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.

‍

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.

Leaders dream of teams working together seamlessly, like a dragon boat crew rowing in unison. But in big companies, people often struggle to understand one another because of differences in roles, expertise, and motivations. This lack of mutual understanding can hinder consensus-building and make collaboration difficult.

Because navigating these internal dynamics is challenging, organizations often default to one of two extremes: either ignoring the disconnect and continuing with business as usual, or opting for drastic, disruptive change. We believe there’s a middle ground—a more thoughtful, human approach that can enable better communication and collaboration across teams.

Over the years, our work with large organizations has reinforced the value of applying human-centered design not only to uncover consumer behaviors but also to enhance ways of working within companies.

Here's one story of how we applied design thinking methodologies to find the middle ground and bridge the gap between leadership and product design departments in a prominent consumer products company.

“The design feels soulless”

Initially, our project appeared to be a straightforward product development assignment.

Our client, a well-known consumer productscompany, wanted to upgrade its high-end product line. The goal was to unify the aesthetic and experience, ultimately encouraging consumers to buy a complete set rather than individual pieces.

With the launch date set, it seemed to be a typical race against the clock to complete development and production.

But an initial round of internal interviews revealed a deeper layer of complexity.

Two separate teams managed the product suite, each overseeing its own independent product line while juggling daily responsibilities. Before IDEO came on board, the teams had tried to collaborate but fell short of meeting the expectations of Mr. Zhang, the project sponsor. His verdict: “The design feels soulless.”

Mr. Zhang wanted the teams to align and deliver a truly cohesive experience. But even with these directives, the teams interpreted his expectations differently, resulting in misaligned efforts.

By the time the IDEO team joined the project, it had stalled.

‍The soul-searching “why”

Mr. Zhang was a well-respected senior executive. His strategic oversight spanned multiple core product lines, leaving him far removed from day-to-day design details. While his teams admired him, an inevitable gap had formed between management levels.

To move past his “soulless” critique, we needed to get to the root of Mr. Zhang’s expectations.

What did he mean by “soul,” and why was it missing?

Instead of reliving the same conversation, we invited him to adopt a designer’s perspective. By stepping into a different role, we hoped to spark fresh insights and unlock honest dialogue.

We brought a designer’s favorite tool into his office: an oversized mood board filled with product details, material samples, and structural diagrams.

“Today, we’d like you to think like a designer,” we said. “Take a look at this board and choose the materials, textures, and structures you feel best represent the future of this product suite. Go with your gut—you don’t need to overthink it.”

The visual prompts quickly shifted his mindset, transforming a strategic discussion into a candid conversation. He shared his doubts about some concepts, his curiosity about others, and his alignment with certain ideas.

Breaking the ice in this way facilitated a sincere dialogue—one between people, not job titles.

As the session drew to a close, he asked pointedly: “Did the product leads also do this exercise? Let me guess—they probably each pushed you to prioritize designs that would make their own product line shine, didn’t they?” he said, laughing.

His intuition was spot on. They were each focused on their own wish lists for their product lines, rather than working together to create a cohesive narrative that would make the product suite appeal to customers, the “soul” he was looking for. That narrative was not only critical to the product suite’s success but also to the company’s broader strategic goals.

At that moment, we felt the shift from external consultants to trusted collaborators.

Mr. Zhang also shared more about why it mattered to him. With the market shifting from growth to saturation and consumer demand waning, the stakes were high. A compelling product suite could sustain growth in a challenging landscape, while fostering cross-functional collaboration would strengthen the organization for future innovation.

Connecting strategy and products through real consumer needs

In many large organizations, concerns and perspectives often fail to connect across roles.

In this project, Mr. Zhang was focused on long-term survival strategies, while the individual product teams were consumed by immediate development pressures. Swapping perspectives wasn’t realistic, but the shifting macroeconomic landscape demanded a solution.

Our immediate question became: How can we anchor the project in shared goals to propel it forward?

The answer: Focus on the product and its users.

We visited potential consumers in their homes to observe their interior design preferences and see how they combined various products.

