For 6-year-old Dave Jr., a long line at Disneyland triggered a massive meltdown. His parents were concerned and a little embarrassed, but not surprised; Dave Jr. struggled to keep his emotions in check.

Hoping to help, Dave Jr.'s uncle, entrepreneur Craig Lund, joined forces with researchers at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, along with a video game designer who had worked on Quick Hit and NBA 2K. Together, they set out to design something that could teach coping skills to kids like Dave Jr. who need to manage “big emotions,” as well as children suffering from anxiety, ADHD, and other behavior issues, which are on the rise.

Their collaboration resulted in a video game called Mightier and a startup called Neuromotion Labs—a 10-person team of psychologists, game designers, and engineers who embedded at IDEO Cambridge for a one-month sprint to improve the game and get ready for launch.

To play Neuromotion's game, kids are first taught simple, calming breathing exercises. During gameplay, kids wear heart-rate monitors on a wrist or arm that detect spikes caused by stress or anger; as their heart rates go up, the game's difficulty increases. Kids have opportunities to pause and try deep breathing to counter the ramped up challenge. As it turns out, "gamifying" restraint builds strong incentives for kids to take charge of their emotions—they have to if they want to win.

Already activated around boosting mental and emotional health, IDEO's design team worked side-by-side with Neuromotion to study how parents and children experience Mightier. From home visits to group interviews to a summer camp-style design session with kid players, live feedback fueled the next iteration of the gaming platform and better product-market fit.

IDEO helped Neuromotion hone the visual design and mechanics of Mightier and expand it's suite of games. The team observed that the Mightier program was more successful the more involved parents of players became, which revealed a need for additional resources for adults. So they created new supports, including a more detailed orientation and a personalized coaching service for parents staffed by trained therapists.

But can a video game actually help kids cope? Early peer-reviewed studies showed that playing Mightier reduced outbursts by 62 percent, oppositional behaviors by 40 percent, and parental stress by 19 percent. After 12 weeks of using Mightier, a survey of kids and parents showed that 96 percent of parents saw positive behavior changes in their children, while 92 percent of kids learned new coping skills.

Shortly after the design sprint, Neuromotion secured its next round of funding and officially launched Mightier’s array of “bioresponsive games.” The games have already been played more than a million times, and Neuromotion has measured more than a 100 million heartbeats. Mightier games are helping kids and families across the country.

What about Dave Jr.? Recently, his sister told Lund she "accidentally" bumped Dave Jr.’s bike off a pier and into the ocean. She was expecting an outburst of anger, but after eight months of playing Mightier, Dave Jr. stayed cool. His uncle couldn’t be prouder.

Many of us have let vegetables wither in the crisper drawer, or thrown out a child’s half-eaten restaurant meal, but the sheer scale of food waste around the globe is hard to grasp. According to the United Nations, about a third of the food the world produces every year—1.3 billion tons—is lost during production or tossed by consumers, with North Americans throwing out the most food per capita. The average American wastes enough food each month to feed another person for 19 days.

IDEO received a series of grants from The Rockefeller Foundation to find solutions, given the power of IDEO’s human-centered design approach to address systemic challenges. Through a number of projects with The Rockefeller Foundation and other organizations, IDEO designers from across the U.S. devised novel ways to tackle food waste.

For IDEO’s first initiative, designers tapped into the enthusiasm of the broader creative community, in partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation, the City of San Francisco’s Department of Environment, the Closed Loop Foundation, ReFED, and other groups. In the summer of 2016, OpenIDEO—IDEO’s open innovation practice—launched the Food Waste Challenge, asking how people might curtail waste by rethinking our relationship with food. Between June and October, more than 20,000 people from 113 countries took part in the challenge, tracking their personal waste and brainstorming solutions.

Challenge participants submitted more than 450 ideas. A team of food industry experts helped select the 12 top proposals, which included software to help people buy food collectively from wholesalers and a service that delivers extra meals from corporate events to those in need. Ultimately, the Closed Loop Foundation chose to award Full Cycle Bioplastics a $50,000 grant to scale up its idea to convert inedible food and paper waste into a fully compostable alternative to oil-based plastic.

