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.

First came the jolt of panic, followed by furious digging through my bag, and slapping my pockets, the whole time chanting, “Please say I didn’t forget my phone!” There I was, standing just past the airport security checkpoint on my way to catch my connecting flight home from Japan, totally empty-handed. Bye, phone.

Once I stopped hyperventilating, I had a few hours strapped to an airplane seat to consider the following: What would it feel like to live without a smartphone?

Since I was already stuck without one, I decided to turn my predicament into a personal experiment: one month, no smart devices of any kind. Here’s what those 30 days taught me—and how the experiment made me rethink the way I approach design.

Less might be more

My first observation was that I was suddenly fully engaged with everything—my surroundings, the people around me, even that TV show that I thought I liked, but really just glanced at between text messages. I was pleased to find that conversations suddenly became much more meaningful. When I had my phone in hand, I was always subconsciously waiting for a buzz, and partially disengaged from the people in front of me. And when the buzz happened, I stopped listening to them completely. Without the added distraction, interactions became much more fulfilling.

As an interaction designer, I spend a lot of time creating user-friendly interfaces, but this experience made me wonder exactly how accessible things should be. Now I ask myself, are there elements that are competing with instead of enhancing an experience? Would a user benefit from something just a little less sticky?

Lose the escape hatch

Some of you may remember a time when you couldn’t just text your friend to say that you’re running late or *cough*cough* aren’t feeling well and can’t make it. We’re all guilty of it. The beauty of not having a phone was that it forced me and my flaky friends and family to pre-plan and be on time*. By removing the option to be late or back out, there’s much less to think about besides showing up and enjoying each other’s company.

When we’re designing technology, do we always need a back or undo button? How does that affect outcome and behavior, and can we use it to our advantage? For instance, with questionnaires, how do answers vary if there’s no way to change them?

*side note: Do look up where you are going ahead of time, because no phone = no maps.

It really, truly can wait

At the beginning of the experiment, I had a few phantom limb moments where I went to grab my phone to check tomorrow’s weather, or look up the definition of apocryphal, or text that random gif to a friend. In most situations, my first instinct was to whip out my phone. Not having access to everything forced me to slow my pace, and made my world feel a whole lot smaller, and, in some ways, less overwhelming.

In an era where you can shop for a pair of pants online and have it delivered to you within the hour, are there moments that can be enhanced by building in pause? What can a little friendly friction do to help slow things down to enhance and experience?

Automation isn't always rewarding

There’s no question that the smartphone affords us many conveniences—I’ve undoubtedly plundered every mobile subscription, delivery, and transaction possible. But streamlining every aspect of my life left me longing for those small moments of accomplishment that I used to get from figuring it out on my own. For instance, without access to ridesharing services, I found myself walking or taking public transit everywhere. Great for my lungs, the environment, and my wallet. The same goes for social sharing: Much of the reason we share online, is for the reactions we get in return. And by moving from an asynchronous share to a synchronous share, you’re rewarded by actually seeing someone laugh instead of an emoji reply posted 34 minutes later. Mic drop.

Just because we can automate, doesn’t always mean we should. The unpredictability of human behaviors is what makes the mundane more interesting, after all. How can we integrate these real life moments into the designs we create?

Since the big experiment, I’ve rejoined the flock and am now wielding a shiny, new phone with a notch in it. But I haven’t forgotten the lessons I learned—or how important it is for designers to get out of their comfort zone. And next time I need a little inspiration, I may just leave it at home.

‍

As an interaction designer, I have a love-hate relationship with my phone. On one hand, my job requires instant access to apps, prototypes, Slack... the list goes on. On the other, tech addiction is real. Even if I might try to ignore the invisible handcuffs that tie me to my phone, I was always reaching for it.

Until, of course, I lost it.

‍

Moving trucks aren’t always built for convenience. After all, they’re meant for hauling cargo, not a luxurious drive. But they are chock full of packing tape. When I hopped in the front of our mover’s truck to pick up some furniture at the storage unit, I smiled to see this ingenious workaround. A cup holder for your soda pop using a roll of packing tape, secured with—what else—packing tape.

