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"

I met him in 2005, when he became the art director of my crafty, grassroots Berkeley magazine, ReadyMade.

In the years that followed, we laughed and wept through one of the most fruitful creative collaborations of our lives. Then, in 2011, George strapped on a jetpack, waved goodbye to publishing, and lit out to start his own eponymous juggernaut, McCalmanCo. Aside from his fertility as a creative director, illustrator, and artist, 2020 was a year of honing “Observed,” his column for the San Francisco Chronicle, into a razor-sharp instrument of cultural commentary. One of his pieces shares the backstory behind his exhibition, “Tell Me Three Things I Can Do/Return To Sender,” a collection of bold, typographic renderings of messages he received from white acquaintances in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. I caught up with George in January, 2021, to hear more about an eagerly awaited new project: Illustrated Black History: Celebrating the Iconic and the Unseen, due out from Amistad/HarperCollins in October, 2021.

In one sentence, who are you?

A polymath trying to simplify his life.

What do you do? How did you learn it?

Too many things for this format! I’m a fine artist, illustrator, art director, cultural critic, editor, writer, and professor of graphic design. I also run McCalmanCo, a design studio that does branding for companies, books, and individuals. I learned all of those things through magazine military training. I started at the peak of magazine publishing in New York and left right at the sunset in San Francisco.

One story that sums up that experience was my very last day atEntertainment Weekly. I put in an all-nighter designing the cover story on Heather Locklear at Melrose Place. I had already cleared my desk, but I needed to be there to get it done. I came in at 8 a.m. and left at 8 a.m. the next morning. I said to myself, I never want to do that again. And I never did. San Francisco offered a version of that life without ever getting to that level of insanity.

What are your 3 favorite possessions?

My home is filled with art that my friends have created. This year represents the most time I’ve spent at home, and I realized I’ve constructed my home as an altar—a totem to both friends who have passed and those who are living. So, my entire home is my favorite possession. Also, my studio. And my friendships.

What does a typical work session look like?

Communication. A lot of communication. Because every day is atypical. What is consistent in how I approach anything I do is I try to make sure I have a perspective on what I’m doing first. Whether I’m starting an illustration, painting, doing a shoot for a book, if I don’t know what I’m doing, I stop. I’ve stopped meetings, conversations, illustrations, I’m always like, Wait what am I doing, who am I talking to? It makes everything I do better.

How do you get over creative block?

If I’m having difficulty it has to do with everything outside the creative process. It’s an emotional or somatic block. When I listen to my emotions or body, all the information is there. If my body is tired, I won’t draw for a week, rather than powering through. I am prolific because I’m tuned into the lessons I’m getting from my emotional or somatic state and I don’t challenge those things. But this is not something I knew when I was younger, only in the last 10 years. I think back and my body was sending me all those signals all along.

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

I’m directing a photo shoot for Bryant Terry’s new book, so I’m currently organizing a zoom call with the team. The truth is that I’m never not working—I’ve fused my personal and professional life. I learned that from James Lord and Roderick Wyllie of the landscape architect firm Surfacedesign. They are a couple who are very different people, but inseparable. They move through life with no break between work and life—they will work through a glorious dinner and while traveling—but it’s not work that’s breaking them, it’s work that’s energizing them. That joyfulness in treating their work like it’s their choice rather than their burden inspires me.

How do you see the world in 2078?

I think the U.S. will still be a messy, unsatisfying experiment. The pandemic has transformed much of this world and it will be years before we see how that’s manifested. Two words thrown around a lot are hope and optimism. That’s a very American position. I don’t really think in those terms. Do I believe we are going to make progress? Yes. But we live in a country where people don’t want the progress, so we have to figure out how to live with those who don’t think treating people of other races equally is a good idea, or that paying for the health care for everyone is a good idea, or that letting people who enter this country become citizens is a good idea. How do we reconcile these polarities? It’s not optimism or pessimism, it’s just work. My white lady friends say “I’m so hopeful now,” and I think, how wonderful for you, what a luxury that you get to be hopeful.

What's your number one bucket list item?

