebook a flight. JetBlue crew members are empowered to help passengers—even beyond their standard job descriptions. A pre-op nurse on our team suggested having something similar in the hospital–a place where patients and their loved ones could get the support they need. “I bet it’d be easy to prototype this type of service, and it would help us learn what patients really want,” she said.

The group ended its day at JetBlue’s operations center and crew lounge. Here, the two teams met to discuss the day’s takeaways. “It starts by building a united team,” said the manager of onboard service and hospitality standards at JetBlue. “Sure, we can launch programs like the Blue Cafe to provide complimentary snacks to delayed customers or hand out pilot wings to young travelers. Of course, we do these little things–but what really matters is working together to create a consistent experience across a customer’s travel journey.”

When the NWH team circled up later that week, it was clear something had changed. The team was buzzing. Catalyzed by the analogous field trip, the doctors and nurses were ready to get to work. They mapped out a handful of prototypes to test at the hospital, including a redesigned lobby experience, and a way to engage with patients with different levels of confidence and familiarity with the hospital system.

At IDEO, we treasure these moments of cross-industry learning. Sometimes all it takes is for leaders and frontline workers to get out from beyond their desks and see things from a new perspective.

So, next time you’re feeling stuck, seek inspiration outside of your comfort zone. Consider how others have solved unique but similar problems. It might just be the change in perspective your team needs to recharge and think differently.

At first glance, surgery and airline travel don’t appear to be very similar. But if you dig deeper, you’ll find overlapping themes in the work experiences of surgeons and airline employees—stress, a high-pressure environment, a lot of team coordination. Actually, these industries have a lot to learn from each other. We at IDEO call this analogous research.

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.