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.

I recently tested myself and found I was averaging four hours per day on my phone, with most of that time lost to Instagram and Facebook. This mindless scrolling was primarily happening in the day’s in-between moments—while waiting in line for a coffee, sitting on the train, and even in the bathroom.

A recent talk by Manoush Zomorodi got me thinking: When was the last time I put away my devices and chose to do nothing instead? When was the last time we all let ourselves experience pure, unadulterated boredom? And is it possible that replacing time sitting around checking email with time just sitting could help us be more creative in both the short- and long-term?

I dug into some research and found that moments of boredom often allow us to take our biggest imaginative leaps. Here are three ways to get yourself there:

1. Schedule time to let your mind wander

Research shows that daydreaming ignites a collection of brain regions known as the default mode network. According to psychologist Dr. Sandi Mann, as our minds wander, our thinking stretches beyond the conscious and dips into the subconscious. It’s in this zone that we’re often able to connect disparate ideas, solve some of our most nagging problems, and do autobiographical planning—reflecting on our lives and setting goals. It’s no wonder that so many of us come up with our best ideas in the shower.

Where and when do you daydream? Allow time in your calendar to stretch those moments out. Skip the express for a slower train. Try designing new routines into your day, like walking around the block during lunch, to help spark new thoughts.

2. Do something mind-numbing before your next brainstorm

To test the creative-boosting powers of boredom, a group of researchers from the University of Central Lancashire conducted a study where half of the 80 participants were instructed to copy numbers from a phone book (experimental group), and the other half were not (control group). They were then asked to brainstorm as many uses as they could for a pair of plastic cups. The phone book group came up with significantly more ideas.

The researchers ran the same test again, but added a third group tasked with something even duller—reading the phone book. These participants came up with even more ideas.

Before your next creative meeting, try tackling those boring-but-necessary tasks that clog up your to-do list. You just might unlock your next big idea.

3. Tap into your childhood self

According to psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, the capacity to be bored can actually be a developmental achievement for children. Unstructured time motivates kids to invent their own entertainment from scratch, and gives them the freedom to explore what truly interests them.

When I was younger, I would pretend to teach a Harry Potter-style “Intro to Spells,” complete with paper wands. Today, teaching design classes at Stanford and leadership workshops for girls brings me the same joy and inspiration. And when I get bored, my mind still races around new design curriculum.

Need a reminder of the things that used to inspire you? Call your parents, siblings, or old friends to help playback stories from times past.

There will always be another something to check, update, or scroll through on our devices, but if we let our minds run free instead, who knows what brilliance our boredom might lead to?

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In our always-connected world, it’s easy to fill every spare moment with another feed to scroll through, notification to check, or calendar to update. Each activity may feel productive in the moment, but at the end of the day we have nothing to show for it.

In one sentence, who are you?

Cindy [sin-dee]: a quirky, creatively neurotic, unapologetic creature who has paintbrushes for fingers and toes—with a laugh that rumbles the ground.

What do you do? How did you get into it?

I am a picture book author and illustrator. Ever since I was a little, I had narratives running through my head for just about anything. My path as a teenager led me to theater and The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where I got involved in puppetry—building puppets and touring my own one-woman shows. In the back of my mind was a dream I couldn’t let go of: I wanted to write and illustrate children’s picture books.

After I moved back to California, I began painting with acrylic on gigantic canvases, but eventually transitioned to working a bit smaller. That’s when I discovered the unpredictable beauty of using watercolor and ink. From there, I spent years diligently working on my illustration skills and developing characters, and I have been working on my craft of storytelling ever since.

As an adult, picture books are a way to collaborate with my little self. And together, we create weird books for weird kids. My debut book as an author and illustrator is How to Walk an Ant (Roaring Brook Press, 2019).

What are your three most beloved possessions?

1) A tiny armadillo sculpture with a broken tail

2) A collection of letters from my grandmother

3) An embarrassing diary from my middle school years—with creepy drawings of all my crushes

What are your favorite tools of the trade?

