All moms want to give their babies the best start in life, and for many, that means nourishing their babies with breastmilk. However, breast pumping is often inconvenient and uncomfortable. Tethered to the wall, undressed, and surrounded by cords and dangling bottles, most mothers who pump are interacting with technology that hasn’t fundamentally changed in more than 25 years.

Passionate about solving this challenge, the startup Willow set out to completely re-imagine the breast pumping experience. The team at Willow envisioned a “dream pump” that would deliver what moms want most: mobility and discretion.

The Willow team approached IDEO to be a close partner in bringing their product to life. As a cross-disciplinary team of researchers, industrial designers, and mechanical engineers, IDEO, Willow, and Function Engineering worked together seamlessly to identify mothers’ unmet needs and resolve engineering complexities with a simple and elegant design.

The resulting product, Willow, is the first all-in-one, wearable breast pump that cuts the cords, ditches the mess of bottles, and fits easily inside a bra. Mobile, discreet, and hands-free, Willow allows women to achieve their breastfeeding goals without pressing pause on their own lives.

The final design of Willow was informed by research and in-person interviews with dozens of mothers, ranging from first-time to experienced pumpers. Insights about their personal routines, challenges, and workarounds guided the design team as they built more than 60 physical prototypes to understand how Willow could best fit into mothers’ lives. Learnings from those prototypes helped the team to define the size, shape, color, and materials of Willow, as well as each step in the pumping process.

One key design element that emerged from this iterative process was the simplicity of Willow’s architecture, which makes the pump easy to use, assemble, and clean. The pump contains just a few basic parts that snap together, and only two parts that need to be cleaned (both are dishwasher-safe).

Considering how personal the breast pumping experience is, the team aimed to help the pump feel less like a stark, mechanical device and more like a considered, modern, and personal accessory—a goal ultimately achieved through the pump’s colors, texture, and finish.

Because of Willow, mothers no longer need to plan their lives around pumping—it can happen anywhere, at anytime. Willow gives moms back their time and freedom and gives them choice; now moms can play with an older child, work, or enjoy precious relaxation time at home. With Willow, pumping breastmilk finally fits seamlessly into women’s active everyday lives.

More than 50 million people worldwide suffer from schizophrenia, yet only half receive psychiatric treatment. When they do, it usually involves medication and one-on-one therapy to treat the most visible symptoms, including hallucinations and paranoia. But the disease can also cause debilitating symptoms that medication can’t easily treat, such as social anxiety and isolation, lack of motivation, and memory deficits.

For people living with these symptoms, what might seem like simple activities—socializing, spending time outdoors, exercising—can sometimes feel overwhelming. And if patients aren’t given effective care, they can become even more isolated, and their physical health and quality of life suffer. They’re far more likely to let the rest of their treatment regimen slip, skipping medication or therapy sessions.

To help address these challenges, a digital health research group at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) approached IDEO with an idea to supplement the longstanding medication-and-therapy model with a tool to alleviate hard-to-treat symptoms, and more importantly, improve patients’ quality of life. It would require identifying unmet needs among patients and determining which kinds of interactions could have the greatest impact on young people with mental illness.

The outcome of that collaboration is PRIME, or Personalized Real-time Intervention for Motivational Enhancement, a digital platform that empowers young people with schizophrenia with the tools, motivation, and community of support they need to achieve their goals.

The simplicity of PRIME belies its deep functionality. The easy-to-use mobile app helps patients stay motivated to stick with behaviors that boost their health, social skills, and productivity, and it provides motivational coaching from trusted professionals and social connections with other patients.

How It Works

The PRIME app lets users set daily goals based on their particular needs. There are more than 500 small challenges to try—from inviting a friend to play basketball to spending time with a family member—and users can see their progress tracked through incremental successes over time.

Whenever users need help, trained motivational coaches are on hand to provide cognitive behavioral therapy coaching, encourage patients to achieve their goals (and to push beyond their comfort zones), and support their interactions with other users.

Tapping into its vibrant social network to help patients feel less isolated, PRIME prompts users to snap photos of happy moments, highlight important events in their lives, and share challenges they’re proud to have accomplished. Unlike Facebook, which can be overwhelming for some patients with schizophrenia, PRIME is a closed community where users can talk freely about their challenges with others who are just like them.

