To bring students healthy food at school, San Francisco Unified School District had already hired Revolution Foods, a caterer that serves some of the highest-nutrition meals in the nation. But when the lunch bell rang, 72 percent of those who could afford lunch weren’t showing up; students didn’t want to wait in the long lines or rush to finish, so they headed off-campus to eat.

Working alongside more than 1,300 students, parents, union leaders, nutrition staff, board commissioners, principals, teachers, and community groups, IDEO and SFUSD redesigned school lunch. Together, they developed recommendations for three age-appropriate dining experiences, from communal eating to student-designed spaces to new technology platforms, and worked to develop a robust business model.

In September 2013, the San Francisco Unified School Board expressed unanimous enthusiasm for IDEO’s work, clearing the path for this new vision of student-centered lunch to take root.

You can learn more about the cafeteria, and hear firsthand from the students, in this immersive, interactive story.

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Steelcase and IDEO have been collaborating for more than 25 years. The relationship has influenced furniture design across a range of environments, from work spaces to hospitals to schools, and has resulted in numerous design awards for iconic pieces like the Node Chair for classrooms and the innovative modern office chair Leap WorkLounge.

At the heart of the relationship lie trust and a spirit of collaboration, said IDEO founder David Kelley, allowing the space for innovation. “It has to be the collaboration between our inherent innovation capabilities and their extraordinary internal knowledge about the market and what they do best,” Kelley said. The way IDEO began working with Steelcase decades ago has influenced the way they continue to work today, involved in all areas of the business, from design and engineering to strategy and marketing.

The first collaboration in 1989 was for a new Steelcase division called Details, and featured desktop products to go along with its already successful line of office furniture. From the beginning, IDEO founder David Kelley and a group of designers were involved in helping Steelcase with decision-making on every level of the new division, from product strategy to hiring and everything in between. The particular blend of strategy, design, and engineering used to help Details become successful actually became the prototype project for the future IDEO, and is the blueprint for how IDEO works today.

What followed were a series of projects in which Steelcase and IDEO explored moving away from the traditional office cubicle toward furniture that was more architectural and open. More than 10 years ago, Steelcase noticed that the way people worked was changing from static work in offices to more fluid environments that were technology-enabled with laptops and mobile phones. This insight led to two collaborations, Room Wizard and media:scape, design efforts that captured this changing landscape by extending intelligent work to be supported by digital products, not just physical ones.

Jim Hackett, former CEO of Steelcase, said that an early brainstorming exercise in IDEO’s Palo Alto studio made him realize the power of a human-centered design approach. “They asked me to come to Palo Alto for a brainstorming exercise, so I went through the literal exercise that IDEO was having clients do at the time,” Hackett said. “As I was cutting foam core on the floor of one of the studios, I was thinking: I would never work the same way again after doing this. Not just designers should work like this, but anybody who is a knowledge worker should work like this.”

The collaboration’s many successes had a profound impact on Steelcase, and on Hackett personally: “I’m so humbled, I can’t even express it. I can’t tell you how many waves of joy come over me when I’m at IDEO. It’s just an extraordinary part of my life.”

Over the years, the two companies have been in nearly daily communication, a practice that has informed the work of both. While Hackett brought Steelcase’s perspective of corporate boardrooms and running a global company, Kelley and IDEO were working in the most innovative place in the world, saturated in design. Both companies agree that neither would be the same today without the experience gleaned from the other.

Some of the projects include:

RoomWizard
Aiming to connect the convenience of digital technology to physical spaces, the teams designed RoomWizard, a web-accessible touch-screen display that provides the real-time status of shared meeting rooms, simplifying the process of reserving and managing those spaces.

Leap WorkLounge and Ottoman
Building on their earlier work on the Leap Chair, the teams created a work chair with the comfort and style of a classic club chair, a luxury Leap Chair that takes work away from the desk.

i2i Chair
In researching the needs of a growing number of collaborative settings, Steelcase identified an opportunity to combine task and lounge seating. Named for the collaboration it enables, the i2i chair supports a variety of postures, including sideways, reclining, perching, and leaning. Winner of the Spark Gold Award, 2010, and the IDEA Silver Award, 2009.

Amia Chair
Steelcase and IDEO designed a task chair with modern ergonomic capabilities that accommodated a wide range of body types at a lower price point. Winner of the IDEA Bronze Award from IDSA and BusinessWeek, 2009.

media:scape
Steelcase asked IDEO to help evaluate and design a “walk up and connect” experience that merged furniture and technology to help teams access and share information. Designed to look light, open, and inviting, media:scape used a pedestal table with cleverly embedded hardware and interactive technology to foster group work. Winner of the IDEA Bronze award for Office & Productivity, 2011.

