Sealy and IDEO first collaborated in 2008, to rethink the design of its Stearns & Foster line. For years, Sealy, the largest mattress manufacturer in the world, had taken the standard industry approach to selling mattresses and watched market share and sales flatten; it knew something had to change. Stearns & Foster evolved from a single product design into a keystone for transforming the organization.

IDEO helped Sealy use actionable consumer insights to develop a scalable design methodology and new brand principles, which it applied to product design, operational and manufacturing decision-making processes, and sales and marketing strategy. This “brand-to-product” framework was subsequently used for three separate and consecutive product launches—Stearns & Foster, Embody, and Posturepedic—resulting in an overhaul of 85 percent of Sealy’s mattress portfolio.

Tempur-Pedic was already working with IDEO on a new mattress design when it acquired Sealy in 2013. It was also interested in how design thinking and human-centered design could improve its business. Once solely focused on the technological elements of designing a mattress, together with IDEO, Tempur-Pedic redesigned the outer shells of its mattresses to reflect the quality on the inside. This design change led to the company to look at new ways to infuse design into their products.

“The initial project was to design the mattress,” said Thomas Overthun, associate partner and design director at IDEO. “But the second project was to create a whole design language from the mattress out to what it meant for any other product, from pillows to blankets and other accessories. It eventually became bigger than just the mattress.”

Working on the Tempur-Pedic/Sealy relationship has been gratifying, said IDEO partner and design director Michael Hendrix, because although home goods can be thought of as simply products, nothing could be further from the truth. IDEO and Tempur-Pedic/Sealy changed the course of the mattress company's business through the transformative power of designing where, and ultimately how, people sleep. And in the process, the organization itself changed as well, moving siloed departments to cross-functional teams, with the brand division central to their cooperation, which led to consistent and aligned decisions across the board.

Some of the projects include:

Stearns & Foster Luxury Mattress
Sealy teamed up with IDEO to develop a design language for Stearns & Foster mattresses that would reestablish what the brand stood for. Through redefining brand principles and rounds of prototypes that focused on evocative details, the new Stearns and Foster mattress was the highest rated in Sealy’s portfolio since it started keeping records, and initial retailer orders were three times what management projected.

Next-Generation Posturepedic
An icon in the mattress industry was brought into the 21st century by developing a new product that delivered on the long-running promise of the brand. Together, IDEO and Sealy designed a product that focused on holistic back health. In its earnings report, the company said US bedding sales for the quarter were up 10.6 percent, to $253.4 million, a figure driven by the new product line’s introduction. According to Sealy’s Q3 earnings report, the Posturepedic launch represented the largest and fastest rollout in the company’s history.

Embody by Sealy
The project began by defining the market opportunities for all-foam beds, and ended with the modern, streamlined Embody mattress as well as a simplified design language, free of industry jargon, to help retailers talk about the mattress to customers. “Sealy collaborated with IDEO to create an approachable and attractive mattress that delivers the simple, healthy rest consumers want with a selling story they can easily understand,” said Jodi Allen, Sealy’s Chief Marketing Officer.

Tempur-Pedic Sleep System
Best known for the revolutionary, NASA-proven Tempur material inside its mattresses, Tempur wanted to transform the exterior of its mattresses to match the caliber of innovation inside. Together with IDEO, Tempur created a new sleep system, including an easily removable and washable fabric mattress cover. “Tempur-Pedic was born of innovation, but we were never a design-driven company until we worked with IDEO,” said Patrice Varni, senior vice president of brand marketing, Tempur Sealy North America, LLC. “Seeing consumer need in a new way through IDEO’s eyes has transformed us. Our product design, our creative psyche, our brand are all fundamentally changed by this sharper focus. This collaboration has given us all a renewed sense of pride.”

The challenge of how we’ll feed the exploding world population in the future—in a sustainable, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly way—is seeding an agricultural revolution in Europe.

In 2012, INFARM founders Erez, Guy Galonska, and Osnat Michaeli found that vertical farms could be a solution to urban self-sufficiency. These farms could allow people to grow vegetables and herbs in small spaces, with no soil and far less water.

An approach that’s captured the imagination of futurists for decades, vertical farming involves growing vegetables and herbs in stacked units or inclined surfaces, within which moisture, light, temperature, and nutrients are monitored, and controlled.