Click above to hear our audio story, or listen on SoundCloud.

To measure the efficacy of PRIME, UCSF and IDEO combined traditional metrics, such as Patient Health Questionnaire scores and time spent in the app, with new metrics evaluating patients’ quality of life. For example, they studied the pictures of things that made users happy before and while using the app, and measured the frequency, depth, and quality of patients’ social interactions in the app based on word choice and punctuation.

Learnings from these human-centered metrics helped the team iterate further on PRIME’s design, so that the platform would generate even higher levels of engagement and stronger improvements in patients’ motivation and social functioning. In this 2016 peer-reviewed, clinical study, 80 percent of patients with schizophrenia achieved their daily goals, and users logged into the app an average of 4.5 times a week, far more than the expected rate of once a week.

PRIME has also made an impact on patients and their families on a personal level. The mother of one research participant was thrilled with the results. She told IDEO, “I wish you could have witnessed my daughter’s first response to seeing the faces and profiles on her phone. She looked at me, smiled, and said, ‘Everyone looks normal. Everyone looks like people you see every day.’ It was as if she looked into a mirror that reflected possibility and hope.”

Human-Centered Design

The PRIME platform is an example of how the human-centered design process can lead to first-of-its-kind innovations in the field of mental health care. PRIME designers conducted comprehensive interviews that led to a deep understanding of patients as whole people, not just conditions or sets of symptoms.

For Dr. Danielle Schlosser, lead researcher on the PRIME project at UCSF, collaborating with IDEO and applying design thinking to her research on mental health was illuminating. "[It] showed us that in order to engage our users, we needed to provide a safe and supportive community that directly catered to their needs. The insights we gained enabled us to create an experience that inspires patients to improve their quality of life by emphasizing their strengths. Working with IDEO helped us make powerful, creative leaps in our process, and build a digital health platform that’s already deeply impacting patients’ lives.”

The success of PRIME in treating schizophrenia has led to additional federal research funding, and the platform is now being expanded to treat a wider range of mental health conditions.

For example, in this recent, peer-reviewed study, PRIME helped patients with moderately severe depression experience a 50 percent reduction in symptoms, with a noticeable difference in just two weeks—far faster than the average of four to six weeks it takes for traditional medication and therapy to yield improvements. By the end of the depression study, 90 percent of participants said they had achieved their treatment goals, such as to “become happier” or to “feel less lonely.”

Numerous patients with schizophrenia and depression have already benefitted from PRIME’s unique offering, and the team is exploring ways to commercialize and scale PRIME to reach more people with mental health conditions.

New Yorkers are a tough lot, but damaging coastal storms will continue to test their resilience. More than 400,000 people live within the city’s floodplain and are at physical and economic risk. In the face of both natural and manmade challenges—from superstorms to confusing insurance regulations—many New Yorkers are not aware of their flood risk, or even that they should be thinking about it at all.

The Center for NYC Neighborhoods‚ a nonprofit that champions affordable homeownership for middle- and working-class families and communities, engaged IDEO to create a resource that could help New Yorkers keep their homes and finances safe. Launched in September 2016 with funding from New York State's Governor's Office of Storm Recovery, FloodHelpNY is an expansive platform that dismantles the complexity surrounding flood insurance and gives homeowners clear and simple guidance for assessing their flood risk and taking action toward resiliency.

Facing the complexities of insurance policy, shifting flood regulations, climate change, and citizen engagement, the design team began by engaging two vastly different groups of New Yorkers—those who had been battered by past storms and those not yet affected. Homeowners in the first camp were angry and frustrated by a system that had let them down after Superstorm Sandy. Homeowners in the second camp were simply unaware of their risk and had little idea of what might happen. The right design solution needed to encourage both groups to take action and learn about flood risk and insurance regulations, while also addressing divergent levels of need and preparedness.

To co-design solutions with homeowners, IDEO set up pop-up stations at neighborhood meetings in Canarsie, Red Hook, and Gerritsen Beach, and had flood-affected residents create paper prototypes of the resources they wanted in place the next time a storm hit. The team learned how residents contextualized their individual risk, which information they prioritized, and how their frustration could inform a better outcome. In Lower Manhattan, where residents are less aware of flood risk, the team set up a pop-up station with virtual reality viewers that simulated water rushing into the surrounding streets, a visceral wake up call that got them talking about flood recovery.