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

The idea came to me on a Saturday in June, before I had told anyone I was pregnant. I was flopped out on a sandy couch with my niece and nephew after a day at the beach, their level of post-sun exhaustion matching my first trimester fatigue. Their mom, my sister-in-law, recognized an opportunity to steal away for a shower, and put on an early 80s episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Both of these kids have been raised mostly screen-free, and their mom was just starting to let them watch what she called “slow TV”: mostly nature documentaries, the occasional Aquanauts episode, and of course, Mr. Rogers.

This particular episode began with Fred Rogers trying to fix a leaky faucet with a new rubber washer. But he didn’t have the right size washer, so he goes to visit a local handyman. Rogers asks some questions about a shovel the handyman is fixing, and then is shown a wide selection of washers, and takes his time picking out one of the correct size. This takes place over the course of roughly 10 minutes, in real time. It’s a prime example of “slow.”

My niece and nephew were transfixed, mouths open. Seeing Mr. Rogers select a piece of kitchen hardware appeared to be the most incredible thing they had ever witnessed.

I want the same thing for my son.

I’m a software designer with a background in web development and computer science. I grew up loving computers and the internet. We had an Apple IIE for as long as I can remember, and my engineer dad taught me BASIC as soon as I could read. My first introduction to the internet was when our family got a CompuServe subscription in 1994. I couldn’t do a whole lot on it, but I’d jump into chat rooms and talk about the X-Files and Monty Python. Technology was always a part of my life.

But when I look back on all this, I realize how lucky it was that I got to grow up in this particular moment of technological disruption. I wasn’t plopped into a world governed by technology—the internet’s control over the world grew right along with my own.

Now, though, I keep reading articles about the ways the internet is changing our brains. Social networking is making us more isolated and risk-averse. The current generation of teens growing up, digital natives all, are the safest and the most depressed yet. And I worry about what it will mean for my child, born into a world moving at the speed of Twitter. This anxiety has become more real and intense every week of the 39 I’ve been pregnant. I assume it will let up sometime in the next three or four decades.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about calm technology—a term coined by Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown of Xerox PARC in a 1995 white paper, researched further and developed into a book by Amber Case. Here are the Cliffs Notes: Calm technology should require the smallest amount of attention possible from the user; it stays at the periphery rather than being center stage; and it should “amplify the best of technology and the best of humanity.” It’s that last one that stuck with me.

I don’t have to be a luddite to protect my child—I can use my skills as a technologist, including basic hardware hacking, to moderate the world I want my child to live in. By creating this TV, I can give him the calm environment I was lucky to grow up in. While he’s small, his TV will be a 30-pound, wood-paneled monster that I found the on the street, with a dial and 12 channels he can flip between—no more, no less—all programmed by me. So far, none of the content goes above a PG-rating, and one channel is all Mr. Rogers, pleasantly chatting with his handyman neighbor, carefully choosing just the right washer.

Eventually, my son will know about Netflix and binge-watching. He will know about YouTube and those bizarre AI-generated children’s shows. He will know about games that have been designed by the best minds of our generation to be more addictive than the cigarettes I hope he’ll avoid when he’s older. He will know about so much more that I can’t begin to predict. But for a while, he’ll be blissfully unaware, able to grow and think and develop at a child’s pace.

I am making a TV for my future son. It’s nearly finished, though I’m still working out a few kinks in the scheduling API, and I need to solder the hardware channel switcher. It’s a side project that’s been simmering for several months now that I plan to release soon—not unlike my baby.

The Design on Aging booklets give entrepreneurs and organizations tools for designing human-centered products and services for older adults. The two publications, Connected Living and Independent Living, explore how design can help older adults stay socially connected and physically mobile as they age. Presented alongside 4 distinct profiles representing the behaviors and mindsets of people over 50 years old at high risk of isolation, the booklets provide practical frameworks and design exercises to help organizations generate impactful solutions.

IDEO developed the Design on Aging booklets with Project Catalyst—a pioneering research collaboration between AARP, UnitedHealthcare, Pfizer, and MedStar Health.

Download the books on Independent Living and Connected Living.

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.