At the conclusion of the Food Waste Challenge, OpenIDEO launched the Food Waste Alliance, a platform for participants and experts to stay engaged with the most promising ideas and innovators. The alliance helped entrepreneurs share resources, prototype new concepts, secure funding, hire staff, and form partnerships. OpenIDEO invited hundreds to join the alliance, and 92 percent of members told IDEO they made progress in their work as a result. One member company, RISE, received funding from another participant who discovered RISE through the alliance. This investment let RISE prototype its concept for milling spent grain from beer brewing into flour for baked goods and ultimately join the prestigious Food-X accelerator.

The Rockefeller Foundation also supported IDEO’s work with City Harvest, a New York organization that collects 160,000 pounds of unused food each day and delivers it to soup kitchens and food pantries. City Harvest wanted to understand the habits of local families who visit food banks in an effort to ensure all the food the group distributes gets eaten. To get a peek into these families’ kitchens, in January 2017, IDEO researchers conducted observations and interviews across New York City’s five boroughs. Pantry customers cooked for the researchers, giving them an inside look at how the families engaged with the food they had available and what food meant to each of them: tradition, stability, even adventure. Based on insights from pantry visitors, IDEO made recommendations for City Harvest, including community-run cooking classes and a way for families to request specific foods or reserve pick-up times by text message. IDEO also created three video vignettes to help build even greater empathy between City Harvest and the people it serves.

In spring 2017, capping IDEO’s work with The Rockefeller Foundation, the organizations teamed up with World Wildlife Fund and Hyatt hotels in Florida, New York, and New Jersey to rethink all-you-can-eat buffets. IDEO studied diners and staff at Hyatt buffets and found that employees—from event planners to kitchen staff—each add a cushion of extra food to cover their bases, while guests overfill their plates to avoid missing out. In the end, diners eat just half the food organizers serve, while the rest goes to waste. This and other data-driven insights gleaned about diners’ habits led to subtle substitutions, including smaller plates of meats and cheeses that can be ordered from servers and individual pastries rather than whole cakes. These alternatives have not only built on Hyatt’s existing food waste management strategies, but have also helped reduce buffet costs at Hyatt Regency Orlando and continued to receive support from guests.

The problem of food waste is too enormous to ignore. Wasted food means squandered resources, lost money, and ultimately, hungry people—more than 15 million in the United States alone. Designers and innovators from coast to coast have helped find solutions to the crisis that fulfill a variety of needs, from preserving produce sent to food pantries to keeping plastic packaging out of the oceans. The Rockefeller Foundation and other IDEO partners are leveraging powerful design techniques to pave the way for a waste-free future.

In 2017, IDEO acquired longtime partner Datascope and integrated the company’s data scientists and engineers. Datascope team members aren’t just passionate data scientists; they’re human-centered designers who happen to work with data, as illustrated by successful collaborations like this one:

In today’s job market, there’s no such thing as being "done" with your education. This is particularly true in the fields of data science, machine learning, and AI, where significant advances are made on a monthly basis. To meet this need for more in-depth training, Metis—part of Kaplan—wanted to create a comprehensive data science program for students from all backgrounds. Metis asked Datascope to design the curriculum from scratch, drawing on the company’s deep expertise in the field.

Datascope spoke with practitioners across industries to identify the key skill sets that make them successful: a grasp of design; fluency with data management, coding, and algorithms; and effective communication with coworkers and the wider world. The team crafted a 12-week bootcamp that develops these specific abilities.

In order to prepare students for the work world, the bootcamp is structured less like a class and more like a company, where students are “hired” as data scientists—with projects to complete—starting on day one.

Students collaborate on group projects and presentations in a way that mirrors real workflows, and practice pair programming to learn from one another. Using techniques drawn from design, students are invited to refine their project briefs and continually reevaluate their approach.

Instead of a final exam, at the end of the course, students tackle five real-world, open-ended data science projects inspired by Datascope’s client work. One project involves using data from subway turnstiles to detect patterns in the volume of street traffic; another asks students to use data they scrape from the web to predict a movie’s box office profits using regression analysis.

After students complete the bootcamp, they receive an additional three months of career support, from mock interviews to site visits with potential employers. In addition to designing the curriculum, Datascope taught the first three student cohorts and helped Metis build its teaching team as it expanded the program from New York to San Francisco, Chicago, and Seattle. Metis now offers online courses, evening classes, and corporate trainings in data science.

If you’re going to take a data science bootcamp, it’s best to take one designed by data scientists.