I’m doing it! To write and illustrate and design my own book. Much of Black history is reduced to 10 people, but the book I’m working on tells the story of 400 years of American history through the eyes of 150 Black pioneers. Their biographies are historical allegories in that you’ll see how the Black community, unlike the white community in this country, is very much a continuum of our ancestors passing down knowledge. It’s a contemporary telling, devoid of the dryness of historical writing. It’s celebratory of the sacrifices that some of these pioneers of business, film, art, writing and science made to enhance our ideas of democracy and justice. I’m treating them like they’re the Avengers. I hope everyone reads it. It’s a gift you can send to your slightly racist cousin, your republican father, and your apathetic aunt. I want it to be read by students and teenagers and 80-year-olds and also by those who don’t care about Black history.

Who are you creative crushin' on lately?

A short list of iconoclasts who are in their own lane:

• Bryan Stephensen of the Equal Justice Initiative
• The illustrator Lauren Tamaki
• New Yorker food writer Bryan Washington

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George McCalman wasn’t always a multi-hyphenate. The art director-writer-illustrator started out as a traditional graphic designer, earning his stripes through the “military training” of New York magazines in the aughts.

To think back on how we “prepared”—as individuals, organizations, and communities—is a lesson in hindsight. Who could have imagined the new vocabulary, behaviors, and habits we’d all acquire in one short year?

In New York and New Jersey at that time, more than 280,000 people traveled each day on the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) train, one of the region’s most important public transit systems connecting New Jersey and New York. Squeezed into metal cars, commuters scrolled through headlines suggesting that an unremarkable trip across town might be unwise, if not dangerous. Transit agencies scrambled to establish new guidelines and produce communications to keep riders safe, but the virus was outpacing people’s capacity for behavior change at this scale and speed.

By April, the pandemic had gained a threatening grip on the New York City region, and PATH ridership had fallen off by nearly 95%. Stay-at-home orders took effect, and daily commuters hung up their office attire to the sound of sirens cutting through vacant streets. It wasn’t clear at the time how the disease spread, and how safe mass transit was. All the while, essential workers continued to pass through stations and trains each day, and their lives were on the line.

Transit operators have many contingency plans, but this unforeseen crisis required quick action: at PATH, leaders quickly implemented safety protocols such as overnight train cleaning, and posted signs and messages to let riders know what was being done to protect them, and what new behaviors they'd have to adopt to make sure those protocols actually worked. Everyone’s cooperation was essential, yet not all forms of communication are equally effective.

Try, try again

Inside The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), which operates PATH, one small department specializes in thinking about innovation within the institution and—critically—in how riders engage with the system. The Office of Continuous Improvement (OCI) had already been exploring and applying design thinking strategies when they decided to call IDEO to see how a more immersive, design-led approach could yield quick, effective solutions to the challenges COVID had delivered to the PANYNJ systems.

Lisa Dewey-Mattia, who heads the small OCI team, initially connected with IDEO Director Randy Plemel to develop a plan for an immersive, rapid collaboration that might yield some new ideas for communicating with PATH riders and facilitating behavior change. “It was a time when everyone in every industry was trying to figure out, how do we adapt?” Dewey-Mattia recalls, “We had this conundrum with regard to customer confidence and safety, and the physical design of our space. We were asking ourselves, how can we best meet the needs of the agency and our riders right now?” The small team worked remotely to workshop the highest-value, shortest-term problems identified across the whole Port Authority which could fit in a two-week sprint. Plemel remarked, “The OCI team has deep connections across the Port Authority’s different units. Designing for PATH riders and operators allowed us to focus on the most acute issue—confidence in using the system—and the learnings could be transferred to other Port Authority units like the airports and the Port Authority Bus Terminal.”

Large transit agencies aren't typically known for rapid innovation, but the only clear approach to such an unprecedented challenge was a willingness to experiment. When IDEO team members joined OCI and other subject matter experts from across the agency, the product they were working toward was not yet defined. What PATH leaders were looking for was an outcome: all riders wearing their masks properly, maintaining social distance, and heeding public messaging. How to get there wasn’t yet clear. “At that point in time, what we needed was to be able to simplify our communication to our customers. We didn’t need fancy or clever,” says Clarelle DeGraffe, the Director and General Manager of PATH, “But there’s also fear of backlash from customers that it’s too simple.”