After creating their first vertical farming experiment in their apartment in Berlin, the founders brought together plant scientists and industrial designers to explore and develop vertical farming’s potential.

Since then, the startup has created custom growing systems for clients including Airbnb, Mercedes-Benz, and Weber. Most recently, INFARM installed a vertical farm growing herbs and vegetables at the Berlin branch of German supermarket chain Metro, the fourth-largest retail chain in the world, to sell to the public. It’s been profiled in Wired Germany, Süddeutsche Zeitung, The Guardian, and Zeit.

INFARM collaborated with IDEO to further explore their B2B offer, including concepts for the industrial design of the stackable, modular, climate-controlled units; the interaction design of an accompanying app to monitor and control the units, and its business model.

Urban farmers will sign up for “farming as a service,” comprising the units themselves, as well as a monthly subscription for seeds, cartridges filled with nutrients, and a pH regulator. Because they’re stackable, the modules can be scaled to suit anyone from a home grower to a restaurant chef or supermarket owner. And Erez claims a 1 square meter growing tray can yield four to six mature plants every day, 365 days a year, doubling that of state-of-the-art hydroponic greenhouses.

As well as remotely regulating each unit’s climate, the app will educate growers about new vegetables and herbs, selling packs of complementary seeds, with suggested recipes for them, and cooking instructions. Aiming to promote biodiversity, the firm will sell rare-breed and heirloom seeds too.

The startup has funding from the EU’s European Pioneers fund, and is now looking to secure investment to accelerate software development and ramp up their hardware production capabilities. Quite literally, it's growing its business.

Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit educational group that revolutionized children’s television with the launch of the landmark Sesame Street program in 1969. The show, which has since become a household name, is now watched in more than 150 countries worldwide. The Workshop also creates educational content for new media platforms, and partnered with IDEO to design a line of Sesame Street–themed apps for Apple’s iPhone. The Elmo Calls app, which functions as a utility app for parents and as an entertaining behavioral-development app for kids, is now one of the Top 100 paid iPhone apps in the iTunes store.

The collaboration began with a mutual desire to bring the show’s beloved characters to the iPhone platform—and to do so using a human-centered design approach. Child-development experts, educators, toy and interaction designers, and even the Sesame Street puppeteers weighed in on the design decisions. The team also worked closely with families throughout the project—from initial concepts to early prototyping to the final development—in order to stay focused on how children actually use the iPhone for play. The games were designed accordingly. For example, the team omitted menus from the Sesame Street apps to keep the experiences simple, playful, and fun for a young child. And each game features exclusive new Sesame Street videos, allowing players to enjoy “lean back” moments along with interactive ones.

The resulting iPhone applications let children engage with the favorite Sesame Street characters in a whole new way. Kids touch, shake, swipe, and tilt their way through original games featuring Elmo, Grover, Bert, Rosita, and the Count.

The titles, all of which are available from iTunes, include:

• Elmo Calls: Engages 2- to 5-year-olds in listening-skills practice and active participation during everyday situations.
• Elmo’s Monster Maker: Allows kids to create unique monster friends that dance and play with Elmo.
• Sesame Street Video Maker: Lets kids star in their own music videos, mashing recordings of themselves with popular Sesame music videos and adding their own stamps and special effects.
• Sesame Street Makes Music: Helps kids explore an array of instruments as they contribute to new renditions of classic preschool tunes with their Sesame friends.

How do you know when you’re successful in your work? You can check off a list of technical skills and expertise you bring to the table. You can use a career development rubric to make sure you’re hitting the right goals. But often, it’s your behaviors—the intangibles that are the most difficult to articulate—that make the most impact. Things like your ability to stay optimistic or your willingness to adapt when there’s no roadmap.

Because of the nature of our work at IDEO, these intangibles are a big part of what defines the experience of working at the company. So in 2012, a global team of designers from our U.S., Europe, and Asia offices came together to codify these values and behaviors as part of a larger effort to evolve IDEO’s career development platform. More often than not, when IDEOers hit road bumps in their career, it was not about what they were doing, but how they were doing it.