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Less than a month after launch, FEMA began promoting FloodHelpNY as a key resource for building flood resilience. The platform helps all New Yorkers learn what flood zone they’re in, or will be in, how that affects their insurance rates, and what steps they can take to mitigate their risk. It features a first-of-its-kind flood insurance rate calculator that can help homeowners get a rough idea of the costs they could face as insurance prices go up. It is also the main conduit to apply for the Home Resiliency Audit, a New York State-funded program that equips at-risk homeowners with vital documentation valued at over $800 that confirms their actual elevation and insurance costs—all with the personalized assistance of an engineer and housing counselor team. In the coming months, FloodHelpNY will expand further to offer homeowners free backflow valves that reduce the chance of sewers backing up during flooding, as well as access to more existing benefits for resiliency.

The New York City floodplain, which is expected to grow as tides continue to rise, threatens neighborhoods that are among New York’s oldest and most historic. The people who live there make the city work: teachers, police officers, subway operators. Many of these homeowners will watch their flood insurance premiums surge, year over year. It’s a troubling future, but one that FloodHelpNY is designed to help New Yorkers face, by guiding them toward greater resilience and assuring them that they aren’t alone.

Athletes looking to score big on game day could hit the gym, but they’d probably be better off hitting the sheets instead, according to Rise Science, a sleep analytics startup. Harnessing the latest sleep science, Rise helps players significantly improve reaction time and decrease false starts, lapses, and injuries, among other benefits.

While attending Northwestern University, the co-founders of Rise Science created a simple sleep app and light-touch coaching service, which they prototyped on the school’s Big Ten football team with positive results. They came to IDEO to optimize their customer experience and scale the business, and joined IDEO’s Startup in Residence program.

While observing coaches and players using Rise, IDEO saw the opportunity to better integrate the digital and hardware experiences and design a more robust, intuitive, and service-heavy on-boarding experience during the first few weeks using the system, when breaking old habits and incorporating new ones are most challenging.

At the end of the residence program, Rise left IDEO with a rebranded and optimized sleep training system. Here’s how it works: Players and coaches receive a short, in-person introduction to sleep coaching by a Rise employee. Players who opt in to the service receive a sleep-training kit that includes the Rise Coaching App; adaptive sleep plans tailored to their chronotype, age, game schedule, and training load; a part-human, part-machine sleep coach that continuously supports each player, monitors progress, and gives timely feedback; in-context education that provides daily and weekly sleep insights; and products like UV glasses, sleep mask, and bed sensor. In just a week of using Rise’s full sleep program, 97 percent of players report getting 54 more restorative minutes of sleep per night.

Recently, Rise Science added the Chicago Bulls, Miami Dolphins, and the University of West Virginia to their sleep-training roster, enhancing their performance, one good night’s sleep at a time.

“Coming into IDEO, we knew our service was letting customers down. When we left, we had the blueprint for the next version of Rise. We were able to solve and optimize sleep at a much larger scale,” said Jeff Kahn, co-founder and CEO of Rise Science.

Knowing how to design community is a rare skill, and Rhonda did it better than anyone. She didn’t bring people together because it was her job. She did it because that’s who she was. Rhonda turned our studio into a home and coworkers into a family. Her creative acts of community-building were expressed through a million everyday things she did for us in the 10 years she worked at IDEO.

Over the last three weeks, we have been sharing stories of how we might be a little more Rhonda. Below are just a few:

Treat your coworkers as friends, not colleagues.

Jennifer Sarich-Harvey said that the moment she knew she was dealing with a special human being was when she received a care package from Rhonda while writing her thesis. Jenn had left IDEO as an intern the year before (not knowing that she would return a few years later).

Lindsey Turner told us of Rhonda’s detailed catering spreadsheet and how you could find little personalized notes therein: Graciella likes the Green Goddess with extra cashews, Noreen loves the almond cake, and no one ate the chicken tenders. Her thoughtfulness extended well beyond the confines of her job.

Treat everyone with dignity and respect.

Rhonda worked extraordinarily hard. She was always on her toes or running to tick something off her mental “to do” list. She even ate standing up. But no matter how busy she was, Michael Hendrix reminded us of how she never treated anyone as an inconvenience. Whatever she was doing, she would drop it in an instant to be truly present with you.