You’re whizzing along on your bike, en route to a new restaurant for a client meeting. You reach an unfamiliar intersection; which way to go now?

Instead of dismounting and digging for a phone, you brush your hand along your jacket sleeve for directions, then double-tap the denim to re-start your music. Without taking your eyes off the road, you’ve taken care of the problem.

This intuitive interface for connected apparel began with Levi's, makers of durable workwear for 140 years, and Google, creators of forward-looking technology, which joined forces to fashion the first item of clothing with touch-sensitive, copper-core threads woven directly into the fabric. Once it was established that the first connected garment from the partnership would be a jacket within Levi’s Commuter line, with interaction on the sleeve, Google worked with IDEO, leaders in designing for human needs, to develop the gesture language of the jacket and industrial design of the technology within.

This is the first connected garment that helps us break free from devices. It seamlessly incorporates Jacquard by Google technology to perform digital tasks, such as navigation, communication, and music playing with a few swipes or taps on the sleeve.

Jacquard by Google—a platform that makes it possible to integrate touch and gesture interactivity into fabrics using conductive yarn and standard, industrial looms—was inspired by a curious twist of history. The Jacquard loom, invented in France in 1804, used punch cards to automate the process of weaving complex patterns into fabric. In the 1940s and ’50s, engineers employed a similar punch-card technique to program the first computers.

IDEO spent time on the project early on, collaborating with Google engineers and Levi’s clothiers on the jacket’s development, helping craft an experience that would make the intelligent threads intuitive to wearers.

Working alongside Google and Levi’s, IDEO’s work included:

• The industrial design of the electronics integrated into the snap tag and connector (the tag snaps onto the jacket’s cuff and connects to your phone via Bluetooth)
• A vocabulary of gestures on the cuff of the jacket that lets you interact with the jacket’s technology
• Early exploration of the basic design philosophy and conceptual design for the interaction model of a corresponding smartphone app that ties it all together (works with both iOS and Android phones)

The IDEO team’s first task was to validate what commuters of all stripes wanted from the garment, in addition to the work Levi’s did in researching with its consumers. In interviews, group exercises, and wear tests with urban cyclists and other workers on the go, the team learned that cyclists needed a way to stay connected, while still living in the moment. That meant being able to answer calls, hear text messages, get the next direction, and control their music without using a screen.

Levi’s, Google, and IDEO developed a language of movement for Jacquard-enabled fabric that feels familiar and human and builds on the ways people would naturally interact with a garment (a whole-hand brush along the sleeve, as opposed to a one-finger tap on a touch screen, for instance).

Then came the design and engineering of the snap tag on the jacket’s cuff, which gently notifies you of calls, texts, and other jacket interactions with light and vibration feedback. The flexible, lightweight strap incorporates the look and feel of a Levi’s jean button, while housing advanced electronics that capture touch data. The tag is removable, charges via USB connection, and works in conjunction with a mobile app that lets you configure settings for the garment, set notifications, and customize gestures and interactions.

The Levi’s Commuter Jacket with Jacquard by Google changes the game because it’s simply that—a jacket—with technology that adds new utility and value, allowing us to wear our everyday interactions on our sleeves.

The Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket with Jacquard by Google hit stores in October 2017.

IDEO and Google have a long history of collaboration. Learn more about our work on Google Bloks here.

Throughout all those years, from the machine shop to the digital shop, regardless of the technology we’re using or the problem we’re trying to solve, what has really gotten things done is ingenuity and creative thinking—especially in the face of dire cost and time constraints. A little bit of luck never hurts either.

So without further ado, here are my four favorite workarounds of my last decade and a half at IDEO.

2001: Using an Oscilloscope to save the sunroof

The challenge: The sunroof in your car is an invitation to luxury—catch some rays, feel the wind in your hair. The problem is, when driving at certain speeds with the sunroof open, a distinct and unpleasant booming noise can occur, making the experience rather less glamorous. The sound, a quick, repetitive thumping, is called “buffeting.”

Carmakers couldn’t figure out what to do about it. A luxury automobile company hired IDEO to find a way to make it stop.

IDEO’s workaround: My colleague Thomas Enders and I borrowed a brand new Mercedes-Benz and went for a ride! We brought along an oscilloscope (or “O-scope”) to measure the frequency and intensity of the sound waves of the buffeting effect at various speeds. With Thomas at the wheel, I held the O-scope, connected to a barometric sensor. This way, we were able to measure what was happening every time the buffeting started up.