The team agreed that, in addition to identifying the technical requirements needed to progress through one’s career, it was just as crucial to give IDEOers the tools they need to navigate the complex culture. So they captured the values they believed were foundational to the culture and most strongly shared across the IDEO community, and put them to paper in The Little Book of IDEO. The title is meant to reflect its purpose for readers—a handbook that’s compact, useful, and free of any corporate jargon.

For IDEO-ers, this red cloth-bound guide provides a shared lexicon around both the hard and soft skills we need to succeed. It describes things like why IDEO is so loosely structured, where it comes from, and where it’s headed.

Most importantly, the book identifies the organization’s seven core values. These are by design specific, actionable, and integral to the kind of work we do and the environment in which we do it, going beyond common sense and general ethical practice. The intention: to foster meaningful conversations within the community about life at IDEO, and how to achieve success along the way. With each succinct expression comes a deeper explanation of why it matters, and how it shapes our experience at IDEO.

Over the years, the book has been roundly embraced by the IDEO community as an honest articulation of who we are, as opposed to what we aspire to be, and what we appreciate most about working together. When IDEOers first got their hands on it, a movement took shape to create videos that bring each of the core values to life. To depict the value of "Embracing Ambiguity," for example, New York-based designers built a makeshift cardboard rowboat, and while simulating a storm, navigated their way through uncharted territory with teamwork and optimism. San Francisco produced a Jacques Cousteau inspired look at the lifestyle and behaviors of designers in their natural collaborative habitat.

Through the process of making the videos, IDEOers came together to reflect on each of the values, talking through what resonated and what didn’t. It gave them a sense of ownership, and a platform through which to share their interpretations.

A Global Conversation

IDEO has a global presence—offices in two countries in Europe, two countries in Asia, and multiple locations across the U.S. As an organization that embraces a human-centered culture, it felt important to learn if the values resonated with the IDEO community in all of these locations, especially in a country like China, whose working culture is so different from the west. We saw the authenticity and resonance of the values as essential for attracting, motivating, and retaining local talent.

So how did The Little Book of IDEO land in Shanghai? Exploring this question would illuminate insights into how our own clients are often challenged to keep their company culture resonant within the global landscape.

A team of IDEOers in our Shanghai office took on the challenge of exploring the meaning behind each of the values. They were surprised with what they discovered—that despite the firm’s Western origins, locals felt largely connected to the values. It even helped to further solidify their identity as a community, even if it may have been in tension with local working culture, because it was rooted in a set of shared beliefs.

In some instances, the Shanghai team built on the existing values in order to refine the meaning for the local context. For example, the core value "Be Optimistic" rings true, but could sound naive when translated directly to Chinese, implying "rose-tinted glasses.” So in the Mandarin edition, an extra phrase was added to convey the measuredness we mean when we talk about optimism at IDEO. The lesson here: The treatment of something as fundamental and nuanced as our values requires authenticity and emotional connection, and therefore more of a transcreation process than straight translation.

Lasting Power

As an organization, we are designed to be flexible. This means we’re always changing—even when it comes to how we are structured—so that we can respond to the kinds of challenges that clients come to us for. In the midst of our constant evolution, The Little Book of IDEO is as resonant today as it was when it was published.

Her face, sitting in front of a beautiful brick wall, had been on my screen for weeks as we worked on our current project. Before COVID-19 sent us off to work from home, we used to work together on projects at the IDEO Cambridge studio. Now she was living in yet another window on my desktop.

I’m an interaction designer by trade, but I’m also a photographer. I’ve managed to bring those two passions together in my work at IDEO. Now, with all the available software, I can do the former from my house, but I had pressed pause on much of my photography work—and I missed it.

From my couch, I realized I wasn’t missing the weight of my camera or meticulously packing my camera bag—I missed people. Could I recapture the magic of an in-person portrait session from my living room? And could I make all these video calls feel less soul-sucking in the process?

Given the constraints of a global pandemic, I asked myself a how might we: How might we photograph people in a socially-distanced way while still preserving a sense of intimacy?

That’s where Tamara comes back in. I’d seen one or two photographers shoot “virtual portraits” online and I was inspired to give it a go. I was nervous, but experimenting with somebody I knew from “real life” prevented the process from feeling too daunting.

