Once considered one of Boston’s best-kept secrets, Boston Harbor Islands National Park was looking to increase visibility and entice visitors to its network of 34 islands, a Civil War–era fort, historic lighthouses, and more than 50 square miles of bays, harbors, and rivers within the Boston Harbor basin.

Together with the National Park Service, Boston Harbor Alliance, architecture firm Utile, and landscape architecture firm Reed Hilderbrand, IDEO and the National Park Service came up with a plan to design a pavilion on the Rose F. Kennedy Greenway, which reconnects the city’s historic waterfront to the downtown area. The team believed a successful pavilion would sell boat tickets, attract passers-by, and enable a positive encounter with the islands. Today, the structure serves as the primary gateway linking Boston to the Harbor Islands, equipping the city with an experiential anchor to better connect visitors with Boston’s coastal gems.

The Boston Harbor Islands Pavilion was officially unveiled on June 2, 2011, and honored with an Honor Award for Design Excellence from the Boston Society of Architects, the 2011 Grand Honor Award from the Associated General Contractors of New England, and a Silver Award from the 2012 ACEC/MA Engineering Excellence Awards.

The Boston Harbor Island Alliance, which acts as a steward for the 34 islands, anticipates that the pavilion will positively impact the number of visitors this year.

In 1901, Charles R. Walgreen, Sr., opened up a small neighborhood pharmacy on Chicago’s South Side. Today, Walgreens is the largest drug retail chain in the US with more than 8,200 locations in all 50 states. As healthcare reform has become top of mind in the US and patient-centered care increasingly the norm, Walgreens sees its scale as an opportunity to rethink the role of the community pharmacy in the 21st century. The company collaborated with IDEO to redesign its pharmacy experience in order to foster rich, trust-based relationships between customers and the most highly trained medical professionals on staff—pharmacists.

Most Americans—75 percent—live within five miles of a Walgreens. With the Affordable Care Act bringing millions more Americans into the healthcare system, Walgreens’ proximity and reach provided a big opportunity to become a convenient and trusted touchpoint for patients outside of hospitals and doctors’ offices, especially those suffering from chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. The challenge: Use design to shift customer perception of Walgreens from just another convenience store to a local place at “the corner of happy and healthy,” where customers could receive everyday health and wellness advice. In other words, bring Charles R. Walgreen’s vision of a community pharmacy to unprecedented scale.

IDEO built out two full-size prototypes of a reimagined Walgreens pharmacy designed to cultivate better relationships between customers and pharmacists. Key to building good relationships were private consultation rooms that allowed for close conversations, and friendly health guides that helped customers browse over-the-counter medications or schedule “take care” appointments. Pharmacists, usually barricaded behind their high counter at the rear of the store, were now positioned out on the pharmacy floor, ready to listen and—most important—ensure continuity of care.

"Patients are engaging with pharmacists even more often to ask about everything—including their medication, health conditions, and prescription regimens," said Nimest Jhaveri, Divisional Vice President, Pharmacy Transformation.

The new Well Experience format was launched in two pilot locations in Chicago just a few months after the prototypes were built. Combining IDEO’s pharmacy work with Walgreens’ new approaches to beauty products, fresh food, and online shopping, 750 Well Experience locations have opened in the US and Puerto Rico—including 14 flagship stores in major cities—and an additional 1,000 are planned for the coming years.

Walgreens is also expanding the scope of its Take Care Clinics, which are usually staffed by nurses or physician’s assistants, to include the diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of chronic diseases such as diabetes that are typically handled by doctors. The company considers its Well Experience pharmacies a work in progress and plans to keep evolving the design based on customer feedback.

Opening a bottle of wine is typically a moment of no return, because what remains after the first pour almost immediately begins to oxidize.

But Greg Lambrecht knew there was a better way. He came up with an idea to pour the wine without opening the bottle. With a new device, a slender needle is inserted into the cork, and argon, an inert gas, pressurizes the bottle to pour a single glass. Remove the needle, and the tiny puncture in the cork naturally reseals, maintaining the integrity of the wine in the bottle.

Working with Lambrecht, IDEO refined the look, feel, and user experience of his device, designing and building a prototype that captured the expression of his eureka moment. Using this prototype, Lambrecht raised significant seed funding for his startup, and launched the Coravin System in July 2013. The company continues to grow year after year.

Lambrecht introduced the only product of its kind sold in the global market, and preliminary sales have far exceeded expectations. What’s more, for wine lovers everywhere, there’s finally a solution to savor and preserve every last drop.