What we discovered was that closing or opening the sunroof a small amount would change the dynamic of the air space in the car, and the buffeting noise would stop. So we designed a circuit that could detect buffeting and automatically adjust the opening of the sunroof to get rid of the annoying noise. Cruise on, in unimpeded luxury!

2002: Turntable-testing stylus materials

The challenge: Handspring, a company that produced hand-held PDAs (remember those?), looked to IDEO to find the best, most durable material to use for their stylus pens. We narrowed it down to a few polymers of various densities, but we had to figure out how to effectively test the materials for wear and friction over time.

IDEO’s workaround: We bought an $8 record player at the local Salvation Army, and replaced the needle with the various materials we were testing. Then we started it up and used a tachometer to track revolutions and measure distance and speed. Now we can brag about our DJ skills.

2012: Making the functional fashionable with paracord

The challenge: We worked with Vodafone and fashion designer Richard Nicoll to create a purse that could charge a mobile phone, while also being stylish enough to work the catwalk at the London Fashion Show. Part of the design was a small charm that hung outside the purse and flashed LED lights to signal incoming calls and text messages. We needed to find a coating for the charm that would protect the LEDs without being a fashion faux pas.

IDEO’s workaround: While we were brainstorming materials, I looked down at the bracelet I was wearing. It was made of paracord, commonly used for the strings of parachutes. Paracord is extremely durable, and it’s sold in a plethora of colors and patterns. We ordered a few strands online and found that we could remove the sheathing from the outside of the cord. We dressed the charm’s electrical cord with the sheathing from paracord, and voilà ! It gave the high-tech handbag a clean look and feel that was fit for the catwalk.

2013: Cooking circuit boards in a toaster oven

The challenge: Today’s electronics can be minuscule, and that means soldering up a printed circuit board (PCB) by hand can take forever. People who build a large number of PCBs use reflow soldering technology, but the necessary equipment is extremely expensive.

IDEO’s workaround: We decided that, given the type of rework electronics we do, it would be a good idea to tap into the mindset of the DIY community. Taking a page from their book, we bought a standard toaster oven. We fired it up and tested different temperature profiles and various types of solder paste, and soon came up with a working reflow soldering system.

Illustrations by Ina Xi

In my 15 years at IDEO, I’ve had a hand in roughly 130 projects. Some of the technologies I’ve worked on have become obsolete, like component research that required dozens of part catalogs (now, we just use the Internet). Many, though, have become the foundation for newer technologies, like discrete components, which were developed into MEMS sensors. And some, like the first Olympic torch to use LEDs rather than a flame, have been the very first of their kind.

IDEO New York developer Francis Tseng is—in his spare time—searching for a solution to the problem by exploring its root: the relationship between content and code. Tseng received a grant from the Knight Foundation to develop Argos*, an online news aggregation app that intelligently collects, summarizes and provides contextual information for news stories. Having recently finished version 0.1.0, which he calls the first “complete-ish” release of Argos, Tseng spoke with veteran journalist and documentary filmmaker Jason Cohn about the role technology can play in our consumption—and comprehension—of the news.

How would you describe to my mom, who just got her first smartphone, how Argos works and why it’s useful?

I’d say that it collects all of the important news and tells you exactly what you need to know about it. Instead of tracking separate publications, it pulls in new articles from a variety of different sources (right now, just a few major publications) and condenses everything into a set of bullet points. Argos uses a technique called “hierarchical agglomerative clustering” (HAC) to organize news stories. HAC takes each individual article and compares it to every other article, and comes up with a number representing how similar they are, on a scale of 0-1. If the similarity is above some threshold—say, greater than 0.7—the articles are considered to be talking about the same event, and they are grouped together into “event clusters.” The same HAC clustering technique is then applied to the event clusters to organize events into “story clusters.”

A sentence ranking algorithm generates a summary of each event cluster by analyzing the text of every article in the cluster and assigning an “informativeness” value to each sentence. It then takes the top five highest-ranked sentences and forms a summary. Right now I have a very simple version implemented, but the long-run focus will be on improving these core algorithms that do the heavy lifting.

Are journalists necessary anymore? Have I been replaced by an algorithm?

