Fevers. Boogers. Yucky meds. IDEO Play Lab designers dove deeply into the challenges of sick days and doctors’ appointments through video diaries, online surveys, and in-person interviews with parents, healthcare providers, and small children in homes and pediatric offices across the US. They heard about the struggles of giving medicines, wonky thermometer readings, kids having “stethoscope scaries,” and, worst of all, what happens when kiddos hear the “s-word”—shot.

‍‍The research confirmed Sydney and Kaitlin’s initial hunches about playful healthcare products and provided the team with insights on how to move forward. The answer was a formula of sorts. To help reduce kids’ anxiety and keep them calm at the doctor, give them a choice in their care whenever possible. Build familiarity with doctor’s visits and medical devices through playful moments at home. Redirect their attention away from fear. Design for multisensory richness. And provide age-appropriate narratives about healthcare experiences.

Inspired by this kid-centric formula, the IDEO Play Lab team worked closely with Sydney, Kaitlin, and their co-founder, Michael Kamins, to iterate on several designs, winnowing down more than 150 brainstorm ideas into a dozen tangible prototypes (or tinker models) that were shown to doctors, nurses, parents, and young kids for feedback. The designs—a rocket ship medicine dispenser, an elephant-shaped nose aspirator, and a narwhal nasal bulb, among others—were intended to evoke a sense of playfulness, comfort, and familiarity, with features designed for maximum cuteness. Some even lit up and played sounds, like popular toys.

While the designs passed the fun test with kids, they also needed to be functional for parents, trusted by doctors, easily manufactured, and affordable. Eventually, they would need to be approved by the FDA as regulated medical devices. Playhouse MD also requested patentable innovations to help protect their products from imitation.

With these constraints in mind, IDEO Play Lab delivered a collection of nine unique, high-fidelity prototypes that add a dose of fun to caretaking challenges in homes and doctors’ offices. The final designs were durable, medically sanitizable, and safe for testing with real kids, which helped the startup secure multiple rounds of funding and bring its first products to market in 18 months.

Playhouse MD began selling its first four direct-to-consumer products on its website in June 2025: two Medicine Buddies (medicine dispensers shaped like a rocket ship and a butterfly) and two Booger Buddies (a light-up nasal aspirator elephant called Luna and a light-up nasal bulb narwhal named Noa, which was named one of The Best Inventions of 2025 by TIME). The products are available at Target and Babylist stores, and on Amazon through leading medical distributor McKesson Medical-Surgical.

Most companies design child healthcare devices with parents’ or doctors’ tastes in mind; none, however, focus on what will make kids smile, too.

TIME Best Inventions of 2025

in the Parenting Category, Playhouse MD's Light-Up Nasal Bulb

1 ½ years

from initial brainstorms to in-market launch of 4 kid-centric medical products

Verathon offers one of the broadest portfolios of video laryngoscopes on the market. While these life-saving devices increase the likelihood of successful first-time intubations, reducing trauma and speeding recovery times, they are more costly and can be more challenging to learn how to use than traditional mechanical ones, which rely on directly looking at the vocal cords. Wanting to make it easier for cost-conscious hospital administrators to transition from traditional laryngoscopes to Verathon’s video systems, the medical device manufacturer asked IDEO to technically and visually unite its next-gen reusable baton and stats, ensuring they worked together seamlessly, flexibly, and intuitively during the most routine and demanding healthcare moments.

‍The IDEO and Verathon teams used a prototype-led approach to safely gain feedback from anesthesiologists and emergency physicians. Research participants were given various intubation models to simulate surgical use cases and understand ergonomic trade-offs between different design directions. Insights from the field led to design principles such as prioritizing device balance over weight reduction, providing flexibility to accommodate a variety of gripping positions, making connection points between various parts clear, intuitive, and secure, and ensuring the device was easy to clean.

Inspired by physician feedback, the team designed an innovative video baton that felt both familiar and new, supported the ergonomics of diverse holding styles, and fit Verathon’s wide range of stat sizes (one of its competitive advantages). To prevent accidental disconnections, users receive clear tactile, visual, and sound feedback when the monitor and cover are correctly attached to the baton. IDEO chose color, materials, and finishes to help clinicians quickly distinguish between parts of the system and easily identify reusable components from single-use ones.

