Midea, one of China’s largest appliance manufacturers, wanted to identify growth opportunities in the domestic consumer market, while focusing on people’s cultural beliefs around health and well-being. During the course of the project, IDEO found that Midea could play a key role in building a healthier nation.

The team set out to design potential future products for Tong (“through, whole, and to understand”) that are built around the basic themes of eating, breathing, and being: an easy-to-use, hassle-free herbal tea dispenser, an air balancer that improves and balances the quality of air in the home, and a body-balancing mobile phone app that encourages users to rebalance their body condition where needed, through movements created with the Chinese philosophies of well-being in mind.

The Tong project was featured extensively in the press, and opened further conversations with Midea about creating new value and extending into new markets.

Put food on the table or keep the furnace running on a frigid day? It’s an unfortunate choice many low-income families in Flint, Michigan, face.

To help customers in Flint and other Michigan towns stay on top of their utility bills and better understand the relationship between their energy consumption and the resulting costs, Consumers Energy partnered with IDEO and utility assistance provider The Heat and Warmth Fund (THAW) to create an innovative pilot billing program called Clear Control in late 2013.

The pilot was designed with three major human-centered changes to the traditional utility experience:

• Instead of monthly bills, participants received two bills per month. Shorter billing periods allowed for smaller, more frequent payments, helping customers match available funds with their ability to pay.
• Daily text updates on energy usage and bill amounts kept consumption top of mind.
• Consumers Energy offered personalized, in-home audits to help customers make low-cost, high-impact changes to their energy bills.

A year later, the results of the pilot are energizing. Clear Control participants accumulated no new debt, while the control group owed $300; pilot customers used 20 percent less electricity, reducing their bills by $200 per year; and 95 percent of participants paid their bills in full and on time, compared with 35 percent in the control group. The utility company simultaneously benefited by avoiding arrearages, late-payment fees, and shutoffs. Consumers plans to incorporate Clear Control lessons into its overall energy assistance program design and development moving forward.

"It’s no longer ‘me’ against ‘them’—now it’s ‘us,’" said one Clear Control participant.

In 1980, Apple asked IDEO to develop a mouse for their radical new computer, the Lisa. Previous attempts at mouse design, by Douglas Englebart and Xerox PARC, yielded results that were too expensive and hard to make. The Apple mouse needed to be more reliable and less than 10 percent of the cost of the earlier versions.

To start, the design team created a cheaper, much-improved mechanism that would operate the mouse, and found that a complex, plastic "ribcage" would hold the pieces together. The team similarly tested and refined the mouse’s other key components, from the audible and tactile click of the button to the rubberized coating on the ball. A record turntable spun for days, logging “mouse miles” to check the reliability of the electromechanical assembly.

The resulting mouse proved mechanically and economically sound and was changed only slightly when adapted for use with the first Macintosh computer. The basic mechanism design is used in virtually all mechanical mouses produced to date.

Food is the heart of most cultures. In China, one of the oldest cultures in the world, food is central to family gatherings and celebrations. It’s what binds people, a tangible way of showing love and respect. But in recent years, the Chinese food industry has suffered from concerns around safety.

Two siblings, Harn and Anmao Sun, set out on an ambitious venture: to create a trusted source of food in China and, by setting an example, to instigate a movement around conscious farming practices. The American-born entrepreneurs launched Hunter Gatherer, a restaurant and retail food space built around a transparent supply chain, from farm to table to grocery shelves. The venture is based on growing and serving what they call real food: The ingredients are chemical-free and come from known and trusted sources—food they’d eat themselves. The purpose of the venture is simple: to serve people real food that is their right.

Having studied and worked in the US, Harn and Anmao grew accustomed to browsing farmers markets on Saturday mornings or picking up a burrito at Chipotle. But when they returned to China, they were unsure about the safety of the food they were eating.

“In China, you wouldn’t go to a food stand, because you’d be concerned about the ingredients,” Anmao said. “You can’t take the safety for granted.”

Hunter Gatherer’s very existence challenges bedrock assumptions about how food is produced in China. A long and depressing list of scandals—milk contaminated with melamine, pork produced from diseased pigs, used cooking oil repackaged and sold as new—has rocked the public trust.

“In China, agriculture is going through a huge change,” Anmao said. “In the US, agriculture operations are regulated. Farmers’ practices are regulated. If they use pesticides, there are limits because these farmers understand that once a certain threshold is hit, additional pesticides will not yield more crops. But in China, pesticide use came about 30 years after the US and Europe, and because of a lack of full understanding, farmers in China incorrectly operate under the assumption that more pesticides means more crop yields. Also, with over 250 million farmers in China, it becomes immensely difficult to properly regulate everyone.”