I personally don’t think that journalists will be replaced, at least not for a long time. Someone still needs to go out and do the research and the original reporting to get the information that the algorithm uses, which seems like the hardest and most valuable part of journalism.

It seems like some new tech applications derive from the recognition of a new technical capacity, which you then look for novel ways to use. In other cases, it begins with the recognition of a need, and you look for extant technologies that provide a possible solution. Which way did you approach Argos?

Both. I’ve always had a fascination with artificial intelligence, and that fascination has probably made me more sensitive to problem areas where AI approaches could be applicable. Personally, I find information overload, especially when it comes to keeping up with the news, really anxiety inducing and overwhelming, and I think because I was already familiar with some of these text processing techniques, it made sense to try applying them to this particular problem.

I’m glad you brought up information anxiety and overload. I think it’s a huge barrier to understanding the news today. There is so much information and analysis, but I don’t trust any of it, and I don’t know how to begin to get to the bottom of what’s really happening. Do you think Argos, or technology in general, can be an aid in this problem?

That's a particularly good example of the fact that there are different kinds of information overload. There’s one that is just about having too much information, but there’s another that is about figuring out which information you can trust. In general I would say technology has the potential to salve these kinds of anxieties, but it can just as easily do the opposite. More than anything, I hope Argos reduces the problem rather than adds to it, but one of the big failings I’ve felt with this first version is that it doesn’t accomplish that; it ends up generating more noise. Based on the feedback I’ve gotten, I'm looking at new designs and reevaluating techniques in order to rectify that.

What did you learn through building the first version that will influence the next one?

When I originally conceived of Argos, I was (and probably still am) naive about the extent of the issues that plague digital journalism. The more I looked into it, the more problems came up. Initially, the idea was about reducing information overload, mostly by supplying missing context to stories. But after completing this first version, I think that reducing overload and providing context might be really big and different issues. So right now I’m trying to determine how—and if—they can be solved simultaneously.

You mean because providing more context increases—by a lot—the amount of information a news consumer requires?

Exactly. The other main goal was increasing the understanding one got out of reading the news, which is what context is supposed to help with. But that’s kind of useless if all that information ends up driving people away from reading the news in the first place.

What changes are you planning for the next version of Argos?

In the first version the design was focused more on providing an experience similar to a traditional news publication or news reader. The app was organized around different feeds, or streams, presented as full-screen images with the title and summary of each event.

One issue was that the design wasn’t distinct from other news readers—you can’t really tell from looking at it that it’s offering anything different from a traditional RSS reader or news application. And it’s really hard to expect that every news story will come with a nice big image. Also, though, I think that in approaching the app as a traditional news publication, I missed the point of what I was trying to accomplish. The feedback I've gotten has helped me understand that Argos can have a more useful and unique place in being kind of a “daily scan” of the day's news events. So the new designs are more akin to brief updates about events around the world, to provide people with an entry or starting point for reading more and getting involved in discussions.

And you give them avenues for digging deeper into contexts and definitions?

Yes. The original source material is there to read, and context is optionally provided. You can choose to read more about the event itself, or about the people, places, organizations, etc. that are involved.

What about the issue of bias? As journalists, we’ve always had to be wary of our sources. And as consumers of news, it’s always been a good idea to assume that someone with an agenda is feeding reporters their information. How does Argos handle biases and opinions that are embedded in a story?

The issue of bias in journalism is one of those big problems that cropped up when I looked more closely at what I wanted Argos to do. It seems like a perennial issue. One potential solution is that, if you sample a large enough set of publications, bias might “average out,” so that any summary that is formed from their aggregate has less bias than any individual article. I don’t know if that works in practice though. My cop-out answer would be that Argos isn’t really trying to solve the problem of bias, but personally I hope that one day it can. Looking at the history and associations of the author who wrote the piece could actually be a very good technique. In the new version of Argos, I want to incorporate more community dialogue around the events and stories. In my experience, a lot of these issues about bias—being as complex and nuanced as they are—are best hashed out by individuals discussing them.

I think I have to disagree with you on that! My feeling about web comments on news stories is that they rarely shed much light relative to heat.

It is very difficult to pull off correctly. A lot of comments devolve into knee-jerk shouting matches. Occasionally, though, I’ve found something really insightful. On Reddit, sometimes experts will come in and succinctly explain things, and every once in a while you see a very levelheaded discussion about a story. I think the potential is there, but it’s hard to get it right.