Verathon’s new GlideScope ClearFit stats-based video laryngoscope hit the market in August 2025. Combining one reusable baton with an industry-leading selection of six single-use stats, it’s compatible with both the GlideScope® Go™ 2 handheld and GlideScope® Core™ cart-based systems. Magnetic QuickConnect™ technology allows doctors to seamlessly switch between platforms, giving hospitals a standardized airway management solution that simplifies workflows, streamlines inventory, enhances medical education and training, and promotes cost-effective care.

Verathon invented video laryngoscopy technology. Twenty years later, the COVID-19 pandemic spurred more competitors to enter the market.

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Cutting-edge technologies like video laryngoscopes are critical—and costly—devices. Hospital systems want to invest in the most comprehensive, flexible, adaptable, and affordable tools for quality patient care

6 shapes and sizes

of single-use covers fit one video baton, enabling health workers to quickly access different throat anatomies

Since its founding in 1992 by the Gokongwei family, which also operates one of the nation’s largest conglomerates, JG Summit Holdings, GBF has supported Philippine education through student scholarships, teacher training funds, and donations to top universities. Over its 30-plus-year history, GBF has reached more than 200,000 teachers and impacted over 1.5 million learners nationwide. When the foundation approached IDEO in 2021, it wanted to move the needle on STEM education in the country’s struggling public schools.

The IDEO and GBF teams interviewed more than 100 subject-matter experts across various government agencies, leading technology companies, and top national universities and educational institutions to build a comprehensive understanding of the current state of STEM in the Philippines. To experience classroom struggles firsthand, the team also shadowed STEM educators and principals. The research revealed that time-strapped teachers needed help mastering overall STEM content, preparing for their classes, and selecting the most suitable activities for their students. They also didn’t always feel supported in their own career development journeys. But the burden of daily responsibilities didn’t leave them any time for outside learning opportunities, either. 

Recognizing that empowering teachers empowers students, the team created an innovative lesson prep tool, the GBF Class Builder, that's based on these insights. Using existing technology and course materials designed to align with school curricula, IDEO developed a working prototype of the Class Builder in under a week, with minimal investment. The team then systematically improved it over several “build-test-iterate” feedback cycles in real classrooms over the course of four months.

The final GBF Class Builder is a targeted program that helps STEM teachers deliver compelling lessons for their students, learn new teaching strategies, and build content mastery along the way. In addition to helping design the Class Builder, IDEO continues to advise GBF on key aspects of the program's piloting and rollout. This includes advising on how to implement the content development, think through the curriculum development process, support in designing feature iterations, define metrics for success, and decide which additional roles GBF will need to support the ambitious program going forward. 

The foundation launched the GBF Class Builder at its 30th-anniversary celebration in 2023. Feedback from pilot 3,500 public schools and 15,000 teachers has been overwhelmingly positive. “Through the GBF Class Builder, we envision our teachers to be more confident and effective in class, more ready to face the challenges of the future, while enjoying every class—feeling proud to be a teacher, " says Grace Colet, Executive Director of GBF.
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The ambitious program continues to scale and is on track to be rolled out in public schools nationwide by 2029.

90% of 10-year-olds in the Philippines can’t read a simple text, according to a Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics report. Eighty-three percent of Filipino 10-year-olds lack minimum proficiency in math.

More than 15,000 teachers in 3,500 public schools

are now using the innovative GBF Class Builder program
‍

94%

of teachers report the GBF Class Builder has improved student engagement, while 89% say it saves them 1-2 hours in prep time per lesson

Fizik came to IDEO with the aim of entering the helmet market with a range of high-end performance options fit for road racing, mountain biking, time trials/triathlons, and everyday cycling. Fizik planned to use its world-class production and engineering capabilities (the company is part of the Selle Royal Group, which has over 1,400 employees and manages five other cycling brands, including Crankbrothers and Brooks England). IDEO’s task was to develop an on-brand design language that would unify its new helmet line and integrate seamlessly with the sleek, modern aesthetics of the company’s other products.

The design sprint began with in-context interviews with avid and professional cyclists to learn what they wanted—and didn’t—in a helmet. Unlike other accessories, such as shoes or shorts, riders viewed helmets as a necessity rather than an exciting or aspirational purchase. They also wanted a helmet that complemented their overall style, rather than standing out, and had a flattering silhouette. Avoiding making a cyclist look like a “mushroom” was key.

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Different cycling styles involve varying riding postures, ranging from a dropped and horizontal position (time trial/triathlete) to an upright and vertical position (mountain biking). IDEO proposed a family of helmet designs that correspond accordingly. On the horizontal extreme, the time trial/triathlete helmet has the most fluid, organic, aerodynamic shape. A statement of refined simplicity and speed, it features minimal venting and a magnetic wrap-around visor to reduce drag that can be exchanged for the rider’s own cycling glasses.

