When you’re under 40, buying a life insurance policy may seem about as practical as buying a Humvee. That makes insurance a tough sell for a 165-year-old company like MassMutual. To find a way to become relevant to this generation, MassMutual partnered with IDEO with a mission to get young people interested in their own spending habits.

Over the course of two years, the teams set out to learn about how people across the US spend and save their money, and they uncovered a simple theory: you either have a smart money mindset or you don’t. When it comes to being mature about financial issues—chipping away debt, saving to buy a car—it doesn’t always come naturally. If anything, many feel disconnected from money-related matters, even if it’s in their best interest to know more.

"I hate going to a bank and not really knowing what I am doing when it comes to money," said Simon Bowers, a 31-year-old who works in public relations, featured in an article in Fast Company about the MassMutual-IDEO collaboration. "They don’t seem to take into account that this might be scary for us."

So how to invite this wary demographic to the table? Design an accessible way to meet them wherever they are: online and on their phones. IDEO helped build the new venture from the ground up—designing a brand identity and experience focused on transparency, meeting users where they are, and helping people navigate complicated financial situations so they can live life on their own terms. It’s called Society of Grownups, and you can think of it as a sort of master’s program for adulthood. Each piece of the program builds on a common vision that continues to iterate every day.

After building and testing full-scale, live prototypes, the brick-and-mortar Boston location opened in 2014 and operated much like a supper club—a warm, inviting space where young people could hang out, feast on delicious meals, attend talks, and learn about things like 401Ks, living on a budget, and how to pick good, cheap wine. After two years of continued prototyping, MassMutual recognized that the digital channel has the most potential to grow and closed the brick-and-mortar location to focus their investment in building out the bespoke online financial tools to reach more people across the nation.

From leeches to gene therapy, how we treat sickness has changed beyond recognition over the centuries. But one question asked by ancient healers and modern doctors alike remains the same: “How are you feeling?”

“We’ve had the ‘quantified self’ for a number of years—sensors that measure steps, weight, blood pressure,” said Bruce Hellman, cofounder of UK-based digital health startup uMotif. “But by only focusing on the quantitative, we miss the whole picture of a person.”

Hellman cofounded uMotif in 2012, inspired by the self-awareness he gained when tracking his sleep after his baby was born. uMotif gives people the tools to record and track their mood, sleep, and clinically relevant symptoms like dizziness or breathlessness on their mobile phone app, and share the resulting data with their doctor and care team to better inform appointments, and treatment plans.

Named as one of 50 UK "scale-ups" that could grow to over £100m in revenue by not-for-profit organization Silicon Valley Comes to the UK, uMotif’s software and apps have been deployed in dozens of hospitals, and profiled in The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and The London Times. With a view to scaling strategically, Hellman applied to IDEO Europe’s first Startup in Residence, a three-month-long program to accelerate companies through design thinking. “We brought the whole of uMotif to IDEO: product, organization, branding, approach, and business model,” said Hellman. “We were keen to re-consider just about everything.”

During the residency, the uMotif team embedded with IDEO’s London studio to work closely with an eclectic team of interaction, business, and communication designers, and design researchers, to explore every aspect of the business.

The team found that although uMotif’s organic growth had reflected the rapidly expanding digital health market, the offer was somewhat fragmented as a result. In response, uMotif decided to tighten its sales focus from 14 branches of medicine to just two: oncology and cardiology (with mental health as an R&D area).

In-depth interviews with patients, nurses, doctors, and executives revealed a clear opportunity: “simple symptom tracking for people going through an acute or serious period in their health, to activate and extend the patient-care team relationship,” Hellman says. The focus switched from the Quantified Self to the Qualified Self, coined by the team to reference uMotif’s unique approach to measuring how people feel.

Designers set about reconfiguring and prototyping aspects of the brand, product, business, and organizational model for delivery. Whereas the original uMotif product had been designed with a single clinician in mind, the team designed a new dashboard catering for the reality of modern healthcare—multiple caregivers.

Ultimately, uMotif’s offer is not just about helping patients understand their own health; it’s about providing meaningful insights that enable them to have richer conversations with their care teams—allowing them to work together to improve care plans and outcomes.