It went like this: During (yes, you guessed it) a video call, I asked Tamara to choose a few well-lit places in her home where she’d been spending a lot of time during lockdown. As she showed me her apartment through the laptop’s camera, it was like the world suddenly expanded.

We decided on a spot in the kitchen where she had been making a lot of tea. In order to frame the shot, Tamara created an improvised laptop stand using a chair. I asked her to open the camera on her phone and set it to selfie mode with a 10 second timer. She positioned the phone next to her laptop and we worked together to match the angle of the phone to what I was seeing on my screen as closely as possible.

Then Tamara pressed the button on her phone to begin taking photos and I gave direction on positioning and lighting. Waiting for the countdown on the timer was a little awkward, but not awful, especially since we knew each other well. Then I would review the photos as she sent them via text.

The final result was pretty good. Tamara looked relaxed, almost joyful. I was inspired to continue.

I reached out to a few more IDEOers and continued to refine the process. Next I shot Natalie. She’d recently (and begrudgingly) acquired an air conditioner to make working from home more comfortable. This had become a hot topic of conversation during our many calls. When I asked her to take me somewhere she’d been spending a lot of time during the pandemic, we naturally ended up in the coolest corner of the house: in front of the AC.

A few days later, Shavon showed me around her new apartment. We brought her dog Oliver’s bed into the frame to try to lure him into the background. We snapped a few shots when he showed up.

Todd also moved during the pandemic. When I dropped into his new home in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, he took me outside to his deck where he has coffee every morning. I love how the trees seem to absorb him into the picture.

Next I "went" to Virginia to shoot my friend Favin. The first location we scouted was outside in the blazing summer heat. After sweating through a few shots that felt a little too staged (like the one on the left below), we moved inside. Favin picked a new, more comfortable spot: the couch she'd been spending time on during quarantine. We ended up with the shot on the right, which we both liked better.

My colleague Greg uses his Instagram account to chronicle the records he listens to every Sunday. I asked if he might let me photograph him where the magic happens: in front of his record collection.

After we finished, he sent me this shot of Oscar, his three year old.

Seeing my colleagues and shooting photos again were both a relief. As far as new hobbies go, maybe this one was a bit strange, but it gave me back what I was missing: my community. Here are three things I learned by stepping outside my comfort zone and doing virtual portraits.

#1. Everything is different now, so we're all adapting

The unexpected constraints of a pandemic have revealed a completely new way of working. I no longer go on long walks to scout locations; instead I get walked around virtually. Photos are framed by leaning an iPhone up against a pile of books or a toaster, and everything shot is from a phone. And now I can time travel—I can shoot in the UK in the morning, Massachusetts in the afternoon, and California at night.

I wouldn’t have dreamed up these strategies in the past, but given the constraints, it works.

#2. These remote sessions are a collaboration between photographer and subject

In traditional photography, the person holding the camera is in control. Now that my hands are empty, who’s in charge?

I asked Alyson, a former IDEOer, if she’d take me to the beach where she surfs every morning. I had a shot in mind: Alyson from below, holding her board with the line of waves behind her.

We nailed it. A few minutes later, a man walking by started talking to Alyson, asking her what she was doing with a tripod and two phones on the beach (understandable). We ended up taking this second shot mid-conversation. We both liked it better.

From behind my screen, I didn’t have the opportunity to adjust the angle of the board or tweak the lighting—I had very little control about what was actually happening and the portrait still came out great. Here’s how I see this remote photography experience compared to other modes:

When I shared this project with Jane Fulton Suri, IDEO's first design researcher, she told me, “You are unlocking something in both yourself and the subject—it’s a negotiated process.” I can’t help but agree.

#3. Distance can feel intimate too

Today, video calls can be work meetings, birthday parties, therapy sessions, weddings, murder mystery games, and everything in between. It’s not necessarily intimate by nature, but during a pandemic, the definition of intimacy has changed.

My dear colleague Bruno traveled to Miami to be with his family this past summer. During our portrait session, he told me he’d never lived at home with his little sister, Rafa, who’s four. The setting he chose for his photo was her room. At one point, they were both holding toys as they looked out the window. We captured a quiet, beautiful moment that may have never happened if it weren’t for the pandemic.