One clear insight emerged: consumers see their homes as extensions of their identity. Coordinated home collections help them express themselves and create signature moments they’re proud of when hosting guests.

They weren’t just looking for beautiful, functional objects. They wanted a cohesive narrative—a product suite that would harmonize with their space, align with their lifestyle, and reflect their individuality.

When a collection comes together to create something more than the sum of its parts, we discovered, consumers are far more likely to buy into the entire suite.

These consumer insights resonated with the executive’s strategic vision and served as a unifying force for the teams. Quickly,  “1+1>2.”

Finally, the formerly stalled project had new momentum.

Innovating beyond the traditional “Made in China” model  

In an increasingly competitive landscape, many business leaders recognize the need to break out of existing frameworks to drive innovation. Yet the organizations they lead are often large and rigid, with complex hierarchies and functions that were originally structured around single-category production and sales goals under the ‘Made in China’ model. These very structures have now become major obstacles to innovation.

Design, by nature, is inclusive, open, and egalitarian. It has the power to transcend organizational silos and hierarchies, communicating effectively through a shared language that everyone can understand. By doing so, it creates a more open, collaborative platform for all participants in the innovation process—enabling tangible results and carving out new space for innovation within even the most entrenched organizational systems.

“The Making of...” is a series of behind-the-scenes articles written by IDEO Shanghai designers about our innovation methods and work with major clients across industries in China.

As businesses scale and grow, the emergence of internal silos often seems inevitable.

“If you look at TikTok and Insta, it’s fluffy ‘me’ content…that’s what people are watching,” he said. That tension—between commercial pressure and editorial purpose—was palpable. The organization needed to evolve without losing the very principles that make news valuable.

The news industry isn’t just undergoing a crisis—it’s grappling with existential freefall. News is increasingly commodified and polarized, with rampant misinformation and blunt-force efforts to blur the boundaries between propaganda and fact. Technology—and AI specifically—are cracking open how we experience news and how content is created. Algorithms are growing ever more ambitious in their quest to deliver information tailored to our every whim. At the same time, the zeitgeist pulls the strings, pushing news consumption toward shorter, snappier, more visual experiences, leaving readers with less incentive to pay for it. All while subscription fatigue deepens.

But it’s not all catastrophe! News organizations can rebuild trust and resilience by leading with core differentiators and using technology to deepen impact rather than chase trends. IDEO has worked with many outlets—from national newspapers to niche publications—and we’ve come away with some hard-won lessons for designing for what matters: trusted, viable publications that support the craft of journalism and the readers and listeners they serve.

Trust is earned, not engineered

The more crowded the landscape, the greater the demand for reliable information, and the more critical the integrity of those who deliver it. Successful brands build trust by owning what makes them unique, whether that’s a stalwart reputation for journalistic excellence or a tailored offer to a niche audience. That clarity builds loyalty. News outlets need to avoid trying to be everything to everyone and anchor in what only they can offer: trust, delivered with integrity and intention.

Humanity matters, too. Readers are more likely to engage with content when they feel a sense of connection—when it’s clear there’s a real person behind the words. That’s part of the appeal of platforms like Substack and Medium, which offer personalized, niche content alongside direct access to individual writers. In our work with a national news outlet, one reader shared that he often reached out to journalists, not expecting a response, but just wanting to connect. When he did hear back, the unexpected thrill deepened his loyalty to the publication. News organizations looking to build trust can design for those connections by creating new elements like newsletters from particular reporters or live digital events where readers can engage directly with their favorite writers.

AI is not a strategy

Despite the doomsday proclamations about AI becoming the death of journalism, it may be one of the most promising tools for keeping it alive. Deployed correctly, it’s an accelerant rather than a replacement—a powerful means to help journalists offset menial tasks like transcriptions and copyediting. It brings additional data-driven objectivity to content without adding to reporter workloads. The technology that supposedly threatens to replace us may free us to do the work only humans can do: investigate the facts and elevate what matters.