With lockdowns and distancing preventing on-the-ground research, the team had to nix in-person interviews and spontaneous conversations, instead establishing remote communication that still yielded candid, comfortable interaction. “This was a very different project for Port Authority,” explains Morgan Keane, DeGraffe’s Chief of Staff. “So much was produced over two weeks’ time, and it was really driven by people being able to collaborate with each other, even remotely.” What became clear was that riders and workers needed to feel confident and safe on the train. Boosting confidence depended on communication strategy.

Over two weeks, IDEO and PATH staff immersed themselves in a design sprint to come up with nine concepts for solving their core challenges, from masking and safety information, to operational changes to the trains, to touchless payments. The large sprint team reviewed these concepts with a panel of advisors at PATH and the greater Port Authority, then pared them down into a series of three prototypes, which hinged on the critical behavioral mandates of COVID: 1.) Stay masked up; 2.) Maintain distance where possible, and; 3.) Practice compliance with stated guidelines.

Live prototyping in a high-stakes environment

PATH and OCI approached Port Authority leadership and asked for permission to use one of the smaller train stations as a place to test ideas. At Grove Street Station in Jersey City, signs went up alerting riders that they’d be seeing some changes around the station, and QR codes on the posters invited real-time feedback as riders passed through. “At every point our customers really understood that we were doing proof of concept,” says DeGraffe, “And that turned out to be positive. Our customers took it as a reassuring indicator that we were looking to pilot new things to keep them safe, and they appreciated us looking outside the box.”

The most successful prototype was a “mask-up zone” at the station entrance, where riders could pause, outside the flow of travelers, to properly cover their faces before descending to the platform. People immediately adjusted their flow through the station to make use of this preparation area. IDEO Senior Design Lead Jeff Kessler, who led the PATH collaboration, points out that the most enduring concepts are the ones that can survive many rounds of doubt. “There’s a balance between protecting new ideas as they emerge and letting them take enough criticism to improve and work. Ultimately, the concepts that survive rounds of testing should improve the long-term operations of the system.”

Down on the platform, a concept designed to keep people apart didn’t prove as effective. Riders provided feedback that they didn’t want to comply with signs directing them where to stand while awaiting the train. Yet, many added, they were reassured to know that new safety measures were under consideration.

That insight led PATH to think beyond posters and signs, to what other means might be used to disseminate their messages. One team member, noting that there’s limited space for signs on trains, was inspired by the “I Voted” stickers people don on their shirts on election day. “Why not be a little cheeky and make stickers to hand out along with free masks? That way passengers themselves become communicators of the message.” The idea was relatively cheap to test out, and it was a sign to riders that the agency was thinking about their well-being.

Although the train is part of many people’s everyday lives, DeGraffe says it still comes as a surprise to some that train operators and leadership are truly listening to what they have to say about their experience. “Everyone thinks of it as their own little train,” says DeGraffe of PATH’s rider culture. “They post things to Twitter about their experience and we respond.” That personal, human outreach has the benefit of building trust and connection between riders and their transit system—a better way to foster adherence than by cracking down on non-compliant individuals. DeGraffe points to the increased tension around police interaction during this time. “We’d rather give out a mask than a summons.”

Lessons for the future

More than a year after COVID first rolled into New York and New Jersey, ridership on public transit hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels, but residents are slowly resuming routines and vaccination rates are raising a little hope into a shaken city. At PATH, the spirit of exploration and willingness to prototype have remained. In late January 2021, PATH announced a new diplomatic corps called the Mask Force Ambassadors, “a group of volunteers whose daily mission is to help keep riders masked, socially distant, and able to travel in the safest possible environment.” On those volunteers’ bright yellow t-shirts and in large lettering around the stations, riders see the simple message developed during the IDEO sprint: “Mask On. Ride On.”

