Only 20 percent of American homes are protected by security systems, and most of these systems are installed after a break-in. ‍

Home security veteran SimpliSafe hoped to convince the other 80 percent of home-dwellers to invest in preventative technology so the break-in never happens. The company approached IDEO to refresh and simplify the look and feel of its connected products to reach this wider audience and help them feel safe.

Interviews with potential customers revealed insights that informed the new design. Families told the researchers that existing security systems are expensive, bulky, and hard to install and use. Instead, systems should be unobtrusive, but responsive to your needs. They should react appropriately in emergencies, while also protecting your privacy.

Responding to those requests, IDEO overhauled the design and interaction of more than a dozen SimpliSafe products, including a wireless, touch-to-wake keypad; easy to install sensors; and a smart home base that acts as the brains of the system. Additionally, IDEO designed SimpliSafe's first step outside of the home—a video doorbell that can be used in tandem with the namesake home security system or on its own. Making the system enjoyable and intuitive to use means families are more likely to use it consistently—and correctly.

The team developed a consistent design language across SimpliSafe’s physical products, user interface, and digital presence. That clear visual language lets you know what each component does right out of the box; for example, the glass break sensor looks like a human eardrum that might actually hear a window shattering. The design also reduced the size of entry sensors by four times, while improving their range and battery life. Tapered backs and swept-front surfaces for all of these sensors help them blend into your home. The new system’s clean, understated appearance instills confidence without stoking fear of what could happen.

SimpliSafe’s keypad and base station guide you through setting up the system with voice feedback, while gentle LED lights and sound cues let you know at a glance that the system is armed correctly and you’re in safe hands. The system is also equipped with multiple layers of backup, so you don’t have to worry if the power or Internet goes down.

And the system responds intelligently, tailoring the way it reacts to match different scenarios. For instance, it sends a gentle reminder if a window is left open but a police response if a window is broken in. The design team also incorporated a first-of-its-kind privacy shutter on the system’s security camera so families can opt out of being recorded at home.

SimpliSafe launched its redesigned security system in early 2018, replacing the company’s two previous generations of products at the same price point. Already, the revamped system has cut the number of support calls from new customers.

In June 2018, venture fund and private equity firm Hellman & Friedman acquired SimpliSafe in a deal that valued the company at about $1 billion.

With a record number of applicants, stiff competition for top students, and a desire to make classes more diverse, college admissions teams are feeling the strain. Bowdoin College in Maine, one of the top liberal arts schools in the U.S., received more applications for the class of 2022 than for any other in its 224-year history.

Whitney Soule, Bowdoin’s Dean of Admissions and Student Aid, saw her staff at risk of burning out. On the advice of Bowdoin’s president, Clayton Rose, she invited IDEO to embed at the college and help design a new way of working. The IDEO team studied Bowdoin’s workflow and zeroed in on the application process as an area ripe for redesign.

By observing how Bowdoin counselors read applications, IDEO learned what drove their decisions. Mindful of how their choices could impact young people’s lives, counselors prioritized a meticulous reading of each application. But this thorough approach meant they often engaged in redundant work or delayed making final decisions.

IDEO designers translated their insights into a book for staff, featuring watercolor portraits of the admissions team and a clear articulation of their values—from integrity to inclusion. The book was IDEO’s promise that introducing a new reading process wouldn’t mean sacrificing Bowdoin’s personal touch.

Then, the designers and counselors ran A/B tests using real applications from past years, unwinding long-held beliefs about how they “should” be read. Soule and her team experimented by adjusting timelines and other factors that determine when and how applications move from a first read to a second read to a committee discussion.

Soule gave her team explicit permission to toss their typical playbook. Seeing their own process with fresh eyes, counselors realized they could be more confident in their expertise and tweak their workflow to meet changing demands.

A/B testing proved that some variables had little effect on the team’s final admissions decisions. With that in mind, IDEO redesigned the reading process and included a system called “magic sort,” which helps parse groups of applications based on a new set of counselor assessments in order to route each to its next round of reviews more efficiently.

The IDEO-Bowdoin team put the revised technique to work right away, processing 300 new applications from the annual QuestBridge program for low-income students. Counselors found they were able to make equally valid decisions while cutting the amount of overlapping work they faced by 40 percent, compared to years past.