On a recent project, we were exploring how AI could unlock deeper, more layered storytelling by mining the client’s vast content archive. We imagined a digital experience where a story doesn’t just relay the facts of an event, but also shows how it unfolded over time, maps where it happened, surfaces the key players, and connects the dots to similar stories from the past. Some folks in the newsroom were admittedly skeptical, both in terms of maintaining editorial integrity and fear of overburdening busy reporters with new tasks. So we built a custom ChatGPT-based prototype: no third-party data, just their own archives, stitched together into a dynamic proof-of-concept. We won over our client by showing that the technology could augment their excellent reporting while streamlining the editorial review process.

But AI isn’t the solution to every problem. As we were prototyping, we created a custom chatbot that allowed readers to “talk to” an article, riffing on the rise of voice-to-text interfaces and conversational AI. It seemed promising, but it fell flat. Users found the interaction awkward and unnatural—even those comfortable with Siri or Alexa said it felt off in a news setting. On the editorial side, it felt like a poor replacement for journalist Q&As. Readers made it clear that even if a ChatGPT-powered AI can synthesize articles with dazzling coherence, it doesn’t beat a feeling of connection with real human reporters.

Don't shrink perspectives—expand them.

Everyone talks about personalization like it’s the panacea for all things digital. But personalization is often just an exercise in subtraction—editing things out until only the familiar remains. The result is a tighter feed, but usually a narrower perspective. In our many projects with news organizations, we heard again and again from readers and listeners that they come to the news because they want to learn something new, to broaden their horizons, and to have smart things to say to their friends and colleagues.

On a project with a U.S.-based media organization, readers told us that editorial curation was key; if they were only fed news that catered to their own interests, they were afraid they’d miss out on important stories. This sentiment was especially true for readers paying for news. They were willing to invest money because they trusted the outlet to tell them what they needed to know, not just what they wanted to know. One research participant told us that one of his favorite series chronicled the drama behind the acquisition of an elevator company. And yet, “if they’d asked me if that’s one of my topics of interest, I’d have said ‘no.’” Another noted they would generally choose to skip sports coverage, but didn’t want to miss big moments like Simone Biles performing at the Olympics. Many readers are wary of filter bubbles and want to be aware of what’s happening in the world.

Less feed, more focus.

Personalization isn’t just about which stories you get, but also about how you access them. News products must offer flexibility in format, shifting seamlessly from mobile to desktop, from text to audio, from immersive deep dives to quick AI-powered summaries. For a UK-based client, we identified three user modes—Skimming & Dipping, Exploring, and Chilling—and designed different ways to engage with different formats at key moments in the day. The goal was thoughtful curation that feels like discovery, not a narrowing of options.

Volume is also important. A few years ago, we worked with The Times of London as it struggled to stay relevant in a 24/7 news cycle. Our research revealed readers didn’t want more breaking news—they wanted perspective. They wanted The Times to be the adult in the room, not another endless feed. So we designed a product anchored in four daily drops—carefully curated digital editions that refreshed throughout the day. This decision freed up tremendous resources, allowing the newsroom to focus on big stories. By moving away from the churn and toward intentionality, The Times saw a 19 percent year-over-year increase in digital subscriptions.

The approach also fulfilled a need we heard about across these projects. People don’t want to doom scroll; they want to get informed, then get to the end of the news. Unlike social media, where personalization means serving more of what users already like, news algorithms need a different intention.

Silos are the enemy of innovation

Creating a great digital news experience requires untangling the messy process of how that news is made and delivered.

That starts with creating an ownable product vision that teams can rally around, and a strategy that’s authentic to the current organization and aspirational for the future. When we worked with a PBS member station, we developed a vision anchored in a shared sense of place that centered local voices, reflected the region’s cultural richness, and positioned the organization as a neighborhood pillar and a global voice. Their CEO called the work “a vision we can achieve,” noting that it was both inspirational and actionable, designed to galvanize the entire organization, not just leadership, toward renewed purpose, greater trust, and lasting impact.