PATH Chief of Staff Keane reflects on how similar adaptive responses have appeared in other areas of the city, and where she sees the impact of institutions that are slow to change and accommodate their communities. “During COVID, the streets are being taken over for outdoor eating, distanced interaction, bookstores with takeout windows. It’s interesting to think about new ways to do things,” says Keane, “And it’s important to test for the extremes: Say okay, can a really old person do this and a child do this? Can you get from an underground station to an outdoor plaza while pushing a stroller? The way to really bring this home for people is to have them walk through with a different perspective.”

That constructive empathy is exactly what Kessler hoped for from the PATH and IDEO collaboration. “This was a moment when if we got the nuances right it would keep people healthy and taking care of each other and giving each other respectful space on the train,” he says, noting how bravely PATH stepped into experimentation as a new route to safety. “It’s a good thing for design to be working on.”

Illustrations by Ran Zheng

In January 2020, news of COVID-19’s approach was building like a looming storm. That the pandemic was coming seemed clear, but when it would arrive, where it would appear, and how bad it would be, nobody could yet predict.

COVID-19 has fueled a whole new waste stream, putting additional plastics and other material into the environment and harming ecosystems, animals, and human communities as a result.

At the same time, those masks and gloves and other personal protective equipment (PPE) are critical to slowing the progression of the pandemic and keeping our front-line workers safe. They’re disposable, yet they’re indispensable—presenting us with a difficult tension between our immediate public health needs and the long-term repercussions of this massive waste problem. Gloves floating in the ocean like seaweed threaten already endangered marine species and pollute the world’s tap water, in time delivering new risks to human health.

But an apparent lose-lose situation like this can also become a rich opportunity area for human-centered design. How might we design PPE that is effective at keeping people safe without polluting the environment?

One source for models and inspiration lies in another realm entirely: coffee shops. By exploring other industries—a design tactic known as analogous research—leaders can get inspired by how others have addressed similar questions. Looking to analogs allows designers to move beyond their expertise to see issues with fresh eyes, building new levels of understanding to their present design challenge.

The to-go cup has a lot to teach about disposability, desirability, hygiene and convenience; and as a consumer product, it’s seen more sustainability-minded innovation than medical disposables. By looking at the ways the coffee cup has evolved, we can gain new insight for understanding what is possible in the heavily regulated, fast-paced, and high-pressure world of medical supplies, where safety and sustainability are both paramount.

Next-generation solutions for the humble to-go cup

As a product, the disposable cup has gone through several eras of change relative to design and behavior. Initially, to-go cups enabled convenience and efficiency. But nearly all of the to-go cups that exist today are made of a combination of materials that make them next to impossible to recycle or compost. They were designed without any thought to where they would end up after being used, aside from the landfill or incinerator.

Environmental concerns then sparked a movement encouraging consumers to bring their own reusable cup. Committed environmentalists were willing to do this, despite the personal compromise on convenience, but the trend failed to scale and meaningfully reduce waste. Some cups are now made of materials that can biodegrade or be composted, but both processes are difficult to achieve at a global scale due to cost and lack of access and infrastructure.

In 2018, OpenIDEO launched a design challenge to invite new ideas for material and processes that could lead us into a more sustainable era for to-go beverage containers. The NextGen Cup Challenge represented a new horizon for sustainability that goes beyond the product to offer a vision for a system and business model where circularity is the driving principle. Contrary to the linear “take-make-waste” model of manufacturing that has characterized industrial products for centuries, a circular economy designs waste and pollution out of the value chain, keeping products and materials in repeated use, and regenerating our natural systems.

The NextGen Cup Challenge asked the question: How might we design the next generation fiber cup to be recoverable on a global scale, while maintaining the performance standards we know and trust? The Challenge, managed by OpenIDEO, was part of the NextGen Consortium, a global initiative convened by Closed Loop Partners and founding partners Starbucks and McDonald’s. The 12 winning solutions—categorized into innovative cup liners, new materials, and reusable cup service models—have the potential to turn the 250 billion fiber to-go cups used annually from waste into a valuable material in the recovery system.