On the vertical extreme, the mountain biking helmet features a more rugged, angular form with an adjustable brim, rectangular venting, and boxier, back-of-the-head protection. It also offers affordances for goggles, sunglass storage, a GoPro mount, and an optional integrated rear light.

In between, a compact helmet for road racing features evolutionary variations on these design extremes, with more venting as well as a front glasses holder and integrated rear light. All four helmets strike a balance between lightness, comfort, safety, and performance, embodying Fizik’s signature modern style.

In April 2025, Fizik launched all four helmet models simultaneously: Kassis (mountain biking), Kunee (trial/triathlon), Kudo, and the more aerodynamic Kudo Aero for road and gravel. The helmets were greeted with critical acclaim from the cycling world, while Virginia Tech’s independent helmet-safety research lab gave them five-star performance ratings for their strength and durability.‍

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Legendary cycling company Fizik was known for its high-performance bike seats and shoes, but wanted to be a fierce entrant in a challenging product category—helmets.

4

new helmet designs

1

new product category

1. The Plant, 1400 W 46th St, 773-847-5523, plantchicago.com

It’s urban agriculture and food business incubation at its finest. This net-zero-energy Southwest side building defies all Midwestern norms with vertical farming, aquaponics, and small-batch kombucha brewing.

Weekends offer farmers markets featuring the building’s tenants (think: kombucha, cheese, pasties, and produce) as well as behind-the-scenes tours.

• Hood: Back of the Yards
• Will set you back: $10 for a tour
• Don't leave without: buying Pleasant House Bakery mushroom or chicken pasties and checking out the aquaponics setup

2. Baker Miller Bakery & Millhouse, 4610 N Western Ave, 773-654-3610, bakermillerchicago.com

An outstanding slice of pie is hard, though not impossible, to find. A self-taught miller who uses only the best organic grains he can source from his network of farmers and prefers building a local community to garnering national attention? Not so common. Owners Dave and Megan Miller (yep, it was meant to be) just might be at the forefront of a new food movement. And with a Beard nomination under their belt, we're not the only ones who think so.

• Hood: Lincoln Square
• Will set you back: $5 for a slice of pie or less than $10 for an entrée
• Don't leave without: trying at least two types of pie

3. Few Spirits, 918 W Chicago Ave, Evanston, 847-920-8628, fewspirits.com

Chances are Chicago isn’t the first city that comes to mind when you think "craft spirits," but it's actually a hotbed of Midwestern distilling. Located in a nearby suburb, Evanston’s Few Spirits makes and sells bourbon and rye whiskey, American and barrel gin, and, occasionally, the infamous wormwood-based liquor, Malört. Wind your way through a back alley to this modest spot on Saturdays for tours and tastings; just make sure to sign up in advance.

• Hood: Evanston
• Will set you back: $10 for a tour, more for a bottle
• Don’t leave without: spending some quality time in the tasting room

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We spend so much time scavenging other cities for inspiration, we sometimes forget that our own backyard is chock-full of places that reflect Chicago's true grit, gusto, and occasional grace. Follow our lead to experience some of the best spots in town.

In reality, I was nervous. The machine was sealed behind an air-tight door with thick safety glass and emergency warning lights. And some of Dr. Newberg’s preparatory questions had been a little unnerving:

“Have you ever had a pot explode while you’re cooking?” he’d asked. He was concerned I might have some residual fragments of metal in my eye. “In the magnetic field, it would tear through your eyeball.”

I lay back and stared at the ceiling. The fluorescent light panels had been fitted with transparencies showing a blue sky framed by cherry blossoms. I appreciated the attempt to cheer the patient up, but the image looked so radiantly perfect that it made me think about the afterlife.

There's nothing wrong with you, I told myself, this is just a psychology experiment.

I shivered. The machine’s giant doughnut was filled with liquid helium, supercooled to 450 degrees below zero. Dr. Newberg draped a white sheet over me, which added warmth, but made me look like a corpse. Then he retreated to the control room. I heard his voice in my headphones.
“Ready to go?”

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Read the rest of Neil's post on Medium.

I climbed onto the narrow bed that jutted out in front of the MRI machine. “How do you feel?” asked Dr. Andrew Newberg, the neuroscientist in charge of the experiment. “Great!” I said over-brightly, like I was about to receive a spa treatment rather than a brain scan.