I make my own paint brushes. I pluck the hairs out of old, scraggly brushes and bind them together to create new brushes. I also use sticks, wires, and clay shapers when I paint. They make imperfect, expressive lines. And I like that.

What does a typical work session look like?

Before I begin any work, I obsessively wipe down all surfaces, organize my materials, and even make my bed. This helps my mind become a blank canvas. This also helps me rediscover things in my studio I may have forgotten about—like that piece of Styrofoam pool noodle I cut out into shapes to make stamps, or that tiny drawing of a bug with a coy expression.

When I finally sit down at my art table, I start by making some spots on paper. The result is not supposed to be good, nor do I want it to look like anything. This is just a way to warm up my hand. It also helps to whisper: “Good morning, hand...Good morning, brush...Good morning, inkblot!”

After a healthy session of experimenting, I transition into working on one of my current picture book projects, which involves a happy balance of planning and spontaneity.

How do you get over creative block?

I intentionally make very ugly art for a few days. That means putting wrong colors together until they are muddied, ripping up paper to make monsters, and pouring a whole bottle of black ink on top of a pretty landscape. Afterwards, I eat too much chocolate and melt into the floor. If I can make myself laugh—really, truly have a good ol’ laugh at myself—that block will get smaller.

How do you see the world in 2078?

If a drone can deliver a rainbow sprinkled donut to me while I’m lying on my death bed...I’m happy.

What’s your number one bucket list item?

I would like to retrace the steps that my late grandmother Marian Mountain took on her journey while creating her book The Zen Environment: The Impact of Zen Meditation. She had a fascinating life. She was a student of Shunryū Suzuki for many years, and helped record and transcribe all his lectures.

She traveled around in a RV with her typewriter most of her life. And she used to be a puppeteer! Before she died, she was working on a follow-up book titled Snail Zen. I’d like to help complete that book.

Who are you creative crushin’ on lately?

Leonard Baskin. I recently discovered his work while doing research at The Letterform Archive in San Francisco. His lines are haunting, expressive, and honest.

I have been stalking illustrator Cindy Derby’s work on Instagram for longer than I care to admit. She creates worlds for children’s books, but her unique characters and experimental style capture the imagination of adults just as easily. For this installment of our Creative Crush series, I set out to learn more about Derby and her process.

If you think about my hometown of Munich, surfing is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. So what do you do if you love surfing but live deep down in Bavaria? You just have to make it happen. Take a bunch of crazy surf dudes, add the freezing cold "Eisbach"—a small man-made river located at the English Garden in downtown Munich that provides the perfect "standing wave"—and there you go. There is always someone taking a ride—early in the morning, when the city is still asleep and you are on your way to the office, at noon during a quick lunch break, in the afternoon for a sunset session, or even at night or in the snow. (The Eisbach has even lured professional surfers like Kelly Slater, Gabriel Medina, and Mick Fanning.) Hang loose can be found everywhere around the world—you just have be creative.

Human-centered design requires us to observe human behavior with beginner's eyes, so that we can spot the innate ways people interact with the world around them. We call these intuitive and unconscious reactions Thoughtless Acts, and IDEO designers collect photos of them to inspire their work.

Dear Maira Kalman,

I have to admit, it was Tibor who brought us together. Him and his flair, and boldness, passion and humor. But you—YOU! You were the words and the drawings and the insights. A creative mess of things I found in contrast to my young orderly graphic design mind, yet loved and admired and wanted every bit of.

In 1999, I saw you at the SFMoMA talking about your beloved husband when Tiborcity was on exhibit. I was sitting next to the person I didn't know would become my own beloved husband. You became part of our lives together—extending to our children. When our 3-year-old daughter recited the full story of Sayonara, Mrs. Kackleman from memory as we flipped through each page, we knew we had done something right.