When we see masks and gloves in the gutter, we can imagine a similar trajectory for innovation. But there’s a different set of barriers—psychological, regulatory, supply chain, and safety—to contend with. The question becomes: How can we apply circular design principles in the healthcare industry to enable a more robust and resilient supply chain of PPE, which can be safely reused to become regenerative rather than wasteful? Based on the learnings from the NextGen Cup Challenge, we see two rich areas for design: redesigning PPE products to be sustainable and adopting a systems-level perspective.

Redesign or repurpose the product itself

The NextGen Cup Challenge sought manufacturing and material innovations and technologies that improved the existing to-go cup, making it more valuable at the end-of-life, whether through recycling, composting, or biodegrading. For consumers, baristas, and retailers, these new ideas would require little behavior change—they offered the same convenience of the single-use cup, just made of something new and more sustainable. SoluBlue, for example, is a winning NextGen Cup Challenge solution that produces plant-based, food-grade, and non-toxic materials that quickly biodegrade after use, and can replace some forms of single-use plastics.

The same concept is hopefully being applied to PPE: Recently, the Canadian government announced two business challenges for the private sector that offer funding for PPE that won’t end up in landfills. One calls for businesses to develop compostable surgical masks and respirators that can be mass-produced for healthcare workers. The second challenge seeks technologies for "efficient and cost-effective" PPE recycling, which can transform potentially contaminated PPE into "valuable materials that can further be used in manufactured products.”

If Solublue can make a cup that biodegrades after one use, why couldn't we do the same with a face mask or a pair of gloves? Furthermore, as we consider redesigning PPE to be safe and environmentally-friendly, there is not only an opportunity to redesign the product, but to extend its value to other products. Binish Desai, for example, is an entrepreneur and environmental activist based in New Delhi who is transforming used PPE into bricks for homes and factories. Desai installs bins outside of apartment buildings and retail shops to collect used masks and gloves, then leaves them untouched for 72 hours. The gear is then sanitized, shredded, and sanitized again. Lastly, the sanitized scraps are mixed with paper sludge and a binding agent to form various brick molds.

Good intentions must be coupled with systems thinking

Sometimes the product alone—or a byproduct of it—can’t solve the problem. We’ve had the technology to produce a compostable cup or mask since long before COVID-19. But as demand for PPE outstrips supply, it becomes critical to consider the system surrounding the product to enable recoverability and reusability. In neglecting to design for how a product fits into the larger ecosystem, we risk exacerbating the issue. When items are improperly disposed of (for example, when a compostable cup is recycled, which is common) it can contaminate the entire bin, dumpster, and truckload with byproducts that devalue the actual recyclable material. This sometimes results in full batches of recycled materials being removed from the recycling line and sent to landfills due to a single incompatible cup, as it has potentially contaminated the entire collection.

New solutions need to be designed in tandem with new infrastructure, or designed to work within the existing system. Muuse, a NextGen Cup Challenge winning idea, created a platform for reusable cups that works within restaurant networks with the goal of eliminating single-use waste. Before the pandemic, consumers could “borrow” a cup from one of Muuse’s cafe partners, such as Equator Cafe in San Francisco, by scanning the QR code on the cup. Within the designated time period, the customer returned it to any of Muuse’s 40 cafe partners in San Francisco. Muuse inspected and cleaned the cups, and collected late fees through tracking technology, seamlessly integrating into the way the restaurant system operates.

Muuse can offer inspiration for redesigning PPE to be both safe and regenerative. Most people know that doctors wear sterile gloves during surgery. But fewer realize that surgeons can be particular about the gloves they use (e.g. latex, non-latex, nitrile, vinyl). In design research, we’ve noticed that some physicians prefer specific layered combinations of gloves, such as latex over non-latex or vice versa. When we look at other trades, many professionals have their own pair of reusable, personalized gloves, like welders, chefs, and athletes, that are sustainable, help them excel in their craft, and keep them safe.