It’s also essential to break down the silos that separate editorial, product, and tech teams, making it easier to communicate across departments, so people feel invited to bring their unique lens to major product updates. This is not an invitation to design by committee! Creating space for people to surface ideas and red flags early helps with product innovation (the best ideas can come from unexpected places) and organizational buy-in (as people are more inclined to support what they help create). One of our clients started a cross-functional design council to bring new voices to the table. As we worked with another client to build a new editorial product, IDEO led critiques with teams across its newsroom, subscriptions, advertising, and brand departments, and also hosted demo hours to let a larger group of stakeholders in on the creative process.

Once teams are united around a shared vision and working cross-functionally, they need a place to de-risk ideas. In such an evolving industry, it’s critical to learn what works (and what doesn’t) fast, putting ideas in front of the end user early and often. An experimentation sandbox allows teams to test new ideas in the wild. One of our clients built a beta app to test feature updates and rolled it out to the entire newsroom and a small panel of subscribers. By shipping and iterating quickly, the team got the app into the hands of readers fast and updated it in real time, building confidence in useful features and avoiding investment in the ones that weren’t working.

A more human future for journalism

The promise of news has always been to teach us something new—to expand our sense of the world and how we fit into it. At its best, it challenges our assumptions, sharpens our thinking, and gives us new reasons to engage with one another.

But that promise only works if we trust the process and the organizations behind it. If we believe the stories are the product of care, curiosity, and intention. That’s why how the news is delivered matters just as much as what it says. The best digital experiences don’t just inform; they reflect an understanding of who we are—our needs, our frustrations, and our desire for something that feels both technologically sophisticated and unmistakably human.

In one of our first workshops with a veteran public media organization, an editor told us they needed ways to bring in new viewers while maintaining their credibility.

For businesses navigating these turbulent conditions, the traditional linear “take-make-dispose” model isn’t just environmentally unsustainable—it’s becoming a competitive disadvantage.

At IDEO, we’re seeing this anxiety reflected in the briefs landing on our desks. Leaders from multinational organizations are no longer just asking us to help them optimize existing systems—they’re seeking fundamental resilience against mounting global pressures. They sense, correctly, that future success demands a shift toward systems that can weather disruption by design.

This shift isn’t just about “being green;” it’s about strategic necessity. It’s time to embrace the circular economy—not merely as an environmental initiative, but as a core strategy for building resource independence and business resilience in volatile times.

Closing the loop

By prioritizing strategies like reuse, repair, refurbishment, and remanufacturing (restoring products to their factory settings), businesses keep resources cycling within their control, dramatically reducing dependence on virgin raw materials and volatile global commodity markets.

Recent analysis from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation reveals something telling: companies with higher circularity performance exhibit lower financial risk profiles and superior risk-adjusted returns. The numbers tell a compelling story—circular businesses are simply more resilient.

Furthermore, substituting imported virgin materials with secondary resources recovered closer to home directly reduces exposure to international trade disputes and supply chain disruptions. As the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act demonstrates, policy is increasingly focused on boosting domestic recycling and processing, creating new market opportunities for businesses ready to capitalize on this shift.

Embedding advantage by design

This isn’t just an operational pivot—companies must embed circularity into the very design of their products and services. As a European Parliament report highlights, design choices determine more than 80 percent of a product’s lifecycle impact and, crucially, its potential for profitable circularity.

On a recent client project exploring circularity in healthcare, we discovered a steep shift to single-use everything. Everything, everything. Not just the obvious, but complex items like endoscopes, which combine plastics and electronics, and often rely on imported components. Disposable tools may be convenient, but it’s easy to see how incinerating tens of millions of endoscopes leads to waste generation and supply chain vulnerabilities.

By redesigning these devices differently—creating a single-use-like experience that is hygienic and maintains practitioner confidence while enabling refurbishment and reuse—we discovered a path to cut dependency on virgin materials and volatile overseas electronics supply lines. Thoughtful designs like these can directly support business models resilient to external shocks.

The most effective circular strategies focus on:

• Designing for durability, repairability, and modularity: Creating longer-lasting, easily fixable products with interchangeable parts extends asset life, enables component harvesting for remanufacturing, and reduces total cost of ownership.
  