Working with IDEO challenged us to change the way we work together—and we learned a new method of problem solving that we continue to use. We are better equipped to elicit creativity, then channel it into the practical implementation of new solutions. It’s been transformative!

WHITNEY SOULE, DEAN OF ADMISSIONS AND STUDENT AID, BOWDOIN COLLEGE

The new reading method let staff cope with a growing volume of applications, while balancing the need to evaluate individual students with the need to think holistically about the makeup of Bowdoin’s student body. Counselors adapted the technique to the rest of the year’s admissions cycle, including early-decision, regular decision, and transfer applications.

To extend what her team learned to other departments, Soule has led several design thinking workshops across campus. Her success as a leader has mirrored the growth of her team and the college; by empowering staff with new tools and the freedom to experiment, Soule and Bowdoin are leading by example in the evolving world of higher education.

For half a century, Swarovski has crafted iconic chandeliers dripping with the brand’s signature crystals. With the rise of new interface technology, the company came to IDEO for help to design the chandelier of the future.

IDEO designers set out to create beautiful, emotional experiences by layering technology onto Swarovski’s lighting offerings. Whether it’s setting the tone for a sophisticated retail experience, creating subtle ambiance at a romantic dinner for two, or providing true quality light to read a book, the team considered how a chandelier can enrich personal moments throughout the day.

Swarovski and IDEO assembled a multidisciplinary group, including industrial and UX designers, brand experts, and engineers to quickly vet, build, test, and refine their ideas.

Designers from IDEO and Swarovski worked together to completely reimagine the crystal chandelier.

Together, the team designed a new tech-infused chandelier and family of other light fixtures. At first glance, the chandelier resembles a simple, sleek metal disc. But when you turn it on and peer inside, an endless number of crystals swirl far into the distance—an Infinite Aura.

The Infinite Aura collection also includes pendant and wall lights. The team developed a mobile app that proactively modifies light settings based on the time of day, and also lets users customize their experience—including adjusting brightness and color to set a personal mood, or “Aura.”

Unlike most fixtures, Infinite Aura doesn’t just give off ambient light; families can also benefit from high-quality functional light, directed downward to help them focus on a task or diffused upward and downward to create a subtle ambiance. In a similar way, the chandelier can expertly illuminate a library, hotel lobby, or concert hall.

The new lighting line adds greater functionality and emotional resonance to today’s smart buildings, while retaining Swarovski’s timeless elegance. Infinite Aura debuted in Frankfurt, Germany in March and will be available internationally in fall 2018.

More than half of Americans don’t have the cash to cover a $400 emergency expense like a car repair or trip to the hospital. Taking that reality to heart, American Family Insurance, a Fortune 500 company that offers auto, home, business, and life insurance, was seeking a way to make an impact by helping people earn and protect—not just insure—the things they value.

American Family approached IDEO with an ambitious goal: to innovate in a way that would help working families—many of them existing American Family customers—who need a financial cushion in case of the unexpected. This new mission fell in line with American Family’s overall orientation toward increased social responsibility, including committing to a liveable wage for all employees, helping with student loans, and providing college scholarships and tuition reimbursement for employees’ children.

In early discussions, American Family thought people might need budgeting tools, but from the very first research interview, a different urgent need emerged: people needed a way to shore up their savings enough to protect against unforeseen needs. This same story came from numerous places. In Tennessee, the IDEO design team sat in the kitchen of a working single mom of four, who explained how her lifestyle was built around her extremely constrained budget. She couldn’t afford childcare, so she’d organized her home to allow her 11-year-old to watch the younger kids: partitioned snacks, timers on the TV, chore charts on the fridge. She managed her budget meticulously, it was clear, and she didn’t need new financial tools. What she really needed, she said, was extra income cushions so a surprise expense like a doctor’s visit or stretch investment like a kid’s basketball uniform wouldn't derail her plans. Like many of the people the team visited across the country, she didn't want to take on debt; she wanted extra work and the dignity and peace of mind that comes with it.

Could we, the team wondered, offer people who already have jobs the extra hours and income they need in a way that reduces, rather than exacerbates, the stress they already face? Would employers get on board?

The short answer was yes. Today’s businesses depend on on-demand work, including seasonal warehouse and retail shifts. Typically, companies look to temp agencies whose model is built on staffing with the goal of permanent placement. Moonrise enables companies to tap into a workforce that's already employed, allowing them the benefits of passive recruiting (reliability, consistency), but for short term work.