“We are a much more focused, confident, and clear organization, truly prepared to scale sales, delivery and clinical impact,” says Hellman, referring to the impact of their participation in the Startup in Residence program. Now back in its own headquarters, the team takes with it a toolkit of IDEO systems and processes with which to run their business and to apply to new projects, products, and services.

“Health systems around the world are quickly adopting digital channels,” he said. “We aim to be at the forefront of this inevitable shift, using design thinking to put people at the centre of their care, improving quality of life, treatment outcomes, and healthcare experience.”

WATCH: uMotif: Sam's Story.

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IDEO designers wanted to take on a challenge: How might we help kids make better decisions around food and being active?

Designers moved forward with three concepts that addressed this challenge from three completely different directions:

• Top Chops, a hands-on cooking adventure that builds kids’ confidence in the kitchen by working toward becoming a Top Chop “master chef.”
• Daredevils, a wearable device that measures the intensity of energy exerted, but doesn’t prescribe the activity, which kids can use to dare each other to reach activity goals.
• Presso, a set of child-size kitchen tools that slice and dice fresh food in imaginative ways, making cooking fun and helping kids feel they have a role in making their own healthy food.

The design team behind this work was featured on 60 Minutes, and some of the resulting concepts were featured on CBS This Morning.

In updating the popular and industry-defining PalmPilot, Palm Computing wanted to reposition the next-generation Palm V as a high-design accessory to set it apart from its many imitators.

Together with IDEO, it crafted a sleek, elegant device, half the thickness of the original in an anodized aluminum housing. Incorporating an internal lithium-ion battery that recharges in the dock, the side rails act as an open architecture to provide attachment for a variety of styluses, cases, and other add-ons.

Throughout all those years, from the machine shop to the digital shop, regardless of the technology we’re using or the problem we’re trying to solve, what has really gotten things done is ingenuity and creative thinking—especially in the face of dire cost and time constraints. A little bit of luck never hurts either.

So without further ado, here are my four favorite workarounds of my last decade and a half at IDEO.

2001: Using an Oscilloscope to save the sunroof

The challenge: The sunroof in your car is an invitation to luxury—catch some rays, feel the wind in your hair. The problem is, when driving at certain speeds with the sunroof open, a distinct and unpleasant booming noise can occur, making the experience rather less glamorous. The sound, a quick, repetitive thumping, is called “buffeting.”

Carmakers couldn’t figure out what to do about it. A luxury automobile company hired IDEO to find a way to make it stop.

IDEO’s workaround: My colleague Thomas Enders and I borrowed a brand new Mercedes-Benz and went for a ride! We brought along an oscilloscope (or “O-scope”) to measure the frequency and intensity of the sound waves of the buffeting effect at various speeds. With Thomas at the wheel, I held the O-scope, connected to a barometric sensor. This way, we were able to measure what was happening every time the buffeting started up.

What we discovered was that closing or opening the sunroof a small amount would change the dynamic of the air space in the car, and the buffeting noise would stop. So we designed a circuit that could detect buffeting and automatically adjust the opening of the sunroof to get rid of the annoying noise. Cruise on, in unimpeded luxury!

2002: Turntable-testing stylus materials

The challenge: Handspring, a company that produced hand-held PDAs (remember those?), looked to IDEO to find the best, most durable material to use for their stylus pens. We narrowed it down to a few polymers of various densities, but we had to figure out how to effectively test the materials for wear and friction over time.

IDEO’s workaround: We bought an $8 record player at the local Salvation Army, and replaced the needle with the various materials we were testing. Then we started it up and used a tachometer to track revolutions and measure distance and speed. Now we can brag about our DJ skills.

2012: Making the functional fashionable with paracord

The challenge: We worked with Vodafone and fashion designer Richard Nicoll to create a purse that could charge a mobile phone, while also being stylish enough to work the catwalk at the London Fashion Show. Part of the design was a small charm that hung outside the purse and flashed LED lights to signal incoming calls and text messages. We needed to find a coating for the charm that would protect the LEDs without being a fashion faux pas.