Node Chair
IDEO collaborated with Steelcase to design a platform for improving the classroom experience. The final product, dubbed the Node chair, has received praise for promoting student collaboration, allowing educators to reconfigure classrooms to fit different teaching styles, and enabling institutions to save money by making spaces more flexible and accommodating for varied uses. Winner of five design awards.

Watch: A love letter to Node.

A great healthcare experience shouldn’t be a luxury. It should be available to everyone, regardless of who they are, where they live, or what they need.

Planned Parenthood health centers have opened their doors to every woman and man for 100 years with this core conviction, offering services ranging from pap tests, cancer screenings, and breast exams to contraception, treatment for sexually transmitted infections, counseling, and education.

As the healthcare landscape continues to shift, Planned Parenthood is evolving to lead the progress. For the past year, the organization worked side by side with IDEO to rethink and prototype a patient and employee experience that elevates individuals and their health and well-being.

Together, the teams designed a number of patient and employee interactions and corresponding prototypes that address different patient needs: education, personalization, connection, and support for any decision.

Concepts in Development

These concepts are being rolled out across health centers around the country:

Welcoming Waiting Areas
To help set the right tone for patients from the time they enter the door, the teams designed waiting rooms that offer different types of environments for different needs. The Hub is an area that transforms the passive waiting room experience to a greeting area that’s staffed by knowledgeable guides who help orient patients, and quiet nesting spaces for reflection and privacy. Patients can spend time with friends and family in a social, kid-friendly common area, and those who want to get involved to support Planned Parenthood’s mission can learn about health and advocacy information. This modular design toolkit can adapt to the individual buildings, budgets, and community needs of any existing Planned Parenthood health center.

Restorative Recovery Rooms
For women who are recovering from surgical procedures, small thoughtful details have a magnified positive impact. Redesigned recovery rooms have been separated into semi-private spaces, accommodating loved ones who want to join patients after a procedure. Soothing colors and soft, warm fabrics create a comforting environment, and service gestures including cards with words of support and encouragement from staff reinforce Planned Parenthood’s promise. A take-home kit provides clear information about what to expect during recovery and recommendations for follow-up care.

Unifying Employees
Because the heart of Planned Parenthood is its dedicated employees, we developed and launched an engagement and training program that provides staff with the tools and support they need to do their best work. In This Together, an employee engagement training, prepares staff to work with a vastly diverse community, reduce stigma around health choices, and empower patients to take control of their care. It’s based on a clearly defined set of workplace values and service standards, common goals that help employees across the global organization work together to provide top-notch experiences at every location.

Vision for the Future

These concepts are in varying stages of development, with plans to launch coming soon.

Patient-Physician Tool and Educational App
Visit Companion is a prototype for a suite of digital tools that help patients learn about their reproductive health choices and create personalized plans with their clinicians. While they wait, or anytime before a visit, patients can learn the answers to common questions related to their appointment and see side-by-side comparisons of their care options. The app uses familiar language and symbols to describe symptoms and side effects, and it provides a record of what was discussed during the visit as well as reminders for follow-up appointments.

Simplified Medical Forms
For the 2 million-plus patients who visit Planned Parenthood health centers, there’s an opportunity to make appointments more convenient and straightforward. Currently in prototyping stages, Friendly Forms is an easy-to-understand, interactive digital questionnaire written in simple, conversational language that was designed by replicating how Planned Parenthood clinicians speak to their patients. The forms adapt as patients answer questions, giving only the prompts that are relevant. Patients will be able to complete Friendly Forms any time before their appointment, so it’s easier to complete the forms accurately.

Holistic Women’s Health Care
Women who rely on Planned Parenthood for their sexual and reproductive healthcare can benefit from having trusted clinicians guide their care throughout their lifetime. Through the Well Woman Plus program, Planned Parenthood will connect women to trusted providers for care beyond physical exams and birth control consultation. Clinicians will use interactive digital and physical tools to map out lifelong health care milestones and help patients think proactively about their future, from family planning to preventive screenings.

To learn more, go to PlannedParenthoodExperience.org.

Find out more about Planned Parenthood's approach to creativity in this Q&A with executive vice president and chief brand officer Dawn Laguens.