Yours in missing our beloveds,
Jen Panasik

Portraits in Creativity: Maira Kalman

Dear Buckminster Fuller,

From the moment I first read you, I fell under the spell of a man who couldn’t be contained by a dictionary. Livingry. Tensegrity. Dymaxion. Big ideas packed into beautiful words. Then again, you said to never think about beauty whilst working on a problem. I'd simply know the solution is wrong if its not beautiful in some way.

Oh Bucky, Spaceship Earth needs you now more than ever.

P.S. Can I leave my toothbrush at your geodesic dome?

—Chris Nyffeler

Dear Janet Champ,

I was just a few years out of college when your "If You Let Me Play" Nike campaign came out, and it rocked my world. Here was this gorgeous feminist rallying cry: It wasn't on a flyer at the natural foods store, and it wasn't on a poster at a protest march. It was on national TV, with a big ol' Nike swoosh at the end. I remember thinking, "Whoa. You can have a paying job AND change the world. That's badass." And I promptly became a writer.

With great affection and respect,
Jenn Maer

Dear Syd Mead,

I'm writing to thank your for the countless hours I spent in my youth immersed in the details and possibilities of your future visions. Your inspirational and sometimes cautionary depiction of future artifacts, cities, and cultures inspired me to design optimistically towards a better tomorrow. Thank you for helping enrich and enlarge our dreams of what lies beyond the horizon and for pulling humanity forward.

Best,
Danny Stillion

Visual Futurist: Syd Mead

Dear David Kelley,

You taught me that even the most simple acts can communicate thought, intention, and creativity. Who knew gift wrapping could be an act of self-expression and creativity, or that you could say "no" to someone and still leave them feeling good about the exchange?

You taught me it's all about the nuance, and the details. That with as much care and thought applied to the moments in between, that you can have a lasting impact on someone's day.

In an world of design full of black and grey, you encouraged me to bring the color.

—Sally Sosa

Dear Vaughan Oliver,

I first met you through the Pixies. I don’t know if it was the big hairy back, geometrically augmented monkey, or the bowl of sheep eyes, but you had me hooked. And who uses script type like that!?!! When I first met you, I expected a severe, dark personality in an equally severe, dark dress. But who I met was a clever, happy, normal guy with an incredible eye for the unusual and a penchant for good stories. Because of you, I still own an unusual number of 4AD CDs, whether I like the music or not. And I usually do.

—Michael Hendrix

Dear Aleksandr Rodchenko,

Thank you for teaching me that typography matters. That, with the right size and placement, words on a page can punch you in the face. That might be the most powerful design lesson I ever learned, and something I’ll never be done learning.

Still stunned,
Joe Brown

Dear Jackie and Lloyd,

It was summer of 2007, London Design Week, and my feet were pounding from covering miles and miles of "best of the best design."
Everything is starting to look the same. My eyes glazed over. "Get me out of here!"

On my way to exiting this hell I stumble across a sanctuary. "Take a deep breath..."

Actually, it took my breath away.

Organic sinuous lines, the color so elegant, I still remember that egg-shell blue on the Malvern sofa. But what made the most lasting impression was the two women designers standing before me—as if I was looking at a future self.

Flash forward 11 years, you two continue to inspire me by pushing the craft in furniture design, to bridge the gap between design cultures at We Present, and to help others be successful.

Thank you for showing me the way.

I still dream of an internship, maybe one day...

—Yuni Lee

Dear Marcel Wanders,

You were the designer that I literally wanted to be when I was in school. From your early work with Droog to your radical experiments with materials, to the fantastic stories you create through spaces and objects today. Your work couldn't be more different from what I do as a designer—and I relish that you live way out there on the edge of art and design to remind me of the limits of sound strategy and argued rationales, and to remind us all of the importance of beauty and love and intuition. More recently, we've had the chance to meet, work together, and become friends. I am better at what I do by being challenged by what you do.

—Clark Scheffy

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Do you remember when you first fell for design? The moment you discovered someone whose work sang to you, moved you, sent you skipping down a creative path? In these love notes, the bleeding-hearts of IDEO declare their love for the artists, writers, and designers who showed them the way.

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.