IDEO’s workaround: While we were brainstorming materials, I looked down at the bracelet I was wearing. It was made of paracord, commonly used for the strings of parachutes. Paracord is extremely durable, and it’s sold in a plethora of colors and patterns. We ordered a few strands online and found that we could remove the sheathing from the outside of the cord. We dressed the charm’s electrical cord with the sheathing from paracord, and voilà ! It gave the high-tech handbag a clean look and feel that was fit for the catwalk.

2013: Cooking circuit boards in a toaster oven

The challenge: Today’s electronics can be minuscule, and that means soldering up a printed circuit board (PCB) by hand can take forever. People who build a large number of PCBs use reflow soldering technology, but the necessary equipment is extremely expensive.

IDEO’s workaround: We decided that, given the type of rework electronics we do, it would be a good idea to tap into the mindset of the DIY community. Taking a page from their book, we bought a standard toaster oven. We fired it up and tested different temperature profiles and various types of solder paste, and soon came up with a working reflow soldering system.

Illustrations by Ina Xi

In my 15 years at IDEO, I’ve had a hand in roughly 130 projects. Some of the technologies I’ve worked on have become obsolete, like component research that required dozens of part catalogs (now, we just use the Internet). Many, though, have become the foundation for newer technologies, like discrete components, which were developed into MEMS sensors. And some, like the first Olympic torch to use LEDs rather than a flame, have been the very first of their kind.

IDEO New York developer Francis Tseng is—in his spare time—searching for a solution to the problem by exploring its root: the relationship between content and code. Tseng received a grant from the Knight Foundation to develop Argos*, an online news aggregation app that intelligently collects, summarizes and provides contextual information for news stories. Having recently finished version 0.1.0, which he calls the first “complete-ish” release of Argos, Tseng spoke with veteran journalist and documentary filmmaker Jason Cohn about the role technology can play in our consumption—and comprehension—of the news.

How would you describe to my mom, who just got her first smartphone, how Argos works and why it’s useful?

I’d say that it collects all of the important news and tells you exactly what you need to know about it. Instead of tracking separate publications, it pulls in new articles from a variety of different sources (right now, just a few major publications) and condenses everything into a set of bullet points. Argos uses a technique called “hierarchical agglomerative clustering” (HAC) to organize news stories. HAC takes each individual article and compares it to every other article, and comes up with a number representing how similar they are, on a scale of 0-1. If the similarity is above some threshold—say, greater than 0.7—the articles are considered to be talking about the same event, and they are grouped together into “event clusters.” The same HAC clustering technique is then applied to the event clusters to organize events into “story clusters.”

A sentence ranking algorithm generates a summary of each event cluster by analyzing the text of every article in the cluster and assigning an “informativeness” value to each sentence. It then takes the top five highest-ranked sentences and forms a summary. Right now I have a very simple version implemented, but the long-run focus will be on improving these core algorithms that do the heavy lifting.

Are journalists necessary anymore? Have I been replaced by an algorithm?

I personally don’t think that journalists will be replaced, at least not for a long time. Someone still needs to go out and do the research and the original reporting to get the information that the algorithm uses, which seems like the hardest and most valuable part of journalism.

It seems like some new tech applications derive from the recognition of a new technical capacity, which you then look for novel ways to use. In other cases, it begins with the recognition of a need, and you look for extant technologies that provide a possible solution. Which way did you approach Argos?

Both. I’ve always had a fascination with artificial intelligence, and that fascination has probably made me more sensitive to problem areas where AI approaches could be applicable. Personally, I find information overload, especially when it comes to keeping up with the news, really anxiety inducing and overwhelming, and I think because I was already familiar with some of these text processing techniques, it made sense to try applying them to this particular problem.

I’m glad you brought up information anxiety and overload. I think it’s a huge barrier to understanding the news today. There is so much information and analysis, but I don’t trust any of it, and I don’t know how to begin to get to the bottom of what’s really happening. Do you think Argos, or technology in general, can be an aid in this problem?

That's a particularly good example of the fact that there are different kinds of information overload. There’s one that is just about having too much information, but there’s another that is about figuring out which information you can trust. In general I would say technology has the potential to salve these kinds of anxieties, but it can just as easily do the opposite. More than anything, I hope Argos reduces the problem rather than adds to it, but one of the big failings I’ve felt with this first version is that it doesn’t accomplish that; it ends up generating more noise. Based on the feedback I’ve gotten, I'm looking at new designs and reevaluating techniques in order to rectify that.