Knowing innovation was the path to growth, American Family took a chance by embracing a radically new brief: Create a service to help families living on the edge bridge the gap between the size of their paychecks and the size of their dreams. The result was a new business venture called Moonrise.

When customers told us that having an easy way to earn extra money could improve their lives, we were compelled to pursue a solution. Moonrise is a business with a human-centered mission. We’re proud it’s part of our American Family.

Jack Salzwedel, Chairman & CEO, American Family Insurance

The Moonrise platform lets workers sign up for shifts with partner organizations through a simple text message interface, and get paid as soon as their shifts are done. Employers who sign up to partner with Moonrise can list open shifts on the platform.

“Moonrisers” are W-2 employees of Moonrise, not contractors, so they don’t have to pay self-employment taxes. They also get personalized business and comment cards to take to job sites, making their interactions with employers feel more professional. In this way, Moonrise helps workers not only build a buffer against unexpected bills, but also explore new positions and fields—and perhaps even land new full-time work with Moonrise partners.

To test the program in real time, IDEO and American Family assembled 11 Moonrisers, six employers, and a team of designers and programmers to work out kinks in the platform. During a one-week live pilot in Wisconsin, Moonrisers finished a combined 28 work shifts, earning an average of $121 each, while IDEO designers worked behind the scenes to keep the process running smoothly.

Based on the success of the pilot, American Family created a new startup company called Moonrise, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of American Family. Moonrise launched to the public in the Chicago area in 2018, with plans for an eventual nationwide rollout. Moonrise signed Enterprise Rent-A-Car as its first employer and actively matches workers in Chicago with shifts, while continuing to build more corporate partnerships.

Since launching in 2018, over 7,000 people have applied to become Moonrisers, more than 7,000 shifts have been fulfilled, and over $500,000 has been put into the pockets of hardworking Moonrisers. Additionally, Moonrise will be expanding into 3 additional states in 2019.

IDEO and American Family Insurance interviewed customers of The General—a division of American Family—about how they budget to make ends meet. In this conversation, customer Chandra told designers how $62 could be the difference between breaking down and breaking even for her family.

It’s not always easy for established companies to innovate, especially outside their core business. But innovation is a high priority for American Family. Creating an employee -centered startup like Moonrise solves an urgent problem and distinguishes them from their competition. Together, American Family and IDEO identified a pressing human need and built a program from the ground up to meet it.

For a decade and a half, the group has built a global reputation for pulling stunts like the Grand Central Terminal freeze. If design is about the capture and channeling of attention, Improv Everywhere has a lesson for us in how to achieve that. We spoke to founder Charlie Todd to get some backstory on his benevolent guerrilla art troupe.

How did Improv Everywhere start?

Charlie Todd: I totally blundered into it. I was 22-years-old, and moved to New York to be an actor in improv comedy. I said to some friends, let’s go play a prank in a bar tonight. We did it for five years, and then when YouTube was created, I already had a library of content. A thing we did in Grand Central Station got 10 million views in the first week alone. I’ve spent the last eight years following that viral breakout.

What’s the audience meant to take away from such stunts?

When a load of people turn up at Coney Island in eveningwear and jump in the ocean, and people ask why, the answer is that there is no why. We’re all conditioned to assess for some extrinsic motivation, like the thing was for charity or a comment on global warming. It’s okay to just do a thing because it’s silly.

So, it’s simple whimsy with no purpose?

Well, I’d like to think that having that experience maybe alters people’s perception in some small way. We’re encouraging people to express themselves in a public space, in an unauthorized manner. In this post-9/11 security world we live in, we’re trying to make people realize that they don’t have to ask permission to express themselves creatively.

Is it also important to be connecting people?

I grew up in South Carolina, in a small city. I was used to people making eye contact and smiling. Moving to New York, everyone is busy and has a smartphone. It was like the only time you made eye contact was if something bad was going on: a train being delayed, or a crazy person shouting. People would unify around shiftiness. So we thought: can we create something that is positive in nature, something so unusual and joyful that you have a positive connection with someone?

Do you always get a positive reaction?