1. Ditch the Plan

Don't try to build a 20-year plan—or even a two-year plan. The world is changing too fast. Figure out what you’re interested in right now and what the most interesting opportunities are in front of you and pursue those. —Aaron Ferber, Mechanical Engineer & Portfolio Director, @ IDEO since 2007

2. Just Do It

Don’t be paralyzed by making the “right choice.” Just make some decisions. While you’re working on one thing, don’t stop looking for your next thing. Don’t wait for others to offer you opportunities. Create your own stepping stones. —Erin Henkel, Service Design Portfolio Director, @ IDEO since 2006

3. I.D. Your Obi-Wan

Find someone you admire and follow his or her advice. —Andrew Burroughs, Mechanical Engineer & Partner, @ IDEO since 1992

4. Make Like Magellan

Make time to travel. It might be a cliché, but getting out of your own culture makes you more mindful and observant. You question everything you once took for granted. When my own children are trying to figure out what direction to take their lives next, I tell them, "Take out your passports. It’s time to book a trip." —Tim Brown, CEO, @ IDEO since 1987 (before it was IDEO)

So, young designer, you have your degree and now you have our advice. Time to bravely leap into your career with both feet and an open mind. Or, in the words of the ever-wise Yoda: "Do. Or do not. There is no try."

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When you're fresh out of school, your career possibilities can seem endless. So endless, in fact, it can be hard to know where to start. We feel you. We’ve been there. To help you enter the brave new world of design feeling a bit more surefooted, we asked a few of our most senior creatives—even our CEO (!)—what piece of advice they’d share with their younger selves. With over 75 years of professional experience between them, we think they know a thing or two.

I went back and stared: Inside what had been a pothole the size of a dinner plate, someone had constructed a beautiful mosaic of an iris.

The symbolism hit me hard: Here was an example of how someone could take a bad thing and turn it into something of transcendent beauty. Instead of complaining about my bad day, I should be looking for an opportunity to make something great. Or as the slogan goes, “When things fall apart, make art.” Once I’d spotted this one transformed pothole, I noticed more of them around Chicago, and resolved to track down the mysterious mosaic artist who was seeding the city’s broken streets with beauty. I’d like to tell you that my quest was long and heroic, but, in reality, all I did was type “Chicago pothole art” into Google.

The name it threw back at me was Jim Bachor. I emailed him, and soon we were chatting.

How did you get into mosaics?

I went to Europe in the late '90s, and saw Paris, London, and Rome. That trip changed my life: It gave me a passion for ancient history. I started traveling in Greece and Turkey, checking out ancient sites, and saw that the art that survives is the sculpture and the mosaics. The mosaics got me going, particularly in Pompeii. I saw that glass and marble do not fade. That thought has driven my work ever since. I took a course in Ravenna, near Venice, and learned how to make mosaics in the ancient, tedious, and expensive way. Back in Chicago, I started making them on the side as a hobby, while working as a designer at an ad agency. Then, in August 2011, I was laid off and I decided to pursue art full-time.

What led you to potholes as sites for art?

The street outside my house was beat up. There was this one pothole that refused to stay fixed. I thought it might be funny to solve this problem. So I did it one night. I was very paranoid: I felt like I was too old to get arrested. And it wouldn’t be a good example for my kiddies. So I didn’t even claim ownership of it, at first. But then, a buddy of mine started spreading the word. And from there, it went viral.

Do you do it during daytime now?

Yes. I wear orange reflective gear. And have cones. I started off with my boys’ orange soccer cones. Now I have industrial, two-foot-tall cones. I look like a city worker who's spending way too much time on one pothole. I’m not trying to fool anyone: I’m just trying not to be hit.

What about passers-by?

I don’t really make eye contact with people and they mostly ignore me.

I look like a city worker who's spending way too much time on one pothole.

JIM BACHOR

What else have you done with the mosaic form?

I did a super realistic "Snack Chip" series. It’s kind of funny to see a snack chip rendered in an ancient medium. For the Cheetos one, I carbonized some Cheetos, and then mixed the black powder into the mortar. The artwork truly has essence of Cheeto in it.

See more of Jim Bachor’s mosaic art at bachor.com.

One afternoon, I got on my bike to leave our Chicago office after a really bad day. It was one of those times when it feels like everything you touch falls apart, and I was in a hurry to get home and lie down in the dark. I rode through the West Loop neighborhood and turned right to head north on Green Street. But then something passed by beneath my front wheel that caused me to stop and turn around.

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.