What did you learn through building the first version that will influence the next one?

When I originally conceived of Argos, I was (and probably still am) naive about the extent of the issues that plague digital journalism. The more I looked into it, the more problems came up. Initially, the idea was about reducing information overload, mostly by supplying missing context to stories. But after completing this first version, I think that reducing overload and providing context might be really big and different issues. So right now I’m trying to determine how—and if—they can be solved simultaneously.

You mean because providing more context increases—by a lot—the amount of information a news consumer requires?

Exactly. The other main goal was increasing the understanding one got out of reading the news, which is what context is supposed to help with. But that’s kind of useless if all that information ends up driving people away from reading the news in the first place.

What changes are you planning for the next version of Argos?

In the first version the design was focused more on providing an experience similar to a traditional news publication or news reader. The app was organized around different feeds, or streams, presented as full-screen images with the title and summary of each event.

One issue was that the design wasn’t distinct from other news readers—you can’t really tell from looking at it that it’s offering anything different from a traditional RSS reader or news application. And it’s really hard to expect that every news story will come with a nice big image. Also, though, I think that in approaching the app as a traditional news publication, I missed the point of what I was trying to accomplish. The feedback I've gotten has helped me understand that Argos can have a more useful and unique place in being kind of a “daily scan” of the day's news events. So the new designs are more akin to brief updates about events around the world, to provide people with an entry or starting point for reading more and getting involved in discussions.

And you give them avenues for digging deeper into contexts and definitions?

Yes. The original source material is there to read, and context is optionally provided. You can choose to read more about the event itself, or about the people, places, organizations, etc. that are involved.

What about the issue of bias? As journalists, we’ve always had to be wary of our sources. And as consumers of news, it’s always been a good idea to assume that someone with an agenda is feeding reporters their information. How does Argos handle biases and opinions that are embedded in a story?

The issue of bias in journalism is one of those big problems that cropped up when I looked more closely at what I wanted Argos to do. It seems like a perennial issue. One potential solution is that, if you sample a large enough set of publications, bias might “average out,” so that any summary that is formed from their aggregate has less bias than any individual article. I don’t know if that works in practice though. My cop-out answer would be that Argos isn’t really trying to solve the problem of bias, but personally I hope that one day it can. Looking at the history and associations of the author who wrote the piece could actually be a very good technique. In the new version of Argos, I want to incorporate more community dialogue around the events and stories. In my experience, a lot of these issues about bias—being as complex and nuanced as they are—are best hashed out by individuals discussing them.

I think I have to disagree with you on that! My feeling about web comments on news stories is that they rarely shed much light relative to heat.

It is very difficult to pull off correctly. A lot of comments devolve into knee-jerk shouting matches. Occasionally, though, I’ve found something really insightful. On Reddit, sometimes experts will come in and succinctly explain things, and every once in a while you see a very levelheaded discussion about a story. I think the potential is there, but it’s hard to get it right.

One thing I’ve been focusing on is that I’m trying to get my hands mostly on reporting that’s coming from the field. The rest is just analysis, which, in my opinion, is more susceptible to ideological influence.

Yes! I have been thinking a lot about how to incorporate grassroots and community reporting. I’m dissatisfied with Argos’s current approach of relying on major publications, but it’s just easier at this stage.

Do you need to have content licensing relationships with news organizations to harvest the data or can you just… borrow it?

It’s possible this usage of the content falls under the terms of “fair use.” All the original articles are cited, and I’m hoping that these high-level summaries can interest people in reading the original posts. Since things are still quite experimental, I’m not worrying about the potential legal consequences now, but at some point I will want to talk to the publishers.

It seems to me that one really useful type of story for Argos is something like the lost Malaysian airliner. There was a big burst of real news when the plane disappeared, and then there was an endless cycle of conjecture and empty reportage with very little actual “news.” If you were following that story on Argos, would you avoid being updated every five minutes to discover that they still haven’t found the missing plane?