Wells Fargo, one of the United States’ largest banks, wanted to enable customers get to the ATM functions they wanted faster. The updated interface needed to be different enough to have a tangible impact, and had to appeal to an extremely broad audience. What’s more, any changes made to the interface had to be compatible with the existing hardware of all of the ATMs in operation nationwide.

Wells Fargo and IDEO worked to enhance and customize the ATM user experience by making it innovative, fast, and easy—without requiring any new hardware. The interface’s entire layout is personalized, based on what a user does most at the ATM. It gives users an immediate glance at their account balances (which they can also hide) and highlights the touch screen 'buttons' that they use most (by putting them at the top of the screen in green). New data hierarchy also facilitates skimming for fast decision-making and provides messages and notifications based on a customer’s priorities. “[The design] shows an intense attention to detail,” noted American Banker.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MAGGIE LYNN, IMAGE COURTESY OF BIZJOURNALS.COM

Name: Shruti Ramiah
Location: Munich
Role at IDEO: Design Research Lead
Joined IDEO: 2011
Website: www.shrutiramiah.com
Titillating Fact: I travel a lot for work, and one thing that helps me make every new place feel like home is the BBC World Service Radio (plus a healthy dose of BBC Radio 4). My grandfather used to tune into the World Service News every evening on Shortwave Radio. Now I have the digital radio on almost all the time, and I find the familiar voices very grounding. It’s also why so many of my conversations start with “So, I was listening to this show…”

1. Flash Forward

Flash Forward is a podcast about the future. Each episode starts with a little audio story playing out one potential future scenario—from the believable to the bizarre. I love the way Rose Eveleth brings intangible futures to life in these stories and then breaks them down to investigate the elements of the scenario.

2. New Philosopher

I discovered this magazine in Sydney. It’s one of many great independent magazines coming out of Australia. Each issue focuses on one theme that is relevant to contemporary life, and explores it from a variety of perspectives. I am amazed at how they make philosophical questions accessible and understandable. Don’t be put off by the name.

3. Jean Jullien

Jean Jullien is a wonderful graphic artist with a great light-hearted sense of humour in his work. Following him on Instagram ensures that there’s always a smile (or a smirk) waiting for me in my feed everyday. @jean_jullien

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In this series, we ask IDEO designers to share the stuff they're digging right now—tools, books, music, sites, people, places—so you, too, can drink from the fount of inspiration bubbling up here. This week's guest star: Shruti Ramiah.

OUR FIRST TIP COMES FORM NJOKI GITAHI, SENIOR COMMUNICATIONS DESIGNER AT IDEO, WHO RECENTLY LED INDESIGN NOVICES IN NEW YORK THROUGH AN EMAIL-BASED INTRO TO ADOBE'S POWERHOUSE PUBLISHING TOOL.

Sometimes you need to cut to the chase. If you're learning a tool outside your discipline, it's usually because a deadline is looming and your go-to experts can't help. There's no time to luxuriate in lessons. You need Quick + Dirty tips: bite-sized tool tutorials to beef up your skills, one morsel at a time.

Working with hardware enables designers to create more meaningful, situation-specific interactions that might feel cumbersome or be impossible with software alone. Last year, I had the opportunity to work on a project with IDEO.org (a nonprofit design organization that launched out of IDEO with the mission to improve the lives of people in low-income communities through design) that tested my software and physical design skills. The brief: Apply low-cost sensor technology to precision agriculture for smallholder farmers in developing countries.

Informed intuition

Before heading to the field, our small team started by researching precision agriculture practices and technologies for farms and households. We found inspiration in devices like Parrot Flower Power. Even so, we really had no idea what a good precision agriculture device could be, or what challenges farmers faced. But at IDEO, we believe that you learn best by doing. So we quickly ginned up three devices to facilitate conversation with farmers: the Magic Stick, the Ambient Sensor, and the Rice Shoot.

The Magic Stick

Physically, the Magic Stick was inspired by traditional farming tools like rakes and shovels. The tip of the stick was a temperature/humidity sensor that could be stuck into soil or crops that have been harvested and put in storage. Digitally, the Magic Stick created a data table that combined temperature and humidity with GPS location.

The Ambient Sensor

The goal of the Ambient Sensor was to help prevent the growth of a common toxin that spoils crops in storage in many parts of the world. The sensor tested the environment for the conditions that the toxin thrives in: high humidity and temperature. We designed the device to hang on a storage shed wall, and if high humidity and temperature conditions were detected, LED feedback would alert farmers and prompt them to ventilate the space.