  
• Designing for disassembly and material selection: Ensuring products can be easily taken apart into constituent materials chosen for safe reuse or high-quality upcycling becomes fundamental for efficient recovery processes.
  ‍

‍New business models

Even the most circular design requires innovative business models to unlock its economic potential. As identified by the World Economic Forum and others, key models driving this shift include:

Product-as-a-service (PaaS): Retaining asset ownership incentivizes providers to maximize product lifespans and facilitates efficient takebacks for high-value recovery. PaaS shifts the profit focus from unit sales to lifetime asset value—a profound transformation in how businesses create and capture value.

Reverse logistics systems: Building efficient capabilities to collect, sort, and reintegrate used products and materials is the operational backbone of circularity. Innovation here involves interconnected software platforms, Internet of Things (IoT) tracking, and collaborative partnerships to manage complexity and cost.

Data management and collaboration: Successfully managing circular flows demands advanced data systems for tracking and traceability across multiple use cycles and partners. Digital product passports are becoming essential tools for managing these complex material networks.

Strengthening operational stability

The strategic logic of circularity aligns powerfully with the growing trend toward nearshoring and onshoring. Bringing production closer to end markets makes circular models like take-back and local refurbishment far more economically viable, reducing logistical complexity and cost. These localized material loops are inherently more resilient to global disruptions by mitigating exposure to geopolitical hotspots, international shipping crises, and tariffs. Building shorter, more adaptable value chains is a key priority for forward-thinking organizations, and we’ve been seeing it more and more with our clients.  

However, effective local loops require more than just relocation. They demand a fundamental rethinking of product design, supply chain infrastructure, and consumer engagement. To achieve this, organizations should consider:

• Evolving product ownership into a seamless user journey: What if user experience could be a continuous flow of value, with products that adapt to a consumer’s changing needs, can be effortlessly upgraded locally, and seamlessly returned for responsible renewal, creating a sense of ongoing connection and trust?
  
  
• Making reverse logistics effortless and rewarding: What if, instead of a chore, returning used products was as easy and satisfying as receiving new ones, integrated into local community hubs with engaging digital interfaces and personalized incentives, fostering a sense of participation and satisfaction?
  
  
• Creating thriving ecosystems of shared value with local collaboration: What if businesses, local artisans, and communities co-created circular products tailored to their unique context, with local makerspaces, repair cafes, and material marketplaces empowering people, generating local wealth, reigniting a strong sense of place and belonging, and attracting new forms of tourism?

By embracing design and innovation, businesses can create resilient and circular local economies, mitigating the increasing risks of long supply chains and unlocking local growth and innovation opportunities.

The new competitive edge: resource independence

Shifting a company’s focus to circularity does require investment in new capabilities, particularly in design, reverse logistics, and data management. It requires cultivating new collaborative ecosystems and partnerships.

But the rewards are substantial. Businesses that successfully integrate circular strategies build operational resilience by reducing reliance on volatile inputs, mitigating geopolitical and tariff risks through greater resource independence, ensuring greater supply security, and forging stronger long-term customer relationships.

As we navigate this uncertain landscape, one thing becomes clear: building circular capacity isn’t just adaptation; it’s the deliberate choice to forge a competitive edge in an unpredictable world. The future belongs to those organizations bold enough to design it.

The waters of global trade are choppier than ever. Tariff storms gather and break unpredictably, geopolitical currents shift constantly, and the very resources our supply chains depend on face increasing pressure.

Many companies are withdrawing financial guidance, and stock markets are whipsawing against tariff talks and social media speculation. Global uncertainty is now on par with—or even higher than—the peaks of the COVID-19 era, according to indices like the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index. Even trade experts can’t confidently answer pretty simple questions like: How many units will we sell? What will it cost to deliver our service in the next three months?

Every leadership team we talk to is operating in a fog. Whether they admit it or not, that fog is affecting their risk appetite: They are delaying projects, sitting on approvals, and slashing budgets. With tariffs swinging wildly, it’s tough to plan ahead. A once-profitable offer can turn into a loss overnight. Even companies with limited exposure to physical goods can feel the ripple effects through disrupted supply chains, spooked investors, or sudden stock price drops.