Make it special so people feel special.

Christina Abele chuckled warmly as she related the story of how Rhonda would always, always, re-plate the food—no matter if the caterer had already done so or she didn’t have the time. Rhonda knew that the way you made people feel special was through focusing on the smallest of moments, taking great care, and making them beautiful. This was her craft and how she showed her love in her own humble way. She would put “a little powdered sugar” on everything.

Make others successful.

No one brought this central IDEO value to life like Rhonda did. She was hospitality made manifest. She’d spend countless hours helping our design teams create an extraordinary experience for clients, of course, but she went above and beyond on a personal level too. Noreen Arora shared how Rhonda would sneak some food for her to take back to her new husband to make him fall even more in love with her.

Be the Rhocque.

“The Rhocque” was a nickname her best friends in the studio called her: Rhonda was unflappable, forever poised, and always put others well-being before her own. Nicole Howard recounted the time she was literally running through the studio, stressed before an event, holding paper in one hand and a binder in the other, with Rhonda right behind her. With a quick turn of the heel, they crashed into one another and, in a heroic move, Rhonda grabbed Niki and rubbed some calming lavender oil into her temples before scuttling off to stock the bar. Niki was dumbstruck. To this day, Niki keeps some lavender oil in her bag, just in case.

John Feole tells us how Rhonda once dropped a glass in the kitchen and, even though it broke, it didn’t shatter—it simply held itself together. And that, he remarked, was who Rhonda was: “You could be a little cracked, a little broken, but Rhonda helped you keep your form.”

Make memories, don't wait for them to make themselves.

Nicole Woods told us that Rhonda would intentionally create special moments between her and her daughter so that Ali would have memories for years to come—like recreating a scene from Frozen during the first snowfall. She did the same for us: Like that time she stood smiling as we “oohed” and “aahed” over how she had turned our studio into a woodland forest for an event.

Design random acts of kindness.

Rhonda had a gift. Design came naturally to her. She could anticipate our needs before we could, worked alongside us with our clients top of mind, and always made sure we left feeling better for it. From snow cones for an overworked team designing for snowboarders, rolling trolleys of hot chocolate on a chilly day with toppings only a child would dream of, cake pops in the hues of proposed brand identities and, Tom Kershaw confirmed, baby showers to rival the very best of weddings, she was “biologically incapable of not making things beautiful,” (thank you John Feole). She did so much for all of us and made it look effortless.

Many companies have their values plastered on the wall or policies on creating culture. We confess we have that, too. But, more importantly, we had the irreplaceable Rhonda.

Rhonda, we love you and we will miss you always. We hope to do you proud.

We collected a few suggestion from her friends and colleagues on how we can all be a little more like Rhonda. See their comments here.

You feel it the moment you walk into our studio—a sense of community. People come before deadlines. When someone makes a request, you drop everything, no questions asked, and lend a hand. Ask anyone here to identify the source of that feeling and they would have immediately pointed at the front desk, where every day, Rhonda LeRocque welcomed you in with a smile that could melt a glacier. Rhonda was one of the concertgoers in Las Vegas who never made it back home. This post is a tribute to her and how she brought us together.

I have always loved the sense of escape that dressing up allows. Ever since I transformed into a cardboard robot at a primary school fair as an 8-year-old (my brother is the blackbird), I have been fascinated by how differently people interact with me when I’m in a seemingly alien state.

That early fascination, coupled with my love of building things, has led me to create elaborate costumes based on Ghostbusters, Edward Scissor hands, and LEGO men, to name a few. And since working in the Play Lab, my costume obsession has truly bloomed. IDEO has a long tradition of extreme costume building, especially for our annual holiday party. Themes over the last few years have included Surrealism, County Fair, and Magical Forest.

Over the years many people have asked me how I approach costume creation. Here are 8 ways to channel your inner designer:

1. Stretch the theme

When it comes to themed events, I look for something on the fringe so there’s no chance I’ll be dressed the same as anyone else. For the surrealism party, Salvador Dali, whose paintings invite the viewer to interpret the work in more than one way, inspired me. I wanted to create a costume morphed two things into each other in black and white to achieve a striking contrast. After listing dozens of possibilities, I chose a zebra and a piano! I was pretty sure no one else would be thinking about mashing those together.