The Rice Shoot

We designed the Rice Shoot to measure the water content of rice fields, making the process of rice paddy irrigation more resource efficient, and potentially increasing yields and reducing disease.

We brought our early prototypes to many farms in Kenya, Tanzania, and Myanmar—countries where IDEO.org had existing relationships. During our travels, we spent our days designing, wiring, and programming in the back of bouncing trucks, tidal river boats, and turbulence-prone airplanes. All the people we spoke with were smallholder farmers who need to farm in order to live. Together, we discussed the challenges of growing specific crops in specific regions, as well as any personal challenges they faced. In northern Myanmar's dry zone, we learned that there were no consistent optimal irrigation practices for betel nut, a cash crop that is a big part of the region's economy. Each farmer was watering at different times of day and for different lengths of time, with different yields.

Introducing the Betel Meter

Our time researching with these farmers showed that what they really needed was an upgraded Magic Stick—something with a brain. So we created the Betel Meter, a device that helps farmers create optimal irrigation for betel nut.

The Betel Meter is planted in key positions in a field and takes moisture readings once an hour. Once a day, a farmer presses the meter’s button. A green LED signifies that soil has a healthy moisture level and the farmer can irrigate normally. Red LEDs signify that the soil has been too dry, and farmers should keep irrigation taps open for an additional five or ten minutes. Blue LEDs signify when soil conditions are too wet.

To build the Betel Meter's brain, we used a TinyDuino from TinyCircuits, an Arduino compatible micro-controller with the power of an UNO. The TinyDuino, which is about the size of a quarter, has a brilliant architecture that allows any additional functionalities beyond basic processing to stack on top of each other. This allowed us to keep the core device small, even though it has a real-time clock, a data SD logger, and GPS boards.

Creating the baseline data for the meter turned out to be one of the biggest challenges of the project. Because optimal irrigation for betel nut in an agricultural zone as specific as northern Myanmar is unknown, we had to rely on white-paper research and some intuition. We first researched ideal moisture conditions for all plant life. Then we normalized evaporation rates for water in sandy soil, and cross referenced it against average temperatures for each month in the region.

The physical

The physical design was equally tricky, since the meter needed to withstand extreme weather for long periods of time to protect the sensitive electronics inside. Luckily, we had IDEO.org's Design Director and Co-Lead of the San Francisco studio, Adam Reineck, on the team. He quickly designed a 3D model in Solidworks and printed the form in nylon, which stood up against heavy rain—and even a sandstorm.

Our early prototypes used USB power banks; however, we knew that the Betel Meter had to be an “always-on” device with a reliable and constant power source. We opted for solar power, something the team had experience with. We began by hacking panels out of old solar camping lights and adding a few resistors and extra batteries to the circuit. That way, we could ensure that the device would store enough energy to power the micro-controller and components through the night.

Once we had our prototype, we returned to Myanmar to field test the Betel Meter, planting four of the devices in two fields. Not only did the Betel Meter provide irrigation feedback, it also recorded and created what we believe to be the first-ever dataset around optimal soil moisture for betel nut. People from all over the region came to see and take photos of the meter, and we were continuously asked to come back with the final working product.

From here, our ideal next step is to add machine learning that allows the device's software to evolve from its own data.

Working on the Betel Meter changed my personal approach to design and how I attack problems. Now, on every project, I try to find opportunities to create products that reach deeper into people’s physical lives than pixels on a screen.

Working with such an amazing team, in such a great place and on a product that challenged me the way the Betel Meter did, changed my life. I will be joining the team full time at IDEO.org in New York City this fall, where, hopefully, I will be part of the next chapter of the Betel Meter.

Read more on Fast Company

In my last article, I wrote about a hobby of mine: translating physical objects into digital experiences as a way to test my skills. Like most interaction designers these days, I am fascinated by understanding how digital can connect to our physical reality.

In a studio like ours, with a very distinctive creative culture, where people feel like they have ownership over their workspace, a massive, group art project would help us say goodbye together. Not only would it be one last hurrah for this studio, but it would also help reinforce the idea that our culture would be moving with us to the next space.

For years, our tradition at the Cambridge studio has been to reinvent our kitchen wall every six months or so. We’ve created everything from a hand-cut monster wall to a science fiction fine art series (think Yoda portraits in renaissance style). Knowing this mural would be the studio’s last, we wanted to create something that made people think and talk about design—reinforcing our values—and, of course, something big enough for everyone to be involved.