It’s no wonder leaders feel paralyzed. But resilient organizations don’t wait for certainty. They aren’t afraid to rethink how they lead, focus, and design for the future. In times like these, fear can’t be your compass. It’s time to step out of preservation mode and chart a course toward where your organization needs to go.

So, how do you lead through uncertainty and regain momentum? Here are four methods we’ve been using with our clients:

1. Focus beats forecasts

When everything feels urgent, nothing gets done. Leaders must help teams focus their energy on what truly matters—starting with the courage to say no to outdated initiatives, pet projects, or business-as-usual efforts that no longer serve your strategy. Focus isn’t just about doing less, it’s about freeing up capacity and renewing energy to go bolder on the bets that will shape your future. A global retailer navigating supply chain turmoil and changing consumer habits might choose to pause low-impact projects to focus on one priority: last-mile delivery. That kind of clarity can boost fulfillment speed, earn customer trust, and drive revenue. Achieving this kind of focus means aligning across functions, reaching beyond silos, and creating momentum—even without perfect clarity. Because in moments of uncertainty, focus is the fuel that keeps progress alive.

2. Rethink where to play

Whether we’re designing a product, service, strategy, or experience, we also have to design for where, how, and at what cost it gets delivered. It’s no longer just about customer segments; it’s about navigating geopolitical risk, regulatory change, and supply constraints with agility. That requires a new playbook—one that views the landscape like a moving chessboard—where your next move depends on which pieces are in motion and how the board is evolving. Imagine a toy company facing price uncertainty, choosing to prioritize growth in regional markets closer to where they produce, and then amplifying their sustainability efforts and local stories in their marketing. Routing the right products to the right markets still matters. But so does staying light on your feet. Embracing flexibility—and even a playful mindset—can help your teams move forward with confidence, not fear, as the environment continues to shift.

3. Momentum > perfection: redesign for rapid experimentation

When the future feels uncertain, the instinct is often to pause. But pausing comes at a cost. The businesses that thrive now are those that experiment faster, not because they know exactly what will work, but because they’re willing to learn their way forward. You may not have enough certainty to build a multi-year roadmap. But you do have the tools to test, iterate, and adapt in real time. A beauty brand facing increased production costs on all of its packaging might rapidly pilot makeup refillables via mobile pop-ups to prove out a new customer behavior that is both more sustainable and lower cost for the brand to deliver. This also shifts how your teams work: embedding lightweight prototyping, faster feedback loops with customers, and an emphasis on small bets that unlock new opportunities into the day-to-day. These small wins build resilience. And resilience builds momentum. In this climate, progress—even if it’s imperfect—is the boldest move you can make.

4. Digital products can offer a beacon of hope

With physical goods and global delivery models under pressure, we’re seeing renewed interest in digital experiences and revenue streams. For many, digital feels like the one domain where they can move faster and iterate more freely. Consider re-imagining the digital experience not just as a supporting channel or companion app, but as a core engine of new customer acquisition, brand loyalty, and resilience. Let’s say a health-insurance provider is facing rising service costs: launching an AI-assisted care-navigation app where members could check symptoms, book telehealth visits, and file claims all in one place could help the company cut support call volume, improve the customer experience, and help people catch health issues early, avoiding costlier medical interventions later. To unlock the full potential of digital, invest in product-led growth strategies across customer touchpoints—where value is delivered through the experience itself, and innovation is driven by real-time data and user feedback.

Where we’re going, there are no roads.

There’s no map for what comes next—but that doesn’t mean the answer is to stand still. Regaining momentum is less about knowing the final destination and more about having the right compass to guide you through the fog. At IDEO, we’re working with leaders across industries to shift out of survival mode and design for the clarity, confidence, and energy their organizations need right now. If you’re ready to move through the uncertainty, we’re here to help you chart your course.

The business world runs on planning: forecasts, earnings calls, revenue projections. But right now, that’s mostly guesswork.

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.