I also got my family in on the gig. When I texted my mum to ask her to participate in this project, she was less than enthusiastic.

With her in northern England and me in Massachusetts, I hadn’t seen her in person since September 2019. She had been knitting up a storm—everything from cardigans to giraffes—for my daughter. I explained what I was hoping to do, and when I called, she and my dad had set everything up perfectly. I speak to my mum often, but this was the first time I involved her in a project.

This isn’t the 2020 I dreamed up; I’m sure that’s true for you too. But this experiment has re-inspired me as a photographer. I’ve come to realize that I don’t always need to be fully in control, or even physically present to get interesting, intimate results. In fact, I can be anywhere…even in my living room.

It was during my 800,000th video call of 2020 when I started to wonder about what the rest of my colleague Tamara’s apartment looked like.

What do we stand for in this moment when education is being disrupted, inequities are being exacerbated, and we feel more isolated than ever before?

Knowing we couldn’t answer those questions alone, we hosted listening circles earlier this year to learn how educators were navigating their personal and professional lives as the pandemic surged.

Those sessions surfaced questions like these:

• What can we do to increase students' and families' joy right now?
• Can we build safer and more inclusive spaces for school communities?
• How do we make sure we prioritize—not just accommodate—the needs of marginalized students?
• How might we be healers of a broken system?

These gnarly, complex issues can’t be addressed by any single person or organization, and making progress requires more than repurposed solutions delivered by outsiders. As we’ve learned through our work with teachers and principals, navigating these types of challenges depends on school communities being supported to co-design the future for themselves. As one teacher in Fremont, California told us: “Teaching and innovating have to go hand in hand right now.”

With that in mind, we developed a method for educators to take a co-design approach to driving better outcomes for their schools and the students and families they serve. The Co-Designing Schools Toolkit is a collection of 40 activities, frameworks, and research-based practices designed by The Teachers Guild and School Retool programs, supported by and in collaboration with Riverdale Country School, the Deeper Learning network, Liberatory Design, the Stanford d.school, and the input of educators, local collaborators, and coaches.

At its core, the toolkit is about designing for equity. It complements an approach we developed nearly 10 years ago, the Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit, encouraging educators to focus on equity issues in their schools as part of diverse design teams. The toolkit focuses on the needs and lives of students furthest from opportunity, helps teams explore their members’ personal identities, and guides educators in articulating equity goals for their schools. Taken together, these components aren’t just boxes to tick off, but a set of principles that guide the entire change process.

Designing with students, not for them

Myron Long, Principal of The Social Justice School in northeast Washington, DC, says the co-design process has pushed him to fundamentally rethink the role of his students. “We ask for their feedback,” Myron says, “but we actually have to listen to them and then act on it.” For example, rather than assuming his students are always eager to take on justice issues, he asks them, and recalls a student replying, “Can’t we just play dodgeball, too?” Myron urges his colleagues to regularly invite students to be co-designers, and to build in “time to pause, listen to, and design with our students, not just for them.”

Meet parents where they are

Another example of co-design comes from across the country in South County San Diego, where a team of Special Education leaders hosted co-design workshops. Inviting families in was crucial to the team’s efforts to bridge gaps in understanding between parents and the countless people who provide support for students with special needs.

But to ensure that caretakers of children with special needs would be able to show up as collaborators, they knew they’d have to offer some basic support, like hiring professional translators and lining up child care. “The parents felt so respected, valued, and part of the process,” said Olivia Rivera, a team member. Knowing their children would be taken care of during the workshops gave parents the time and space they needed to “share from their hearts.”

Meet 4 educators who are co-designing solutions for their school communities.

We know that no single strategy or process can solve all the complicated issues facing schools. But with roots in design, equity, and community, the Co-Designing Schools Toolkit can support schools and families as they navigate complexity and look ahead to building a collaborative environment in which all students thrive.

Learn more about co-designing a more equitable future for your community at www.codesigningschools.com.

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Along with educators and families around the country, those of us at IDEO who work in education have been asking ourselves, “Where do we go from here?”

Creating a new business is a little bit like being a sea turtle mom—you want to know your environment and create many versions of your offer to increase your odds of success.