One thing I’ve been focusing on is that I’m trying to get my hands mostly on reporting that’s coming from the field. The rest is just analysis, which, in my opinion, is more susceptible to ideological influence.

Yes! I have been thinking a lot about how to incorporate grassroots and community reporting. I’m dissatisfied with Argos’s current approach of relying on major publications, but it’s just easier at this stage.

Do you need to have content licensing relationships with news organizations to harvest the data or can you just… borrow it?

It’s possible this usage of the content falls under the terms of “fair use.” All the original articles are cited, and I’m hoping that these high-level summaries can interest people in reading the original posts. Since things are still quite experimental, I’m not worrying about the potential legal consequences now, but at some point I will want to talk to the publishers.

It seems to me that one really useful type of story for Argos is something like the lost Malaysian airliner. There was a big burst of real news when the plane disappeared, and then there was an endless cycle of conjecture and empty reportage with very little actual “news.” If you were following that story on Argos, would you avoid being updated every five minutes to discover that they still haven’t found the missing plane?

Yes, if the clustering algorithm works well enough, it should be able to recognize that these articles are talking about exactly the same thing as the ones from last week, so it’s not a new event.

It would be nice if cable news worked like that.

Maybe with Argos it will!

*Argos is a personal project of Francis Tseng's and is not affiliated with IDEO.

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Digital journalism has evolved to a point of paradox: we now have access to such an overwhelming amount of news that it’s actually become more difficult to understand current events.

Generative art, or art derived from computer code, is a relatively new format, in which the artist-programmer realizes a vision or idea by defining parameters and commands. But making generative art is, in many ways, just like painting or any other classical fine art.

When you create a painting, you start with an inspiration and sketch it on paper. You then prepare your oils, brushes, and canvas, and you refine the painting until it’s just right. I follow a similar process with generative art. When something inspires me, whether it’s a contour map in a geographic magazine, a chart representing a mathematical formula, or the various mechE tools in my father’s workshop, I sketch it on paper and jot down the keywords that best describe it. Then, I sit down at my computer and compose the code (using the Python programming language) that will “paint” the right “brush strokes.” I run the code to generate images on my computer, and go through multiple iterations until the code outputs the shapes, colors, opacities, and shadows that perfectly express my original idea.

I leverage the power of my computer to generate the artwork. Where a classical fine artist would pull out their oils and brushes to express colors and shapes, I do the same with parameters. For example, I defined a palette of colors for painting waves like this:

As if the computer was a hand holding a brush, I tell it how to paint by defining command codes, like draw_wave:

Delightful randomness

While most of the parameters in my code are set statically, I have also added an algorithm that allows certain parameters to be generated randomly, so the visual elements of the image change randomly within a defined range. This way, the final product is unpredictable; I’ll never know exactly what image will be generated.

This function returns a float number randomly ranging from 0.1 to 0.7:

The random parameters are not only unpredictable, but also non-reiterative, so these images cannot be recreated—they are completely unique.

Algorithm as art

Computer graphics are based on mathematics, so when I paint with code, I am exploring and visualizing the beauty of structure, abstraction, and complexity in mathematics that most of us don’t get to see in our daily lives. It often happens that when I play with a new algorithm and see the images it generates, I'm inspired to develop them into artwork, as was the case with Tsunami, below. The inspiration for this series came while playing with an algorithm named Cornu Curve, which generates a fantastic visual effect of crazy waves. From the same code, I made six different images using a combination of a hundred curves in varying opacities and shades of blue.

Unlimited complexity

Creating art with code allows me to make complex images that I could never have made by hand, such as All Seeing Eye, below. It is composed of millions of lines and hundreds of layers, and each line has its own shadow, blur, and opacity.

My goal was to use the complex texture to create the visual effect of catching or entrapping the audience in the “eye.” The computer is an exciting tool for creating art like this, which requires repetitive, intricate work. A piece of generative artwork composed of millions of shapes can be drawn in just a few minutes. Rendered by hand, the same piece might take a human ten years to accomplish.