New Ventures

Harn and Anmao wanted to restore trust in the simple act of eating in China, and they came to IDEO to build a scalable business based on that vision. This was essentially a startup, a shared commitment between IDEO and Hunter Gatherer.

“I’ve lived in Shanghai for the past seven years, and as a relatively active and health-conscious person, I’ve had to invest quite a bit of time in finding food that I trust,” said Charles Hayes, managing director of IDEO Shanghai. “That investment has been both in the time it takes to research the sources of ingredients but also a literal investment in paying a high price for imported food just for that extra peace of mind.”

Anmao and Harn took up residence in the IDEO Shanghai offices to incubate their business. Together with IDEO designers, they tested packaging, cooked countless meals, and found ways to introduce unfamiliar ingredients to Chinese consumers. They discussed different concepts of lunch and dinner, and how notions of freshness in Chinese culture might affect cold-storage systems. In IDEO’s prototyping kitchen, the teams tested all manner of different foods, flavors, colors, mixes, and price points, and they brought consumers in to try them out. IDEO designers, along with the founding team, also worked on the brand and positioning of what would eventually become the Hunter Gatherer enterprise—its location, human resources, and marketing strategies.

As the restaurant concept came together, finding the right food sources had to be addressed. Traditional agriculture couldn’t be trusted; organic certifications were available on the black market, and safety protocols around chemical use were nonexistent. Anmao and Harn decided to invest in their own farms. They met with farmers, asked questions about their methods, and walked in the fields to see for themselves. Eventually they settled on two plots of land outside Shanghai and began developing more than 80 different crops to be used in the restaurant.

From Seed to Table

When it came time to find the right space for the first location, Anmao and Harn discovered an open, airy storefront on Anfu Road in Shanghai’s tree-lined former French Concession area. They designed and built a retail space and kitchen, and along with IDEO designers, they trained the staff and organized workflows. The staff set the tables with Mason jars filled with flowers, hung photographs of the farmers who grew the food, and put up a sign that showcases the percentage of vegetables coming directly from the Hunter Gatherer farms, already more than 70 percent in less than a year after opening.

Customers can shop for fresh vegetables, locally sourced and imported canned and jarred goods, bins of cereal, freshly made smoothies, artisan sauces, and exotic chocolates. Upstairs, they can feast on delicious dishes in the homey restaurant.

Reviews have been glowing. One customer raved about the machine that grinds fresh nuts. Another loved the open space, the “good vibes,” and the refreshing cucumber water. Young people go there on dates, and families return for the delicious menu variety.

The convivial space has blossomed into more than just a restaurant and grocery store. It’s become a gathering place of sorts, both for the community and for partners who share the same vision. Farmers and food purveyors are invited to showcase their products at seasonal events and to mingle with customers and share recipes and stories.

“Hunter Gatherer has come to symbolize a kind of lifestyle the Chinese people have been looking for,” said Eugene Lin, an IDEO business designer. “A place they can enjoy hanging out with friends, as well as a movement and mission they can stand behind.”

A Digital Future

This is just the beginning of the venture. The plan is to open 40 more locations throughout China. But the vision for Hunter Gatherer’s growth is bigger than brick-and-mortar restaurants—where the business will truly scale is in the digital space. Eventually, the plan is to launch a Hunter Gatherer online grocery store from which anyone can buy food grown from trusted sources.

“We have to create trust with the consumer. It’s the most difficult and most valuable thing to do in China, especially with food,” Anmao said. “Our brick-and-mortar locations will establish that increased trust. Then we can go online and grow the idea to the rest of the country.”

Will Hunter Gatherer have a hand in changing the way that the world’s most populous nation thinks about food? Its principles are already spreading, from neighboring farmers adopting more sustainable planting methods, to a growing market for products like wine.

But the true sign of success will be almost invisible—the moment when an increase in demand will result in safe food for everyone and when real food becomes commonplace.

He had taken a disability leave from work to prepare for the removal of a tumor on his spine. The drives to his appointments had become routine, each trip a reminder of how much his body was changing—and how much he now relied on me. He said, “I’m going back to work after my surgery.” Despite my uncertainty, I didn’t argue. The surgery gave him a 50 percent chance of walking again, and for him, that was enough. But the probability alone was not enough to prepare me for what came next.  

At 22, I came face-to-face with the hidden costs of healthcare when my father became paraplegic. Since then, I’ve become his sole full-time caregiver. This role has profoundly shaped my perception of the healthcare system—not only exposing the many gaps in healthcare but also the massive opportunities to improve how care is designed and delivered.