La Victoria Lab (LVL) is a group of designers, anthropologists, architects, and entrepreneurs working on improving the lives of the Peruvian middle class. Founded in 2014, LVL is the Innovation Lab of Intercorp, an economic group of 35 companies spanning banks, malls, cinemas, schools, health care clinics, and more. Intercorp was founded by Carlos Rodríguez-Pastor, one of Peru’s most successful entrepreneurs, employs more than 90,000 people, and accounts for almost 4 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

Peru is one of South America’s fastest growing economies, with a healthy 6 percent year-on-year growth from 2007 to 2017, on average. That rising economic tide, along with government policy, has created extraordinary social mobility: Between 2005 and 2017, the share of poverty fell from 55% to 22%, of a population of 32 million.

Know The Customer

As Peruvians’ lives have improved, the new middle class's needs and aspirations have changed: They’re entrepreneurial, expect great services, and want the best for their children. That challenge and opportunity led Rodríguez-Pastor to enlist IDEO to bring our empathic approach to the construction of Innova Schools, a new school system, and to redesign Interbank's customer experience"

Success in these two projects bred ambition. Intercorp, Rodríguez-Pastor realized, needed to build two capabilities: a deep, bedrock understanding of the new middle class, and an innovation capability with which his companies could create new products, services, and experiences. “I want a little IDEO,” Rodriguez-Pastor said, and the germ of LVL took root.

A Lab Takes Shape

In early 2014, as contractors broke ground on the Lab, its founders set about hiring an eclectic team from across the globe and undertook their first project: to deeply understand the needs, desires, hopes, and dreams of the emerging middle class.

Three months of ethnographic research was followed by three months of bringing their insights to life. LVL’s team surrounded themselves with mementos of people’s lives: toys, products, ads, as well as video interviews with families, to help Intercorp’s executives literally step into the lives of their prospective customers.

Solutions and Skills

Powered by those insights, La Victoria Lab has brought human-centered problem-solving to a variety of Intercorp’s companies, including new retail ventures, and improving the cinema-going and banking experience.

In 2015, the Lab began scaling its efforts to build innovation capabilities across all of the portfolio companies by using IDEO’s innovation readiness assessment, Creative Difference. Each company received a report of their strengths and improvement areas, and as a result, LVL facilitated workshops and community groups focused on building essential capabilities.

"Creative Difference is the first tool that has allowed my team and the organization to have a precise picture of where we are in the spectrum of doing truly innovative work. Now, we can identify our strengths and areas of improvement, we can develop work plans and actions based on data, and can start to really dig deep into innovation,” says Aurelia Alvarado, Director of Innovation, Innova Schools.

La Victoria Lab’s experiments are catalyzed by Intercorp’s scale, reach, and national ambition. Innova Schools, for example, is now Peru’s biggest private school network (read more about Innova here). And Interbank’s new retail experience rolled out to more than 180 branches nationally.

As LVL matures, its focus is changing, says Hernan Carranza, Chief Innovation Officer, Intercorp. “There's a transition taking place at La Victoria Lab, from a studio undertaking typical design projects, to a platform for impact-led journeys that start at pipeline discovery, defining key performance indicators, all the way to implementation and stewardship."

Just as important as the projects it delivers is the wider intent of LVL. The aim is for IDEO’s role within La Victoria Lab to wane, as Intercorp’s waxes, and the company’s internal Innovation capability and culture strengthen. LVL’s ventures range from mindset-changing initiatives, such as curating Peru's largest innovation festival, to deeply transformative endeavors targeted at reinventing the core value propositions of Intercorp's insurance, drugstores, and medical services. It envisions massive cross-organizational transformation.

“Innovation,” said Rodríguez-Pastor, “is too important to be outsourced.”

Keep up to date with the latest projects from La Victoria Lab: lavictoria.pe

"For the latest developments on our work with Intercorp, head to "The Possibilities Business: An Oral History of Organization Transformation"

In short order, a community of designers, entrepreneurs, and social sector innovators embraced it, buying and downloading over 150,000 copies.

In April 2015, IDEO.org launched an exciting new evolution of the HCD Toolkit the Field Guide to Human-Centered Design. The Field Guide is the latest in IDEO.org’s suite of teaching tools and a step forward in sharing the practice and promise of human-centered design with the social sector.

A full-color, 192-page book, the Field Guide comes with 57 design methods, the key mindsets that underpin how and why IDEO.org believes design can change lives, a full slate of worksheets, and case studies from projects that show human-centered design in action.

The Field Guide was funded by more than 1300 backers in a Kickstarter campaign that reaching nearly three times its initial goal. IDEO.org received an amazing outpouring of support and strengthened its deeply held belief that human-centered design can push the social sector forward.