When it comes to making sure those sea turtle babies—I mean, uh, your business ideas—thrive, there are two methods that can help: Design thinking is the approach for discovering which of your eggs has the best chances of survival. Once that baby sea turtle has made it successfully into the ocean, the Lean Startup methodology can improve its chances of successfully reaching adulthood.

During a recent project, a client asked me about the difference between the two methods. While these techniques have been around for years now, it’s a question I hear a lot—many folks in the world of business think they should know the difference, but in all honesty, I don’t blame them for being confused. The methods are distinct, but they can (and should) be used in tandem. Businesses could benefit from them both.

Back to the client question—what’s the difference? I started by explaining the difference between the two methods more broadly, laying out what you see in the chart below.

Both approaches are about building new concepts and products, learning as much as possible from users, and from what’s happening in the market. And both methodologies employ an iterative approach that consistently seeks feedback and understanding from customers in the market.

Knowing the difference is one thing—knowing when to use one or the other is just as important.

Design thinking helps teams come up with many new ideas for new offers they then test before settling on the one that is most desirable, feasible, and viable. When applying design thinking, once we’ve uncovered user needs, we create a slew of options that might solve those needs. Each one is intentionally distinct from the others so we can learn what works best. In visualizing design thinking for our curious client, I sketched something like this:

On the other hand, the Lean Startup method helps teams drive toward a better version of an existing or new concept. It’s great if you have a product in-market that you want to tweak so it performs better. That end product may vary significantly from the original, but with the Lean Startup approach, you will be able to trace a path from Version A to Version Z. If I were to sketch it, it looks something like this:

Now that we have the two distinct methods visualized, we can look at applying them. A hypothetical challenge: Let’s imagine we’ve been asked to create a new concept to upend the fact girls are called on less, given less teacher attention, and given fewer opportunities to speak in mixed-gender science classrooms.

As design thinkers, our first step would be to talk to girls, boys, and their science teachers. We would talk to psychologists and sociologists. We would explore the mixed-gender education experience in other cultures. After our research, we’d distill our findings into opportunities for improving the classroom experience. For example: How might we immediately reward girls for participating in class? How might we enable teachers to see the disparity?

Based on those prompts, we would brainstorm a slew of ideas. For example: What if classrooms had a voice monitor that recorded the amount of time that boys spoke versus girls spoke? What if there was an online instructor’s portal with exercises for how to draw out girls in every classroom session? What if there was an app that quizzed students who are girls daily to increase their familiarity and confidence with science material?

We would then take this array of ideas and create prototypes—rough, inexpensive, tangible expressions of the new concepts—and test them. Based on feedback, the next round of prototypes might look something like this:

Maybe the voice monitor didn’t affect teacher behavior, but it did sufficiently frustrate the girls in the classroom—so much so that the next prototype was a wall-mounted display to show a live tally of student input. Because of the diversity of ideas and prototypes that come from a design thinking approach, there’s no clear throughline from Version A to Version Z.

Based on knowing that we are now going to build a voice-activated wall display, we would also use design thinking to build and test the accompanying business model and the product’s visual language. We would think about, build, and test options for how the display will get in front of buyers (the distribution channel), who pays for them and how much (the revenue and pricing model), and which entities might help to expedite our success (partnerships). As we explore the most viable business model, we’re still refining the concept.

Once those designs have been sufficiently evolved, we can plan for a limited launch to test the assumptions behind the products. With a refined concept and business model in hand, we can begin in-market testing.

This is when you want to lay 100 eggs, because only a very few will meet the bars for user desirability, the company’s ability to implement it, and the crucial feature of being financially lucrative for the business. In general, using a design thinking approach for a limited launch of a new concept will reduce risk, while using the Lean Startup methodology during in-market refinement will improve the chances of success.

Sometimes, when a team launches a new product but skips the user-centered design process, they find it may be necessary to pivot. That’s a good time for a team to turn to design thinking to explore why the concept isn’t working, and to find new ways to make it meet user needs.

A sea turtle lays more than 100 eggs each nesting season, but only a handful will successfully hatch and survive the journey into the ocean.

I first saw Sharon during a workshop she delivered for Black Minds Matter. Sharon discussed the creative process as essential to mental health and considered the white dominance of the mainstream art world, all while making an original, delicate art piece with a scalpel and fine magazine paper. (I know—“multi-talented” doesn’t even cover it, right?)