Today, alongside my role as a caregiver, I am an interaction design fellow at IDEO, where I spend my days collaborating with other designers to shape and refine human-centered experiences. Part of our job is to listen with empathy to user pain points to craft useful solutions that foster trust and understanding. As both a caregiver and a designer, I deeply understand these pain points and how we can design solutions that ease the burden on the 24 million caregivers in the US alone—whether it’s creating clear, comprehensible medical bills or developing devices that help prevent further health complications. Here are four massive opportunity areas I believe we need to solve for.

Mitigating enormous burnout

The first few years were by far the most difficult. My peers were embracing the newfound freedom of adulthood, while I was responsible for everything from dealing with insurance companies to daily cleaning and bandaging his stage-four wounds. I was in and out of the hospital, drowning in paperwork and trying to make sense of my father’s condition, his medications, new routines, and medical bills. I spent countless hours battling with insurance reps, demanding appeals, chasing down unreliable case managers, and pushing charge nurses to advocate on my father’s behalf. The burnout was debilitating. But there are so many opportunities to lessen that load.

Technological tools that patients and their families can trust can help close the gap in an inequitable healthcare system. Already, AI tools like Hyro AI and SICURA by Nohold are taking on some of these pain points by reducing the complexities of dealing with insurance, treatment options, and medical jargon. Hyro AI is even integrated into many electronic health record systems, allowing patients easy access to their personal health information to understand and manage treatment.

But what if AI patient advocates could take things a step further, flagging biases, challenging questionable denials, and assisting with appeals? As insurance companies increasingly use AI to deny claims, such a tool could help level the playing field, ensuring that vulnerable patients aren’t silenced by the very systems meant to support them.

Navigating the system

My father was hospitalized for over a year following his surgery, moving between the ICU, skilled nursing facilities, and acute rehab centers. Each stay brought hefty bills, frequently arriving months later with little clarity about their origins. They were outrageously expensive, and I struggled to understand what we actually owed—or why we owed it in the first place. Between the maze of Medicare, state programs, and private insurance, determining financial responsibility was completely overwhelming, and cost transparency was non-existent.

What if medical bills were as clear as itemized receipts, with straightforward descriptions alongside hospital codes? Originally designed to prevent fraud, medical billing systems rely on cryptic codes like “ICD-10” and “CPT”—effectively standardizing claims but making them nearly impossible for patients to decipher. While these systems serve the industry, they often do so at the expense of patient transparency and accessibility. An app that translates these complex codes into a simple, easy-to-read breakdown would be invaluable.

Beyond that, there’s an opportunity to design a visual progress tracker or dynamic dashboard, helping caregivers and patients manage payments, track processing status, and reduce the financial guesswork that adds unnecessary stress to an already difficult journey.

As a young adult learning to manage my own financial responsibilities while taking on my father’s, I found myself in need of a financial “buddy”—someone who understood my situation and had the expertise to guide me. While some companies, like the AI app Cedar, are tackling this issue, there’s still significant potential for innovation in this space.

Providing physical care

Whenever my father developed a stage-four bedsore, I had to administer IV antibiotics every six hours for eight to 12 weeks. During these times, I was stuck at home, bound by the six-hour window, having to reposition him every two hours to help the wound heal and prevent new sores from forming.

When you care for someone with limited mobility, bed sores are one of the most challenging issues. In the US alone, nearly 60,000 people die from bed sore complications annually. They emerge shockingly quickly and can go from the size of a nickel to so deep you can see bone. For caregivers, the physical toll of lifting and repositioning their loved ones can be overwhelming; it often left me physically drained and emotionally exhausted.

After dozens of hospital trips and many sleepless nights, I decided to invest in a specialized bed that could handle repositioning. But insurance doesn’t cover them. And they range from $2,000 to $15,000. A pressure-relieving mattress adds another $500 to $3,000, and professional assembly—often required—can cost an additional $200 to $500.

Imagine if there was a smart, modular bed for paraplegics that automatically adjusted using an AI-powered scanning app to track movement and prevent pressure sores. It could offer personalized configuration by allowing users to add or remove features as needed, enabling customization at home. Additionally, an affordable smart mattress that monitors sores and relieves pressure could greatly benefit both the caregiver and the patient. Accompanied by an AI-powered scanning app, the bed could track movement and prompt timely repositioning. Companies like Tidewave and Arjo already use technology to help mitigate bedsores, and the ForeSite Intelligent Surface (IS) by XSENSOR uses AI to monitor the real-time emergence of sores. However, these solutions are largely limited to hospital settings. If a company could create an affordable version for home use, it could significantly improve the lives of millions of patients and their caregivers.