IDEO.org is a nonprofit design organization that launched out of IDEO in 2011 with a mission to improve the lives of poor and vulnerable communities through design.

Visit designkit.org to download a free PDF, or get your own hard copy.

In 2009, IDEO designed and launched the HCD Toolkit, a first-of-its-kind book that laid out how and why human-centered design can impact the social sector.

After a bit of brainstorming, we hit on the perfect idea: a Noam-enabled modern twist on Pong, the classic, endlessly absorbing old video game.

The Pong-a-tron is considerably more complex than its predecessor. It links together four iPads, two Raspberry Pis, 12 Arduinos, 24 stepper motors, a Mac Mini, two Node.js applications, a Processing sketch, an Objective-C app, and over 2000 RGB LEDs. Noam coordinates the entire menagerie by hosting a conversation between all the different elements.

The Pong game itself was written in Node and broadcasts paddle and ball positions, which are then rendered on various portions of the overall display. The paddles are translated into physical "pixel" strips along the edges of the Pong-a-tron, while the ball moves seamlessly from Arduino-controlled RGB LEDs to iPads and Raspberry Pis.

The Pong-a-tron was initially showcased at Solid Conference 2014 and is now a permanent feature in the lobby of IDEO Chicago. Stop by and see it in person at a studio event, or pay Noam a virtual visit.

The Pong-a-tron would not be possible without the incredible talent, skill, collaboration and brainpower of many IDEOers including: Joe Banks, John Grimley, Travis Lee, Zeke Markshausen, David Sjunnesson, Ben Syverson, Jon Wettersten, Garrett Winther, and more. Video by Ben Syverson.

Noam is a software-messaging platform created by IDEO to help hardware and software tools communicate with one another. To introduce Noam to the world, we wanted to build a physical manifestation of the platform, something that was—like Noam—fun and exciting but also remarkably simple to use.

Our bell’s impressive literacy is the result of an experiment in creating cheap, simple, and easy-to-use networks of wireless sensors.

Miha Feus, the interaction designer at the helm of the project, points out that Internet-connected things are set to reshape our lives in ways we can’t even imagine. But while the technology isn’t particularly complicated, setting up and connecting the necessary sensors and receivers is difficult and expensive with the solutions currently available, and the battery life in these systems is terrible. Because of this, Miha says, experimentation by would-be makers is being stymied.

Miha’s solution is a system called Beachsand that aims to make wireless sensor networks, in his words, “as numerous, cheap, disposable, and user-friendly as grains of sand on a beach.” Beachsand is made up of a postage-stamp-sized smart transmitter called a SenseGrain and an Arduino-based receiver he’s dubbed the SandCastle.

You can plug any analogue sensor, button, or switch into a SenseGrain, measuring light, temperature, motion… anything you like. The SenseGrain then gathers data from those sensors and sends it to the SandCastle, and from there, you can use the information as you choose.

Miha explains that Beachsand isn’t really a product in and of itself, but rather a tool to help people cheaply and easily prototype new products, services, and data experiments. He and fellow interaction designer Siri Johansson have already prototyped one use case: the studio’s kitchen bell.

I caught up with Miha and Siri to find out more.

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What exactly is a SenseGrain, and how does it work?

Miha: A SenseGrain is an ATtiny85 microcontroller, which is basically a very stripped-down version of an Arduino, plus a transmitter circuit and a coin cell battery.

You plug in any analogue sensor or switch and set how often you want it to send data. The device then goes to sleep and waits until it receives whatever type of input you’re measuring (in this case, until someone rings the bell). The SenseGrain sends data from the sensor to a receiver, which, at the moment, is an Arduino, where you can access, use, and manipulate the data.

What’s so good about it?

Miha: It doesn’t require any soldering or programming, so it's easy to set up and requires no maintenance at all. I programmed the microcontroller so that it’s very energy-efficient—on standby, it can last up to 30 years on a single coin cell battery (theoretically, at least). And it’s cheap! Each SenseGrain costs $2-3 to make.

Because they’re so inexpensive, you could put them anywhere—in a trash can, for example, to monitor when it’s being opened. Or if you don’t want to check your mailbox, you could put a SenseGrain in there and Beachsand could just let you know when you have post.

Currently, anyone with an RF receiver on the same frequency is able to receive data the sensor is sending, and I would like to keep it that way. Keeping sensor data open gives more people the opportunity to build something with that data.

Can you explain your experiment with the bell?