2. Plan, sketch, and simplify

When planning out a costume, I create an inspiration board of potential elements. Then, I explore compositions through quick sketches (often on bumpy commuter trains, forgive the roughness) to get a feel of what they might look like and how to construct them. Below are a couple of early sketches of my Zebra-piano and grasshopper costumes:

I try to simplify the execution as much as possible. Costumes do not need to imitate your reference exactly to create impact; just capture the essence of your theme/character in as simple and bold a way as possible.

3. Go wide with materials

Sourcing as many different material options as possible helps you be more creative with combinations and allows unexpected “discoveries” to happen. Don’t forget the fur and fairy dust!

4. Experiment and play beforehand

Try not to be too precious or precise as you start building. Try out different methods and do multiple tests. In painting my face to become a zebra I failed many times before I found a good quality paint and method of application. Here’s a picture to prove it!

Snazaroo paints are the best when applied with clean fingers, Q-tips, sharp-edged sponges and cereal-box cardboard. Dabbing a layer of powder or, with eyes closed, hairspray onto the paint helps it stay in place for the duration of the night.

5. Break the human silhouette

Costumes that break the usual form factor of the human body are the most striking and unexpected. For the County Fair event I built a Zoltar fortune-teller machine using laser-cut foam core decorated with acrylic spray paint. Don't have a laser cutter in the garage? Check out a local techshop or other makerspace, ask a friend who's got access to a shop to help out, or do a quick search for local vendors.

6. Be human-centered

Make sure you can easily drink and go to the toilet! I’ve made too many costumes that have made both difficult, which admittedly adds a layer of hilarity when you have to rely on complete strangers to help you use the facilities.

7. Light it up

Parties are often held in darkened rooms. Adding any level of lighting really helps your costume pop. When building the grasshopper costumes, I found cheap battery-powered LED strip lights on Amazon that brought them to life.

8. Multiples for the win

Team up with someone (as I did with my fellow grasshopper) to add clout to your costume. Two is always better—and more fun—than one.

Check out this gallery of some of my finished costumes:

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Happy escapism! Share your costume idea with us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook with #IDEOcostumedesign.

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It’s spooky season, and we’re feeling that familiar dread of what to wear, what to make, or even where to find inspiration flood in. At a company where design is close to a religion, coming up with an eye-popping costume is the Holy Grail.

Far from the client presentations I had previously known, here, the emotional stakes were much higher. This was my personal story, and I was learning the hard way—in front of an audience of my new peers, no less—that I was clueless as to how I might frame a compelling narrative.

In other words, I had no idea how to tell a story.

Feeling awkward as can be, with a bruised ego to boot, I knew I had to improve my public speaking ability. Luckily, I fast became aware that I was surrounded by the best storytellers I had ever known. I began observing, writing down, and absorbing all of the knowledge, coaching, and feedback that was offered up.

It has been nearly seven years since I shut my laptop in shame. In this time, I have compiled a list of my five favorite, go-to tips from the best presenters at IDEO:

1. Make it personal

Your audience wants to see more than just a portfolio of work or a few case studies they could read on their phones. They want to hear your story. Who are you, how did you get here, and, most importantly, what are you passionate about and why? This latter idea should tie to the work you present.

2. Create a narrative arc

Your talk should have a fully realized narrative, complete with dramatic tension and resolution. The tension in my personal story arrived when I haphazardly fell into the agency world, where the ideologies that drive me were completely at odds with the work I was doing. Resolution came when I left and made a major change in my career and my work.

3. Provide historical context

A bit of history provides a compelling backdrop for the story of your work. When I talk about IDEO’s efforts in the automotive sector, I first tell the story of Thomas Midgley Jr., a chemist and mechanical engineer who invented leaded gasoline (and CFCs) while working for General Motors in the 1920s and '30s. Understanding the disproportionate, planetary-scale impact of Midgley's work sets up the formidable challenge that designers must now overcome.

4. The bar exam

Ask yourself, is your story interesting enough that you would tell it to a friend over drinks at a bar? Bonus points: Conduct your bar exam with a friend who works outside of your industry, making it all the more challenging to capture their attention.