We also wanted to leverage our skillsets—Grace’s in drawing and painting, Greg’s in industrial design and fabrication—to pull together the project. At the time, Grace had been working on a series of dot drawings that caught Greg’s eye. They mimicked that phenomenon in nature when many tiny things form a greater whole. That seemed like a great metaphor for celebrating the multidisciplinary magic of the studio. So we decided to create a drawing as a base, and then scale it up into a wooden dowel installation.

To get started, Grace created the dot drawing (below on the left) that served as a guide for the dowels. She makes these dot drawings (one of which the mural is based on) over several hours of repetitive stippling. First, she measures the margins of the paper using a ruler as a guide, then forms all of the dots by keeping her hand as straight as possible.

We then scanned the drawing and used a Processing script that located the coordinates of each dot. Next, we used a custom Grasshopper script to place a circle at each centroid and extrude it up to the 3d surface that we created in Rhino. From there, we just exported the lengths of the dowels in order of installation to a CSV file for Chop-Chop, our cutting machine.

If we could design a method to cut the dowels in order, and then get the installers to place them in that same order, we’d be in business. To do it, we needed some way of organizing the dots into rows for the installers to follow—even though they’re not a perfect grid, since they were drawn by hand. By using Grasshopper script, we were able to find logical rows within the hand-drawn pattern.

Since the rows’ zig-zag route only appears in the software, we needed some type of marker for our installers to follow. By using a dot, double-dot, or no-dot marking scheme, we made it easy for our teammates to to identify and stay in their row, even if it zig-zagged.

The panel production took us seven days. We used a ShopBot Alpha to mill each hole, then made a second pass to mark the hole with the appropriate dot pattern.

Each of the 20,000 dowels is a different length, so we built a CNC bandsaw to help us cut them all. After sketching a few concepts, we settled on a JET bandsaw augmented with a custom digital stop.

We created the digital stop using parts we designed and 3D printed, as well as stock parts from Adafruit, Misumi, McMaster-Carr, SparkFun, and Arduino. Arduino reads the length of each dowel from the SD card, then turns a stepper motor and timing belt, moving the stop to the correct length. Once the dowel is cut, the miter sled hits a switch and tells the stop to move to the next position. Once we were in a rhythm, the process was pretty smooth.

One of the goals of this mural was to maintain the feeling of human touch that’s so obvious in the original drawing once we scaled it up to the mural. So we decided to design a straightforward process for our installers, and then chalk up any misplacements to the artistry of human error. As we chopped the dowels, we slotted them into trays marked with row number, tray number (some rows had up to 6 trays), and the dot scheme, so the installer knew where to start.

Four months later, we were ready for the big install. We invited the entire studio to come in on a Saturday morning, and we were blown away by the number of people who trickled in. Before we knew it, close to 40 people were helping out. Some heroes even stayed until 2 a.m. There were people hammering in dowels, cutting on Chop-Chop, filling trays, documenting with photo and video, and making beer runs. The assembly lines were staggeringly efficient and fun. It was a robot love fest.

We had hoped that there may be some errors in the process and we were happy to see them. You can find these beauty marks where the surface of the dowels gets uneven—that kind of inconsistency is impossible to predict or design, and it completely enhanced the beauty of the piece. Working together with the studio on a piece defined by the installers was a true bonding experience. It was an inspiring weekend for all of us, and we know that we’ll carry that with us in our move around the corner.

Music by Dan Deruntz. Footage by Chris Wright, Tom Kershaw, Dirk Ahlgrim, and Greg Wolos.

Materials: 20,928 birch dowels, 5/16” diameter; 7 MDF Panels, painted white; jet bandsaw; custom linear slide; Arduino MEGA; Big Easy Stepper Driver; Adafruit LED display; stepper motor; timing belt and pulleys; limit switches; custom 3D printed parts

Software: Rhino, Grasshopper, Processing, Arduino

Suppliers: Adafruit, Misumi, McMaster-Carr, SparkFun, Jet Tools

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As we prepare to move from our current Cambridge studio into a new space around the corner, we can’t help but think of it as a place where many of us began our IDEO journey—sneaking up to the roof for sunset cocktails and riding in the freight elevator to the pop-up gallery in the basement. We knew giving it a proper goodbye should mean involving everyone.

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.