Like a painter selecting the perfect tool, I used the following piece of code to define a “brush” with just the right characteristics to create the lines I wanted:

Then, just as a painter would use a specific gesture to create a certain visual effect, I used the following code to tell my computer how to hold and draw with the brush I created:

Functional designs

The exciting thing about generative art is that it is not only beautiful, but also usable. We can create new patterns and unique fabrics for the fashion industry, or we can move beyond two-dimensional creations and use generative art to make sculpture, furniture, and even architecture.

Creating art with code, I’m constantly making new discoveries of exciting visual possibilities. Computers have revolutionized countless aspects of human life, and now, generative art has the potential to revolutionize artistic expression, opening infinite space for innovation.

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By day, I code mobile apps and design digital experiences. In my free time, I create art. I recently began exploring both at once with generative art, a sublime combination of computer programming and graphic art.

Wild ideas emerged: a Hug Deli, where patrons might order Ninja Hugs off the menu; a mystery bar, serving up a drink chosen by the previous guest. The big idea was to get people out of their “thinking minds“ in order to freely create.

And that brought us to Fauxtobooth.

A riff on the classic photobooth we all know and love, this version is completely handmade and doubles as a creative confidence booster—forcing people to draw on a deadline.

How it works

The subject takes a seat inside the booth, facing a mirror. Thirty seconds after pressing a button, the subject receives a slip of paper through a slot below the mirror with—whoa!—a hand-drawn sketch of his or her face on it.

Um, how exactly did that work?

When the host brings the subject around to the back of the booth, the inner workings of the machine are revealed: table, chair, paper, Sharpies. The subject was actually posing in front of a two-way mirror and now it's his or her turn to take on the role of fauxtographer—of capturing the next unsuspecting subject.

How it's made

To make a full-scale prototype, you’ll need some foam core and tape. A crude model will help you get a sense of the dimensions and how long it would take to build. The massive black exterior offers an opportunity to advertise your offer. We used vinyl decals for our slogan: “Automatic portraits while you wait!“

Enlist friends: Building a Fauxtobooth takes a village (who likes to cut foam core alone anyway?).

Glue together pieces of foam core to provide structural integrity, and attach the parts using industrial strength velcro, making it possible to easily deconstruct and transport the booth.

Finishing touches

A few key elements bring the Fauxtobooth to life: a two-way mirror, a giant red “Start” button, and graphic flourishes:

• Two-way mirror: The artist can see the subject, but not the other way around. Position the Fauxtobooth under direct light on the subject’s side (you can also use a spotlight), and make sure the curtain is closed on the other side to completely conceal the artist.
• “Start” button: Program an Arduino to keep time (we used an interval of 30 seconds). When pressed, the button lights up for 20 seconds; for the last 10 seconds it blinks and counts down. This serves a dual purpose: the subject knows to hold still for their portrait and the artist knows how much time they have to complete the portrait.
• Graphics: IDEO designer extraordinaire Njoki Gitahi loves bold, vintage signs, and playful, typographic compositions. She took inspiration from Lou Dorfsman’s “Gastrotypographicalassemblage.“ The team vinyl cut and applied the graphics—a tricky process, but well worth it in the end. The white lettering creates a dramatic display against the black backdrop.

What we learned

Once we narrowed in on the Fauxtobooth concept, we realized that (1) you can capture the gestalt of a person in a very short time, (2) people have fun with it, and (3) the collection of images make for an awesome display wall. Here are a few other things we discovered along the way:

• Get back to basics. Building with common materials like foam core, tape, and Velcro reconnects you to basic skills and tools. And the analog experience charmed the pants off people.
• Velcro is your friend. Not only is the sticky stuff forgiving if you don’t get the alignment just right on the first try, it also allows you to disassemble and reassemble structures on location. Consider it the new duct tape.
• Fine-tune light and sound. We were able to position the subject’s side of the booth under a light and keep the artist’s side relatively dark. Check your space ahead of time and use a spotlight if necessary. Also, as the party heats up, the sound of the Start button may be drowned out. Turn up the volume!

Your turn

Up for the challenge? We put together a handy manual so you can learn from our mistakes. If you do build a Fauxtobooth, we’d love to hear about it. Send us a few (real) photos!

Download the replication manual and vinyl graphics

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There was a lot of work to be done. IDEO's New York studio was to host an event to celebrate Tom and David Kelley's new book, Creative Confidence, and whatever we designed had to reflect their ideas. Pressure on, we brainstormed over lunch—tools and sticky notes spread out across the largest room in our office.

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.