How might we enable this for doctors? What new innovations—in reusable design but also in the washing and sanitation procedures that already exist in hospitals for bedding or scrubs —might achieve safety and waste elimination, while also enhancing physician desirability and performance? To support frontline workers during the coronavirus pandemic, Ford pivoted to produce face masks, shields, and ventilators using the same air filtration technology the automaker uses to produce the ventilated car seats found in F-150 trucks, putting their existing materials towards an urgent global need. Taking a cue from Muuse, what if a new system was designed to enable frontline workers to return these masks to hospitals, and hospitals to then return them to Ford? This reusable system would be keeping key materials in use in both the auto and medical world.

A future that is designed for both sustainability and safety

Alarming photos of masks and gloves scattered on sidewalks and washed up on beaches are a reminder that COVID-19’s impact spreads far wider and deeper than we yet realize. The virus and its reverberations have touched every aspect of life on the planet. But human safety does not have to come at the expense of environmental damage and climate change.

Design encourages us to look to unlikely analogs, like the unassuming and ubiquitous to-go cup, to be inspired to create a world in which safety and sustainability can co-exist, offering protection to all.

The landscape of litter has shifted over the past year. The pandemic has made disposable masks and gloves as commonplace as plastic bottles and cigarette butts on city streets.

In between refreshing our local COVID-19 dashboards and the U.S. election map, we’re proud to have produced another year’s worth of Octopus stories. Thank you for stopping by to read our design blog. Below are the 10 stories you loved the most in 2020. And here’s to a calmer, kinder 2021.

IDEO Designers Share the Best Creative Advice They've Ever Received

There’s no shortage of inspirational quotes, but meaningful, personal advice can change a career and a life. A preview of some of the creative advice IDEOers shared in this piece: “A bad movie is better than an unfinished movie,” and, "When you feel stuck, draw a card and do whatever it says."

4 Ways to Work Together When We Can’t Be Together

Sometimes while watching TV episodes filmed before the pandemic, I get pangs of fear when people shake hands or stand less than six feet apart. Everything has changed in the last 10 months or so. This story contains early ideas on how to navigate design work during a pandemic. A question we’re still asking from this piece: “As designers, how do we design our way through this?"

24 More Things We Want to Redesign

Applying for a job. The news. Hot dogs. IDEOers want to redesign those, plus 21 other things.

How a Kid's Perspective Improves Design Research

Whether your design research is happening in a boardroom or at an amusement park, author Ben Swire argues that adding a kid’s perspective can produce better design outcomes. Although this piece is about his daughter, he is not biased at all.

4 Reasons Warm-Ups Will Fundamentally Change Your Work

Olivia Vagelos is IDEO U’s resident warm-up expert. Not only does she have an entire database of exercises, but she also designs them on the spot. Her firm belief is that every meeting deserves a warm-up—read the piece to learn why.

How Would You Reimagine Learning? 5 Visions for Our Post-COVID Future

The coronavirus pandemic has pushed an estimated 1.6 billion students out of the classroom. As teachers adjust to this remote reality, OpenIDEO asked a question: “How might we adapt to remote learning while also using this moment to radically reimagine what we need our education systems to be?” This story shares five ideas to shape this future.

10 More Documentaries That Will Spark Your Creativity

Devin Peek is a visual connoisseur, so you can trust her documentary recommendations are well-vetted. (She even saw one of these at its premiere!) This post shares 10 more documentaries to spark creativity; her first post, from way back in 2016, is one of the Octopus’ most popular of all time.

4 Exercises That Prove Listening Matters

It’s noisy out there. Drawing from Krista Tippett’s work, author Allison Press designed and adapted four exercises that dive deep into the transformative power of listening.

How Quitting Plastic Got One Designer Thrown in Mall Jail

There are some surprising benefits to quitting plastic: IDEOer Shuya Gong saved money and produced less trash. On the flip side, she almost got thrown in mall jail, so take on the no-plastic challenge at your own risk.

5 Tools to Design for Digital Confidence

Every single day, one million people use the internet for the first time. IDEO’s Jason Fund and George Joseph share a set of tools, created alongside Google and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to help designers build digital services that work for everyone—even if your user is touching a smartphone for the first time.

In last year’s top 10 stories post, my colleague Saige wrote, “We can’t wait to see what 2020 has in store.” Upon reflection, I probably could’ve used more time to prepare for what the last 12 months delivered.

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.