Yes, if the clustering algorithm works well enough, it should be able to recognize that these articles are talking about exactly the same thing as the ones from last week, so it’s not a new event.

It would be nice if cable news worked like that.

Maybe with Argos it will!

*Argos is a personal project of Francis Tseng's and is not affiliated with IDEO.

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Digital journalism has evolved to a point of paradox: we now have access to such an overwhelming amount of news that it’s actually become more difficult to understand current events.

Generative art, or art derived from computer code, is a relatively new format, in which the artist-programmer realizes a vision or idea by defining parameters and commands. But making generative art is, in many ways, just like painting or any other classical fine art.

When you create a painting, you start with an inspiration and sketch it on paper. You then prepare your oils, brushes, and canvas, and you refine the painting until it’s just right. I follow a similar process with generative art. When something inspires me, whether it’s a contour map in a geographic magazine, a chart representing a mathematical formula, or the various mechE tools in my father’s workshop, I sketch it on paper and jot down the keywords that best describe it. Then, I sit down at my computer and compose the code (using the Python programming language) that will “paint” the right “brush strokes.” I run the code to generate images on my computer, and go through multiple iterations until the code outputs the shapes, colors, opacities, and shadows that perfectly express my original idea.

I leverage the power of my computer to generate the artwork. Where a classical fine artist would pull out their oils and brushes to express colors and shapes, I do the same with parameters. For example, I defined a palette of colors for painting waves like this:

As if the computer was a hand holding a brush, I tell it how to paint by defining command codes, like draw_wave:

Delightful randomness

While most of the parameters in my code are set statically, I have also added an algorithm that allows certain parameters to be generated randomly, so the visual elements of the image change randomly within a defined range. This way, the final product is unpredictable; I’ll never know exactly what image will be generated.

This function returns a float number randomly ranging from 0.1 to 0.7:

The random parameters are not only unpredictable, but also non-reiterative, so these images cannot be recreated—they are completely unique.

Algorithm as art

Computer graphics are based on mathematics, so when I paint with code, I am exploring and visualizing the beauty of structure, abstraction, and complexity in mathematics that most of us don’t get to see in our daily lives. It often happens that when I play with a new algorithm and see the images it generates, I'm inspired to develop them into artwork, as was the case with Tsunami, below. The inspiration for this series came while playing with an algorithm named Cornu Curve, which generates a fantastic visual effect of crazy waves. From the same code, I made six different images using a combination of a hundred curves in varying opacities and shades of blue.

Unlimited complexity

Creating art with code allows me to make complex images that I could never have made by hand, such as All Seeing Eye, below. It is composed of millions of lines and hundreds of layers, and each line has its own shadow, blur, and opacity.

My goal was to use the complex texture to create the visual effect of catching or entrapping the audience in the “eye.” The computer is an exciting tool for creating art like this, which requires repetitive, intricate work. A piece of generative artwork composed of millions of shapes can be drawn in just a few minutes. Rendered by hand, the same piece might take a human ten years to accomplish.

Like a painter selecting the perfect tool, I used the following piece of code to define a “brush” with just the right characteristics to create the lines I wanted:

Then, just as a painter would use a specific gesture to create a certain visual effect, I used the following code to tell my computer how to hold and draw with the brush I created:

Functional designs

The exciting thing about generative art is that it is not only beautiful, but also usable. We can create new patterns and unique fabrics for the fashion industry, or we can move beyond two-dimensional creations and use generative art to make sculpture, furniture, and even architecture.

Creating art with code, I’m constantly making new discoveries of exciting visual possibilities. Computers have revolutionized countless aspects of human life, and now, generative art has the potential to revolutionize artistic expression, opening infinite space for innovation.

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By day, I code mobile apps and design digital experiences. In my free time, I create art. I recently began exploring both at once with generative art, a sublime combination of computer programming and graphic art.

Wild ideas emerged: a Hug Deli, where patrons might order Ninja Hugs off the menu; a mystery bar, serving up a drink chosen by the previous guest. The big idea was to get people out of their “thinking minds“ in order to freely create.

And that brought us to Fauxtobooth.

A riff on the classic photobooth we all know and love, this version is completely handmade and doubles as a creative confidence booster—forcing people to draw on a deadline.