5. Stick the landing

Always end on a punchline. Your punchline does not have to be funny, but it will be the overarching idea that people take home with them. In the context of an event with multiple speakers, your audience is endlessly bombarded with competing ideas and inspiration. When you stick your landing, they remember—perhaps even share—precisely what it is you aimed to communicate.

I have now employed the above tips from friends and colleagues at nearly 30 events over five years on four continents. I assure you, they work.

Special thanks to Annette Ferrara, Neil Stevenson, Shoshana Berger, Paul Bennett, Jenn Maer, Tim Brown, and Katie Clark. I owe you each a lifetime’s worth of experiences and airline miles.

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Nothing makes me want to master a new skill like falling on my face when I first attempt it. Halfway through my new hire presentation—a get-to-know-the-new-kid-over-beers tradition at IDEO Chicago—I cut my talk short and shamefully closed my laptop.

But first, here are a few things to think about before you begin:

Consider what you’re trying to learn. Do you want feedback on the event format, content, experience, or outcomes? Whatever that may be, it helps to tell your audience that they’re participating in a prototype right from the get-go. In our experience, being up front that you're trying to build something better encourages participants to respond. You might offer some incentive for their input, too. Even a small gesture of thanks signals that you value their thoughts. And remember to use the data you get back to understand what happened, and conversation to understand why. Data alone is only half the story.

With all that in mind, here are some techniques we’ve designed to help us understand what worked, what didn’t, and why.

1. Do Live Polling

Collect information during the event, while it’s freshest in people’s minds:

• Pass out comment cards with a simple feedback prompt, “I like/I wish”.
• Leave prompts on a board like, “What did you learn today?” and Post-Its for guests to use.
• Digital tools like Meetmaps or polleverywhere.com do live polling, and you can choose to show the audience the real-time results to encourage participation.
• Biometric measurement can tell you what selected people are feeling in real-time, Megvii and XOX are two systems. You can also show the audience this data.
• Have your team create a list of the most common sentiments or attitudes you expect to get ("I'm Confused" or "I'm Learning"). Then work the crowd, giving people simple feedback prompts. Tally results in a Google survey form, capturing any notable quotes or outliers.

2. Make Data Viz Physical

Sometimes seeing evidence that people are really engaged gets others to participate. Bonus: these methods are fun, and social.

• Have people use a green door to show a “like” and a red door to show a “dislike”. You can also do this by asking people to move to certain places within a space.
• From the stage, ask the crowd before/after speaker: “Stand up if this is the first event you’ve been to….”
• Have people choose a button/pin with a word that describes what people value. For instance, if you’re talking about community, one button might say, “finding my people” and another might say, “building diversity”. Count the ones that are left over.
• Place dots on a spectrum or balls in a bin to vote what you think. The voting objects can be themed too, like fake coins for business investing.

3. Observe Cues

People don’t always accurately report how they feel. Take note of what they do, too.

• Count how many people download the presentation or video after the event, if there is one.
• Provide a hashtag for people to use on social media, then track both the number of shares/tweets, and the sentiment of them. Tools like Tint can help with this.
• Collect names and email addresses for future events (if no one signs up, that’s feedback, too).
• Measure sound volume hourly throughout the event to get a better picture of traffic and engagement timing. Compare different events in full swing in the same physical space to quantify the energy in the room.
• Watch people showing signs of comfort and belonging in their body language—are they loosening their ties or kicking up their heels, do they feel comfortable enough to move chairs into a circle?—all are signs they’re engaged. Sitting alone, checking phones or watches, falling asleep, leaving the room—you know what those cues means.

4. Take the Long View

In addition to immediate learnings, you may want to aggregate insights over time or across events.

• Ask people if they want to be on a feedback panel going forward. Offer exclusive access or information in exchange for helping you shape the program.
• Provide a platform for ongoing conversation about the themes that are important to both you and your guests. This helps you keep the pulse in an ongoing way, and reminds people to associate you with things you care about.

Got any ideas of your own to add to our list? We’d love to hear about them. Hit us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram with the hashtag #feedbackdesign.

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You put weeks of work into designing a great event. You think it went well, and people seemed happy, but how do you find out what truly worked and what didn’t? Instead of circulating a survey that makes people's eyes glaze over (if they glance it at all) we've applied our design chops to the task. Here's how to get quality feedback that will help you up your game.

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.