Accessing home modifications

When my father was discharged from the hospital, it was up to me to find a wheelchair-accessible home in the Bay Area. Whether it was too-narrow doorways, steps, or tight corners, none of the homes I toured had the necessary modifications for him to navigate in his power wheelchair. The home we finally found had enough space to meet his mobility needs, but we still had to pay out of pocket for ramps, touchless light switches, and other accessible features. Even now, he can’t leave the house on his own. He can’t reach the door handle from his wheelchair, and the ramps are too narrow for him to safely navigate alone, leaving him at risk of getting stuck—something that has happened more times than I’d like to count.

Instead of having to tour each house with a tape measure in hand and the wheelchair measurements stored in my phone, it would have been incredibly helpful to have an app that could instantly tell me if a wheelchair would fit through the doorframe or if adding a ramp was feasible.

Imagine if that app connected to stores like Home Depot or Amazon, curating a list of items I could purchase directly, without the hassle of checking measurements myself. Or, what if real estate or rental apps had a special section for homes that had already been modified or were built with accessibility in mind? With the right tools in place, I could have avoided much of the uncertainty and frustration, making the journey to find an accessible home much smoother for both my father and me.

What began with inexperience and uncertainty has evolved into a journey of growth and adaptation, both as a caregiver and a designer. Together, my father and I have learned a lot about how to live our new life—and each other. It has not been easy. And there is so much opportunity for insurance companies, healthcare providers, and startups to alleviate the unnecessary stress for caregivers and their loved ones. As the caregiver population continues to rise, the need for innovation is clear—without it, millions will continue navigating these challenges alone. As designers, we’ve only scratched the surface—there is so much more that we can do.

As my father and I prepared to head to Stanford for yet another doctor’s appointment, I remember asking him, “Are you prepared to never walk again?”

As you play, your job is to move a circle from one side of a line to the other. At each level, you have to wait one more second before you can cross the line. It’s both easy and increasingly boring—until you up the level of friction. The harder you make it, the more obstacles fill your path, and the more points you score. The higher the friction, the greater the fun, sense of accomplishment, and meaning.

This is a principle that’s true across play. Think about it: You could walk to the kitchen to grab a glass of water, or you could pretend your kitchen floor has turned to gooey molten lava, and hop  from chairs to rugs to the sink to get what you need. You could sit around at home mindlessly watching TV on a Friday night, or you could pay money to be locked in a room with your friends, forced to solve puzzles to earn your collective freedom.

As the Executive Managing Director of IDEO’s Play Lab, I lead a team of toy inventors and designers who use play to create effective and joyful products and experiences. Rarely does our work involve making things seamless. It’s usually about inserting obstacles, adding layers, and crafting challenges to help motivate and delight players, employees, and customers alike. 

And yet, as technology accelerates at an unprecedented pace and becomes intertwined in all aspects of our lives, from dating to healthcare to managing our time, we’re constantly trying to remove as much friction as possible. Digital tools promise to streamline our calendars, show us the shortest routes to destinations, enable us to make purchases with a single click, and even facilitate our relationships with each other.

But at a moment when technology promises frictionless living, we have to ask: What are we losing when everything becomes too easy?

Lessons from Gen Z

Gen Z is our first generation of digital natives, people roughly between the ages of 14–28, who have known digital technology and the internet for their entire lives. They have also seen the downsides: cyberbullying, superficial relationships, and broken attention spans. In many ways, they understand the costs of tech better than the rest of us. 

Last year, we tested early prototypes of creative and relationship AI tools with a group of young people to gain a deeper understanding of what they truly want from technology. They were universally clear: They’re happy to use AI tools that can make them more efficient, but they don’t want to get rid of the messy parts of life. As one of them told us, “I want to go on a date for myself. I want to go on a bad vacation. You know what I mean? I want to experience things and be like, ‘Oh, I hated that.’”

There are numerous videos on YouTube featuring young people questioning the value of tech making their lives more convenient. Some are going so far as to turn back the clock, embracing flip phones, embarking on digital detox journeys, and becoming digital minimalists. On YouTube, Jess Farnham shares how intentional tech breaks help her feel more grounded. Sakura Opal explains her switch to a flip phone as a return to intentional living. JV Scholz paints a picture of the creative rebirth that comes with limiting your screen time.