How it works

The subject takes a seat inside the booth, facing a mirror. Thirty seconds after pressing a button, the subject receives a slip of paper through a slot below the mirror with—whoa!—a hand-drawn sketch of his or her face on it.

Um, how exactly did that work?

When the host brings the subject around to the back of the booth, the inner workings of the machine are revealed: table, chair, paper, Sharpies. The subject was actually posing in front of a two-way mirror and now it's his or her turn to take on the role of fauxtographer—of capturing the next unsuspecting subject.

How it's made

To make a full-scale prototype, you’ll need some foam core and tape. A crude model will help you get a sense of the dimensions and how long it would take to build. The massive black exterior offers an opportunity to advertise your offer. We used vinyl decals for our slogan: “Automatic portraits while you wait!“

Enlist friends: Building a Fauxtobooth takes a village (who likes to cut foam core alone anyway?).

Glue together pieces of foam core to provide structural integrity, and attach the parts using industrial strength velcro, making it possible to easily deconstruct and transport the booth.

Finishing touches

A few key elements bring the Fauxtobooth to life: a two-way mirror, a giant red “Start” button, and graphic flourishes:

• Two-way mirror: The artist can see the subject, but not the other way around. Position the Fauxtobooth under direct light on the subject’s side (you can also use a spotlight), and make sure the curtain is closed on the other side to completely conceal the artist.
• “Start” button: Program an Arduino to keep time (we used an interval of 30 seconds). When pressed, the button lights up for 20 seconds; for the last 10 seconds it blinks and counts down. This serves a dual purpose: the subject knows to hold still for their portrait and the artist knows how much time they have to complete the portrait.
• Graphics: IDEO designer extraordinaire Njoki Gitahi loves bold, vintage signs, and playful, typographic compositions. She took inspiration from Lou Dorfsman’s “Gastrotypographicalassemblage.“ The team vinyl cut and applied the graphics—a tricky process, but well worth it in the end. The white lettering creates a dramatic display against the black backdrop.

What we learned

Once we narrowed in on the Fauxtobooth concept, we realized that (1) you can capture the gestalt of a person in a very short time, (2) people have fun with it, and (3) the collection of images make for an awesome display wall. Here are a few other things we discovered along the way:

• Get back to basics. Building with common materials like foam core, tape, and Velcro reconnects you to basic skills and tools. And the analog experience charmed the pants off people.
• Velcro is your friend. Not only is the sticky stuff forgiving if you don’t get the alignment just right on the first try, it also allows you to disassemble and reassemble structures on location. Consider it the new duct tape.
• Fine-tune light and sound. We were able to position the subject’s side of the booth under a light and keep the artist’s side relatively dark. Check your space ahead of time and use a spotlight if necessary. Also, as the party heats up, the sound of the Start button may be drowned out. Turn up the volume!

Your turn

Up for the challenge? We put together a handy manual so you can learn from our mistakes. If you do build a Fauxtobooth, we’d love to hear about it. Send us a few (real) photos!

Download the replication manual and vinyl graphics

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There was a lot of work to be done. IDEO's New York studio was to host an event to celebrate Tom and David Kelley's new book, Creative Confidence, and whatever we designed had to reflect their ideas. Pressure on, we brainstormed over lunch—tools and sticky notes spread out across the largest room in our office.

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.

Ed White has a rule he's tested on his own writing: hold yourself as the writer, and let AI be your editor. Ed is a Senior Design Director at IDEO's London studio, where he co-leads the firm's AI portfolio across Europe. Before IDEO, he spent 12 years as a writer and editor at the Financial Times, Wired, and Contagious. So when he talks about when to use AI for storytelling and when not to, it comes from two decades of crafting his storytelling skills.

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In this episode, Mina Seetharaman talks with Ed about two specific tools he uses to keep AI in an editor's seat: a "roasting agent" prompted to critique his drafts without any sugarcoating, and a simulated audience he rehearses pitches on before the real thing. They also get into what Ed is hearing from design leaders at Anthropic, Lovable, Shopify, and Google Creative Lab about how creative work is changing, and why he thinks the friction of writing something yourself is worth protecting rather than automating away.

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.