During one of the No-Pants pranks we had some police trouble. An officer stumbled across the event, and didn’t like it. Our people stayed in character and said they had forgotten their pants. The officer took the train out of service. But everything was eventually dismissed. It turns out that there’s no law against being in your underwear. When we did the event the next year, the police were there, to help escort us and make sure people had a good time.

What do you do when you’re not freaking people out on the streets of New York?

I get hired by brands to create surprise moments or spectacles, or brainstorm ideas for a brand campaign. I get to direct and produce TV. Last year I was the show-runner for a show on MTV. I’ve also been at the Upright Citizens Brigade for 15 years, as a performer and teacher.

Tell us about the teaching. Can you teach someone to be funny?

All you can teach is for people to learn how to be themselves—to be honest, and react in a truthful way. Everyone’s unique personality and viewpoint is funny. It’s counter-intuitive: when trying to be funny, people often try to be something that they’re not, by imitating stuff they’ve seen on television and so on. Instead of trying to be something you’re not, you need to be more authentically connected to what you are. That applies to creativity too: instead of reaching outside and trying too hard, focus in on what truly inspires you.

Photos courtesy of Improv Everywhere.

In the dead of winter, 2001, a woman riding the New York subway looked up from her book and saw a passenger wearing no pants. She was puzzled, but ignored him. At the next stop, another pantsless passenger joined him. And then more. By this time, she had put her book away. A hidden camera captured her reaction as it evolved from confusion to delight. She traded looks of amazement with the other passengers—a group called Improv Everywhere was responsible for breaking their routine.

1. A deeper understanding of 3D relationships

These puzzles teach how different shapes fit together in three-dimensional space. M. C. Escher would have no advantage: there is no cheating the puzzle, and all the rules of physics and gravity apply. In order to solve the puzzle, you have to understand how the shapes fit together. This is important for designers, especially when so much is being designed on a computer. If a product is being designed for the physical world, it needs to play nice with the rules of physics.

2. Forward and backward problem solving

Once you understand how the pieces are supposed to fit together, you actually have to make it happen. Often this involves both forward and backward problem solving. The internal monologue might go something like this: “So I am going to start with this piece because it is the biggest and is easiest to deal with, if I work around it. This smaller piece is probably the second half of the left side. And this piece has to be the last piece."

Sometimes you know the last step first. Sometimes you know step 1, 2, and 5 but then have to solve for steps 3 and 4. That can be scary in a linear world, but as designers that is sometimes the reality we face. It’s helpful to have the confidence that steps 3 and 4 will become clear, even if initially they are hard to see.

3. Hand-eye/Hand-brain problem solving

There is something very rich about holding a problem in your hand as you work with it. By holding the puzzle, you have a deeper understanding of the spatial relationships that must be solved. While it is possible to understand these things on a computer or on paper, being able to physically handle an object allows you to reach conclusions and iterate solutions in different ways. Fluency across mediums can only help us arrive at these solutions faster.

Others lessons might include balancing the details with the big picture, and reading context clues. But I found that I had an even deeper appreciation for these puzzles when I learned how to make some. I would encourage any interested designer with access to materials and tools to try making one for themselves.

For most of the puzzles, the pieces seem very simple. The simplicity is deceptive, however. Take the star puzzle: a configuration of six roughly rectangular identical pieces with two “triangular” notches cut out of each that slide together nicely (when you know how to do it.) But the pieces aren’t exactly rectangular. The notches are not simple triangles. In fact there are 12 faces, and only a handful of right angles. Plus, most commonly these pieces are only a few inches long—not safe to cut on most power tools without jigs—but which jigs? And to add to all that, they have to be precisely made in order to actually work, especially if you want them to look good. Again, there are simple solutions to all of these problems, but it takes some figuring to make it work. But that’s the point of a puzzle, right?

Maybe it’s their old school charm or the fond memories I have of solving them at Cracker Barrel, but I am a fan of wooden block puzzles. And after learning how to make them, from my wizard-like teacher at North Bennet Street School, I have come to appreciate the true elegance of these puzzles, and the lessons they have for designers.

Dix, a photojournalist, got on a plane for what he thought would be a 10-day trip. He ended up staying for four years, working at the United Nations to help find food and shelter for 300,000 displaced locals. It was during that time that Dix first came across Art Spiegelman’s Maus, the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel charting Spiegelman’s father’s experience in the Holocaust as a Polish Jew.