The comments on their videos reveal a growing groundswell: Consuming mountains of content is becoming overwhelming. These young people want to return to creating content through activities they loved as children, like writing stories and drawing. They’re also recognizing that our brains have lost the ability to sit with our thoughts or commit our full attention, factors that can be contributing to our growing loneliness epidemic, because intimacy requires time, focus, and effort.

Young people aren’t the only ones—brands are responding, too. Bottega Veneta shut down its social media channels to focus on in-depth, slow storytelling. Heineken and Bodega created the “Boring Phone,” a tongue-in-cheek device that encourages users to step away from digital distraction. Merriam-Webster’s 2023 Word of the Year? “Authentic.”

Designing for meaningful friction

Instead of assuming that we should always design for efficiency, we should look for opportunities to design for deliberate friction, perhaps making our lives a little bit slower and maybe even more challenging.

As human-centered designers, friction has long been a part of our toolkit. And not just recently with the proliferation of AI. In 2011, we partnered with the beloved nonprofit Sesame Workshop to develop Elmo Calls, an app that allows preschool-age children to call Elmo to hear advice, educational stories, songs, and jokes. Going to the doctor for a shot? Need help going potty? Call Elmo for support and a positive message about the challenge ahead! The app’s purpose was never to have kids glued to a screen, though.  Together with Sesame Workshop, we made a decision: Elmo will show up for a few minutes when kids need him most, and when the call is over, he will hang up. 

We did something similar when we designed a VR version of the classic ViewMaster with Mattel. The toymaker asked that we purposely design it without a headstrap, so that kids could interact with incredible scenes enabled by the new technology for a reasonable amount of time, but would put the device down when their arms grew tired. This purposeful friction moderates usage and ensures that kids can experience the fun while encouraging most of their playtime to be in the real world, with real people.

Can you imagine if our phones weighed as much as bricks? Our lives would be very different.

Maintaining the rewarding parts of work

Recently, we’ve been involved in several AI projects where the initial impulse is to outsource work to tools that can automate tasks, generate content, or make decisions on behalf of users. But, there is a danger in outsourcing all our work to AI, because not all work is created equal. True, there’s burdensome work that you don’t want to do, but there’s also rewarding work that you wouldn’t want AI to take away from you.

When an early-stage startup approached us for help designing an AI-powered writing hub for high school students and their teachers, our research quickly made it clear that both students and teachers value the process as much as the result. As one student said, “I feel like writing kind of helps you learn more about yourself, and I feel like just having a computer do that for you...you don’t really get to tell your own story.” Their teacher told us, “It isn't just about the strict grade that I’m giving them, but also making sure that their writing connects to them as a human being. It gives me a peek into who they are as a person.”

Writing isn’t just about writing. It’s testing ideas and practicing critical thinking. The effort that goes into it is well worth it if it lets us share our thoughts with others, gives us a sense of accomplishment, and enables us to learn more about ourselves and each other.

So, rather than create a tool that makes writing easier, Ethiqly was born out of the question: What if teachers could give individualized writing instruction to every student? The product we designed with our clients guides students through the steps of developing their own creative thoughts—surfacing topics they are excited about, providing the right prompts to draw out ideas, and helping them craft a story that feels authentic to who they are. It also helps teachers provide individualized feedback at scale. It’s not about having AI replicate our work; what we want is for technology to help us do our work better so that we can continue to learn and feel the exhilaration that comes with that accomplishment.

Designing a more rewarding future

If, at this point, you're rolling your eyes at my proposal to purposely add friction, don't worry. I’m not suggesting we slow everything down. AI is poised to bring incredible enhancements to our lives. There are many things we want to do as quickly as possible, from curing diseases to predicting natural disasters. Even mundane everyday moments, like finding directions quickly when we’re running late, benefit from AI’s frictionless speed. There’s plenty of drudgery we can get rid of, too. But we need to be thoughtful about where we apply efficiency versus just creating efficiency wherever we can. 

Imagine if instead of watching videos at 2x speed, they automatically paused and invited us to explore the content in more depth, allowing us to click on elements that catch our eye so that we can learn more about an object, person, location, or event. It could even compel us to reflect and comment on what we're seeing. What if our map apps didn’t automatically take us on the shortest route between points A and B, but instead offered a discovery mode option when he have the time for a more inspirational route? What if we abandoned endless scroll for a feed interrupted by challenges that prompt us to put our phones down and go interact with nature? What if it offered us rewards for time away from our screens, like a coupon for a cup of coffee at the cafe down the street?

Technology will keep evolving. AI will keep getting smarter. And there will always be new temptations to make life easier. But human-centered design has never been about making everything effortless. It’s about knowing when to embrace the effort—to design for friction, for complexity, for depth. Because it’s in those deliberate moments of challenge that life becomes more meaningful, more social, more joyful. Imagine what the world could look like if we design for meaning, not just for speed.