Miha: It's our Kitchen Bell 2.0. It brings an ordinary object into the age of the Internet of Things, where every physical object has a digital layer.

Beachsand makes our bell more than a static object, limited by its location and the reach of its sound, and gives it the ability to transcend space and time to be “heard” anywhere in the world.

How did you build it?

Miha: First we had to pick the right sensor to detect when the bell is being rung. The simplest one in this case was a tilt switch. We plugged the switch into the RF transmitter and taped everything on the clapper of the bell.

The second part was about receiving the message from the sensor and sending out an email. For that, we used an Arduino and an RF receiver connected to a laptop, which talks to a program called Processing. In Processing, we used some existing code for sending out emails, which we modified for our needs.

What did you learn building the Kitchen Bell?

Siri: It makes you think about what the right tone of voice and personality is for a specific object. We wrote a few drafts of the bell’s email to the studio. It should be light and funny, but also demanding—it’s a bell, after all.

What inspired you from outside IDEO?

Siri: There's an interesting ongoing discussion on the narratives told by smart objects. Hello Lamp Post is a really nice example of giving a voice and personality to inanimate objects, and a lot of effort was spent to define the right tone of voice.

This way of working with sensors and actuators has interesting potential applications in both directions: physical to digital or vice versa. A couple of examples that work in the digital-to-physical direction are the UID cookie box, which rewards tweets with cookies, and Tableau, which quietly prints stuff it “sees” in its Twitter feed.

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What are you planning next?

Miha: Our colleague Alistair Norris is working on another application for the front door, to measure traffic in and out of the studio. We plugged a roller switch into a SenseGrain, which triggers every time the door opens, and added an Ethernet shield to the Arduino.

Beachsand is really still a work in progress. The next step is getting PCBs (printed circuit boards) done, so that I won't have to build every sensor transmitter by hand, which can take anywhere from one to four hours. With a PCB it will take just two to three minutes. PCBs are also less prone to malfunction.

Hopefully I’ll make a version with everything on board, including a littleBits connector. Then I’d like to build actuators, or “ActGrains,” to work with the SenseGrains and the SandCastle.

We’ll let you know more about Beachsand as we prototype more applications for it in the studio—or you might just get an update directly from our trash can, our front door, or the kitchen bell itself! You can find the code here in the meantime.

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The bell that rings in the kitchen at IDEO London sounds rather more sophisticated than the analogue clang you might expect to hear when meals and snacks are ready. Our bell prefers to send articulate email messages, like this recent missive: “I summon you all to the kitchen table for a Beer-n-Nuts with [Arduino co-founder] Massimo Banzi. Come join us. Cheers, your Kitchen Bell.”

Scott Murray is an assistant professor of design at the University of San Francisco, code artist, D3 expert, and contributor to the Processing language.

Scott is endlessly excited about using code as a tool for visual explorations of all kinds, from fine art to interactive data visualizations, but his students aren’t always quite so jazzed about the idea of programming. “They’re used to Photoshop and Illustrator, chopping up pictures and vectors,” he says. “Coding moves them into a totally different working environment.”

It’s Murray’s job to pry open students’ minds to not only the languages of code but also to a new way of thinking—a developer’s approach to solving problems and building things. To this end, he’s helping to continue the development of Processing language, which is tailored specifically to the task of teaching designers and artists to code. “There are pedagogical tools embedded in the language itself,” he says, like the use of familiar terms such as “stroke” and “fill” as well as processes that help students think like developers when approaching the craft of design. “For me, design is all about systems—not creating an image, but a system that, when applied, results in an effective solution,” Murray says. “Processing, as a teaching tool, forces students to think beyond the output or image they want to create and describe the system they’re making and what it needs to do.”

Processing gives designers new tools and expands their design thinking. It’s free, open source, and available to all at processing.org.

Keyfleas (2013) by Miles Hiroo Peyton

To get a sense of what beginners can do with the language, visit openprocessing.org and browse through the sketches.

If you’re itching to get your hands dirty, go straight to this collection of short, prototypical online programs that explore the basics of programming with Processing.

Check out the complete version of Scott Murray's New Year greeting card pictured in the header to this post here.

Every Thursday in Palo Alto, IDEO’s Digital Shop hosts an informal lunchtime presentation by someone who is using code to create something surprising, useful, or generally awesome. Colleagues from all around IDEO gather for a meal and leave with a week's worth of ideas to chew on. We’ve asked some recent speakers to highlight a quick insight or tool they’d like to share.

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.