Before Maus, Dix’s only exposure to comics came from reading Calvin and Hobbes and Asterix. But as he huddled in bunkers during air raids and artillery fire, Dix was struck by how simply and powerfully Spiegelman was able to render the complexities of identity, memory, and trauma in graphic form.

With violence between government and Tamil forces intensifying, the Sri Lankan government ordered the UN to evacuate the region in September 2008. Dix returned to London with post-traumatic stress disorder and a fierce determination to tell the stories of those he’d left behind.

He travelled to meet refugee families and record their experiences, and worked with illustrator Lindsay Pollock to conceptualize them into a graphic storyline. Dix also embarked on a Ph.D. in anthropology to systematically research the production of the comic. The result of all his work? The Vanni, a 200-page graphic novel about the conflict, told through one Sri Lankan family’s eyes, and an accompanying thesis on the methodology and ethics of producing such a complex piece of graphic literature.

Dix has since brought to life stories about crack-cocaine addicts in Guinea Bissau, a Nigerian woman trafficked to London (Abike's story, below), and the plight of African and Asian migrants in the Persian Gulf. At every stage, Dix works alongside his subjects to ensure he’s best reflecting their experiences, and their stories have become a powerful educational tool, illustrating complex, often abstract issues including migration, human trafficking, and drug addiction at the most human level.

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A chance meeting with an IDEO designer led Dix to our London studio, where we collaborated on a three-day long pro bono sprint to develop his stories into scalable, interactive teaching tools for classrooms. We designed and prototyped a WhatsApp-based multimedia story about Merha, an Eritrean refugee fleeing to London to escape persecution, as well as an app-based version of Merha’s story, including buttons and swipes on each frame of the story, so readers could learn more.

Dix’s next step is to secure funding to build out the app and develop lesson plans to roll out across schools internationally. But in the meantime, he’s not standing still. Dix is already testing a lo-fi version of the educational tool—an interactive PDF—in 300 schools across 26 countries including Brazil, Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic Of Congo, the UAE, and many others. His next comic? Capturing the story of the Yazidi community fleeing ISIS in Syria.

It was Boxing Day 2004 when Ben Dix, founder of British literary comic publisher PositiveNegatives, got the call. A university friend, stationed in the Tamil Tiger-held region of Vanni in northern Sri Lanka, was asking if he'd come and help. It was the day of the tsunami that killed 230,000 people, one of the deadliest natural disasters ever recorded.

It turned what would be a humdrum brand mark into one that was tongue-in-cheek and playful. Optimistically, I wondered if it helped lift the spirits of the Great Croft residents. I also started looking for more typographical serendipity.

There are plenty of examples of signage that has degraded to the point of being unreadable, but a beautiful accident is where the change looks intentional and, ideally, adds to the meaning and character of the neighborhood.

I saw my second example at Unity Kitchen Cafe in the new Olympic park in East London, where residents and Londoners further afield are drawn by attractions such as the children’s adventure playground, nature park, or velodrome. The cafe contained a diverse mix of nationalities, so it seemed rather fitting that this broken C was reminiscent of a cedilla (ç), a nod to any European visitors. Please don't fix the sign, I love it the way it is.

I became obsessed. Searching everywhere for more evidence of meaningful mistakes, even engaging my family in the hunt, and it was on one such hunt that I found the Pelican restaurant in Peckham, south London.

I’ve been wondering about how we might design for beautiful accidents: if wear and tear isn't a thing we can control, how we can make accidents appear elegant? At Wired magazine they call such intentional accidents Wrong Theory. Inspired by Edgar Degas’ painting, Jockeys Before the Race, in which the artist defied the conventional composition of his day by inserting a grey pole that bifurcates the scene, slicing right through one of the horses’ heads. The same could be said of Marcel Duchamp’s act of turning a urinal on its head, signing it R. Mutt, and deeming it art. Wrong Theory celebrates the act of breaking the rules.

But part of the beauty of Beautiful Accidents is that they are rare. If you find one, please share it with me! Check out my Instagram or tag your photos with #beautifulaccident.

I first spotted a beautiful accident when I saw the sign for the Great Croft housing estate in London. The A swinging down against the Akzidenz Grotesque type worked so well, in part aided by the horizontal seam in the concrete, that I had to think was that serendipity or intentional?

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.