Looking to design for friction in your own products and services? Get in touch. We're here to help.

(This article was adapted from Michelle Lee's main stage talk at Config '25. You can watch the full talk here.)

Recently, my colleague Takashi Wickes designed a deceptively simple game called wait. wait.. wait…

“What might be” was suddenly overshadowed by “what must happen now.” The pandemic disrupted every aspect of our healthcare ecosystem and forced us to adopt an entirely virtual primary medicine model, something most health systems had previously only experimented with. It felt like everything was urgent, and getting anyone to focus on the future seemed impossible. Surrounded by all that chaos, I decided to look back to see what history could tell me about major shifts in this industry during other periods of great uncertainty.

The past is filled with patterns of human triumphs, mistakes, and missed opportunities. These moments can give us a strong sense of how humans, governments, markets, and organizations might react to profound change. A century before COVID-19, the 1918 influenza pandemic similarly upended global healthcare, exposing the limitations of existing care delivery systems. Looking back at this period offered significant insights into how a crisis catalyzes transformation. In that era, patients received healthcare in their homes, by general practice doctors who were also members of their community. Just as COVID-19 forced a rapid transition to virtual care, the devastation of the 1918 pandemic led to the expansion of healthcare systems, the professionalization of medicine, and public health reforms. Despite the realities of the moment, the feelings of fear and uncertainty people felt in public settings in 2020 were eerily reminiscent of the fears that marked the 1918 influenza crisis.

Each decade of our past tells stories about how change develops. The Industrial Revolution demonstrated how rapid technological advancements could reshape economies; the Space Race of the 1960s highlighted how global competition could fuel scientific breakthroughs; and September 11 proved how tragedy could bring a country’s diverse communities together in a shared purpose. Adding the context of examples from human history brings rigor and believability to the futuring process, upping the likelihood that people can understand potential opportunities and consequences in tangible ways.

But how do futurists do this? How do we pick which pieces of the past apply to what we’re trying to solve for, and how do we arrive at tangible takeaways? Here are three ways history can help you understand what could be.

1. A frame for ideation

History doesn’t always offer clear predictions for how change might unfold, but it can provide a scaffolding or starting point for the imagination. A historical lens anchors storytelling, making speculative futures more relatable and actionable by drawing on connections to known human experiences.

In 2023, IDEO partnered with LeadingAge California to explore a fundamental question: What does it mean to age well in a world of rapid change? Through a series of workshops, we examined how traditional older adult care, long centered on institutionalized models, could be reshaped by shifting demographics, emerging technologies, and evolving cultural expectations. We started by grounding our work in historical precedent to add credibility. Then, we crafted six bold, forward-looking narratives that reimagined aging as a deeply human-centered experience, one defined by purpose, autonomy, and connection rather than decline. These stories introduced new possibilities for older adulthood, where updated mindsets on aging, advances in AI, regenerative medicine, and assistive technology redefine what it means to grow old, allowing people to maintain their physical and cognitive health in previously unimaginable ways. Using the past as a framework clarified how services for this population could be reimagined to evolve in response to social and technological change. Within these constraints, we designed futures that felt not just visionary but entirely within reach, creating a roadmap that could help bring these ideas to life.

2. A way to stress-test plausibility

History helps make future scenarios more credible by grounding them in familiar patterns and contexts. This thought experiment requires thinking critically about the past. What factors spurred a particular phenomenon? What kinds of decisions shaped action, and by whom? What decisions did people decide not to make? By examining these dynamics, we gain insights into how similar forces might unfold under new conditions and use them to inform our stories. A backward glance at the mental health impact of isolation during 2020 could provide insights into the potential effects of remote work and virtual schooling on future communities. When we think this way, the past becomes a launchpad rather than a limitation.

These methods were extremely useful in 2023, when we partnered with the DC Federal City Council to reimagine the future of downtown Washington, DC, a city with both a storied past and a future that can change radically every election cycle. To generate bold, forward-thinking ideas for revitalizing downtown neighborhoods, we convened over 100 stakeholders. We asked them to identify the past and present to surface patterns of transformation and areas of opportunity in the city. With that foundation in place, the teams developed plausible future narratives, layering ideas such as new pedestrian zones, green spaces, and artist live/work zones onto physical maps of each neighborhood. These activities helped them create stories of the future that didn’t just feel aspirational but were deeply rooted in the city’s identity, its people, and the existing infrastructure. By looking to history, the workshop unlocked new pathways for action, moving closer to the goal of a thriving, community-driven urban future.