In a session she later ran for IDEO, she created such a warm space while inviting us into the intimacy of her signature collaging process. She inspired us to see what it is when someone dictates the rules of their own art, career journey, how they define and are defined.

The pieces evolving from her “Seeing Ourselves” collection explore identity, representation, portraiture—when the ‘we’ and the ‘our’ are represented in art, education, media. Who is omitted from that narrative and how can art reclaim it?

Sharon is currently exhibiting at the Black Art Matters exhibition. She took a few minutes out of her day to answer some questions I had for her.

In one sentence, who are you?

I am an artist, currently creating work using handmade collage, and an educator who is passionate about changing predominant narratives of underrepresented, marginalized people.

What does a typical work session look like?

I work from a new home studio which I set up a couple of days before lockdown in March 2020. I recently resigned from my part-time job of 4.5 years in a London museum to work as a full-time artist. I am working on several different projects and I find joy in the varied nature of my work.

My work varies greatly from one day to the next: I am currently working on a project with a national museum; I have been commissioned to create a few bespoke collages; I curate creative programs for organizations; and I deliver workshops and create hand-assembled collages. Creating the collages helps me to relax, and in parallel, explore identity and representation of Black womxn.

Does sharing your process while creating such personal work ever feel too intrusive or voyeuristic?

I absolutely love sharing the process of creating my very personal art. My background includes the delivery of teaching sessions in political literacy, also known as citizenship education. I have also taught art workshops and have delivered self-esteem, getting back into work and personal development workshops to women who have lost confidence after a period of unemployment. I have worked with people of all ages from children to the elderly. Sharing my process is a further extension of this highly invigorating work.

How has your work and career evolved?

My career has evolved organically; there hasn’t been a linear route towards my current working life.

My work has been varied, but today, I can now see how so many of these seemingly disparate strands connect to inform my present practice. Early on after my first degree, I worked in recruitment sales and was a headhunter. The skills I gained there have made me feel less awkward when selling my work; I am not afraid to speak to new people.

Training teachers and people of all ages has given me the confidence and skills to deliver creative workshops both online and in person; it is something I absolutely love doing! I am passionate about connecting and communicating with others.

For much of my life I worked with marginalized groups in a variety of settings, ranging from boys in young offender institutions and the elderly living in sheltered housing to underrepresented museum audiences. This work all feeds into my current series entitled “Seeing Ourselves” which focuses on the underrepresentation of Black women. My projects all encourage others to “take up space” in environments where they may be unseen and to use our voices to create positive change and impact.

What does it mean to you to do what you love at this stage?

It feels so wonderful to be doing what I love at this stage! I have wanted to be an artist since I was a child. For many years it felt like I would not make it, but deep down, I did not give up hope.

Money wasn’t available for me to pursue my dreams in my teens, but as a mature student, I got a second degree in Fine Art. I took “the scenic route” and with hindsight I am glad I did. Things are happening exactly when they are supposed to.

What was the last item on your to-do list?

To contact a collector who has commissioned a bespoke, hand-cut collage.

How do you see the world in 2078?

Wow! This is a huge question, which immediately saddens me; in reality it’s unlikely I’ll still be around. It immediately makes me think about the world I would like my children to be living in. I would hope there would be less disparity of wealth and greater visibility and distribution of power across diverse groups.

What’s your number one bucket list item?

To return to Barbados for a holiday someday soon; it is my mother’s country of birth and I have not visited it for 11 years. Despite being born in London, Barbados also feels like "home."

Who are you creative crushin’ on lately?

I am creative crushin’ on Sheena Rose who is a phenomenal, multidisciplinary, Barbadian artist. Her work spans drawings, hand-drawn animations, performance art, paintings, and new media. I am particularly inspired by Sheena’s vast creative works with powerful overarching themes.

When I first came across Sheena’s work on Instagram, she was creating amazing pieces from her bedroom which inspired me to return to creating after a long time. Through seeing Sheena working in this way, I began to believe it was possible for me to do the same without the luxury of a studio at the time.

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Experiencing Sharon Walters’s work is like being given a comforting, personal gift.

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.