‍3. A method for predicting outcomes

The future is about identifying strategic choices that will shape the future we want to build. History reveals how communities, industries, and organizations responded to change, offering a glimpse into potential outcomes that could have a significant impact.

IDEO’s 2024 collaboration with San Francisco public television and radio station KQED explored how public media will have to evolve to remain relevant and essential in a rapidly shifting landscape. In a day-long workshop, the IDEO team guided the KQED board through a method developed by futurist Sohail Inayatullah called “The Futures Triangle,” which examines the weight of the past, the push of the present, and the pull of the future. By discussing these different forces, we surfaced a key tension: In an era of hyper-personalized content and decentralized media consumption, KQED’s legacy of trusted journalism and civic storytelling can be both a powerful foundation and a potential constraint. So, how will these existing forces shape the future? With this insight in mind, participants crafted stories and created artifacts from the future that drew a picture of a public media ecosystem more deeply embedded in community life, one that reaches audiences through interactive, on-demand, and participatory experiences. They explored how KQED could expand even further as a multimedia organization and community convener to become an agile, responsive, and dynamic force for engagement across generations and platforms. By analyzing the historical forces pushing and pulling the public news source, the group identified key strategic choices KQED could make today to shape the desired outcome of a more inclusive, innovative, and community-driven future for public media.

To build bold, forward-looking futures, we must look backward—not to recreate the past, but to navigate the future with intention. History provides more than context; it offers structure for creativity, a stress test for credibility, and a mirror through which we anticipate consequences. When we weave these insights into our foresight practice and design efforts, we can imagine futures that are rigorous, plausible, and transformational, drawing on the past to shape scenarios that inspire action and meaningful change. Years from now, when futurists look back on today, they will be reading the signals we left behind.

At the end of 2019, I embarked on a project exploring the future of primary care medicine, looking ahead a decade to imagine stories about innovative home diagnostics, expanded virtual care, and transformative shifts in delivery models. Then came COVID-19.

But somewhere between unlocking a new badge and being reminded that your streak is on the line, you wonder, “Am I actually getting healthier—or just getting better at this game?”

Gamification, the technique of borrowing principles from game design to nudge behavior, promises motivation wrapped in fun. It has taken hold for a reason—it works. At least in the short run. Our products now nudge us at every turn. Fitness apps keep us running (literally) after digital rewards; loyalty programs make us strategize our coffee orders like it’s the Olympics; and even financial markets have started to feel more like Vegas, where winning means flipping assets before the music stops. But the important question isn’t whether gamification works. It’s who is it working for?

When game mechanics are used for product strategy without understanding consumers’ deeper motivations, it breeds fatigue, churn, and mistrust. It’s not just bad design, but rather a larger risk to customer loyalty and long-term growth. Gamification strategies that emphasize winning can also unintentionally encourage overconsumption, while attempts to gamify health, community engagement, or sustainability risk reducing meaningful behavior change to shallow, performative tasks.

In a well-designed game, the relationship is symbiotic—you play because you love the experience, and in return, the game designer thrives as more players buy in. But gamification can sometimes feel like a system imposed upon you, where participation is required to unlock basic functionality, avoid penalties, or simply keep up. When this happens, gamification starts feeling more like an obligation—or worse, a trap. The game stops being something we choose to play—it plays us instead.

So how do we harness gamification’s immense promise in a more productive way?

At the IDEO Play Lab, we leverage game design to help businesses drive deep, sustainable engagement. Because most successful products don’t just lean on gamification’s surface sparkle—they dig into the sturdy mechanics of game design itself.

Here are some of the myths of gamification and real ways thoughtful game design can lead to better products.

Myth 1: To make an experience sticky, just add points or badges!

Reality: The deeper opportunity lies in leveraging game thinking to make transformative experiences.

Reducing game design to points and leaderboards sells it far too short. True game-thinking involves designing systems that embody the foundational mechanics of games—like challenge, choice, feedback, and progression—to create deeply engaging, motivating, and transformative experiences.

One example: We were partnering with an organization to develop a digital platform to support the mental health of people aged 14-25. We could have simply added a point or reward system to make the app engaging for this young audience—after all, social media and other apps do just that. But we knew that the benefits of working on one’s mental health aren’t tied to those types of metrics; in fact, employing them can have the opposite effect. Instead, we ran game design workshops to explore specific mechanics and principles that would tap into users’ intrinsic motivations, then used those as a springboard to explore compelling—and beneficial—new features. One of the simplest—and most popular in testing—was a fidget drawing board, where users could make little finger drawings on a starry background that would fade after a few seconds. This playful interaction was a compelling feature that drew our testers back again and again. No leaderboard needed.

Myth 2: Make an experience feel like a game with competition!

Reality: Games do not have to be zero-sum.

Games often have a winner and a loser—one person’s success comes at the expense of another’s. But not always. Over the last two decades, we’ve seen a big rise in new kinds of gaming experiences—cooperative games, cozy games, storytelling games, and more. Games like these leverage game mechanics to build community, encourage expression, or even intentionally lower the stakes to design for new kinds of emergent experiences

On a recent project, IDEO worked with a client that was looking to introduce generative AI workflows into employees’ day-to-day work. They told us that the team responded well to competition and recommended leaning into that to motivate and incentivize participation. So, we split the group into two teams and started tracking achievements to see which team could achieve the highest overall score each week. At first, the teams enjoyed tracking points and competing. But when we introduced a challenge where harder tasks earned more points, participation collapsed. Some tried, but after high scores hit the leaderboard, they felt embarrassed to share lower ones. Others skipped it entirely, assuming they couldn’t measure up.

So, we changed course. Instead of rewarding skill, we gave points for effort and encouraged mentorship over competition. Participation rebounded immediately.

Dialing in the right mechanics for a leaderboard is trickier than you might think. Done poorly, you might discourage the very behavior you’re hoping for. Ultimately, gamification should encourage progress, not perfection.

Myth 3: Gamification works because it’s fun.

Reality: Motivations are much more complex than just fun, and game elements work best when they are tied to more meaningful values.

Fun is suuuuuper subjective. It’s not even helpful to say it’s a motivation. It is an outcome. Some games create fun through storytelling and narrative explorations (think Dungeons & Dragons); other games offer fun through the satisfaction of strategic or tactical problem-solving (think chess). Game designers look at these deeper, more nuanced motivators when they shape an experience.

When we designed the initial prototype for Ethiqly, an AI-powered writing platform for teachers and students, we began with a fundamental belief: motivation goes deeper than fun. Ethiqly is built to support the writing process, not replace it. We applied a play-centered design methodology to uncover intrinsic motivators at every stage. Students don’t just complete tasks—they explore writing voice, style, and critical thinking. Meanwhile, teachers take on the role of game designers, shaping the learning environment through challenges, feedback, and progression systems. Instead of automating away the parts of the writing process that bring users satisfaction and purpose, like students building confidence and skill in developing their point of view, we built experiences that work with their intrinsic motivation. Just like in a great game, the platform gradually increases difficulty, offers meaningful choices, and delivers helpful feedback that sparks growth. Gamification, in this case, works because it isn’t just icing on the cake—it’s a deliberate system for sustained engagement, where technology augments human creativity rather than bypassing it.

Many of the industries that are leaning into gamification—exercise, eating habits, medicine, education—tap into motivations that are similarly complicated. Organizations need to take care to align the ingredients for fun with the criteria for other meaningful outcomes.

Myth 4: Gamification has universal best practices.

Reality: You can’t slap any old game mechanic onto any experience and expect to improve it.

Picture what would happen if you added dice rolls to chess—a game that is deliberately devoid of randomness. You’d change the very essence of it. Similarly, you can’t just add badges to a workout routine and assume it will make the workout better. You might even ruin the original, desired experience.

IDEO once helped design an FDA-approved program to help people quit smoking. The team made early games that were fun to play, but something didn’t feel right.  So, we took a cue from roguelike games, a genre that uses repeated failure to make players’ eventual success more meaningful. (After all, the journey to quit smoking can often include repeated failures.) Some roguelike games even require you to fail in order to level up. Inspired, we applied this kind of game psychology to design a core loop, providing feedback that users could reflect on, understand, and apply on their next attempt. The setup gave users a reason to continue and ultimately succeed.

Layering game elements onto existing activities requires intention and design to dial in the right experience.

When done well, leveraging game mechanics isn’t about points, competition, or chasing fun; it’s about designing experiences that tap into deeper human motivations. The best games can shape how people engage, learn, and grow. But getting it right takes more than a leaderboard—it takes thoughtful design.

At IDEO, we apply play and game mechanics to complex challenges, designing experiences that empower rather than manipulate, motivate rather than pressure, and create lasting impact beyond the next dopamine hit. If you’re looking to build experiences that go beyond the surface and truly engage, let’s talk.

Imagine this: You’re halfway through your fitness challenge, hitting milestones with satisfying progress bar updates and an occasional trip up the leaderboard.

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.

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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.

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