Master Kong (known internationally as Tingyi Holding Corporation) is number one in market share in both instant noodles and ready-to-drink teas, with over $10 billion USD in annual revenue. While China has a rich tea culture, most sugar-free bottled tea on store shelves markets itself as “healthy” and “tasty.” Wanting to set itself apart from the competition by uncovering new consumer needs, Master Kong reached out to IDEO. Together, Master Kong and IDEO immersed themselves in modern Chinese tea culture and built a new, premium, sugar-free bottled tea brand that resonates deeply with contemporary tea drinkers. ‍

During research, the combined IDEO/Master Kong team took a two-pronged approach to uncovering new opportunities: industry exploration and consumer research. The team visited various tea-related businesses, from traditional tea houses to modern beverage shops, as well as “third place” tea spaces outside of home or work. They also conducted in-depth, in-home interviews with consumers with various levels of interest in tea, delving deeply into their daily routines to better understand their lifestyles and any emotional or functional needs related to tea.

The team discovered that the essence of Chinese tea culture resonated with contemporary consumers’ longing for authenticity, simplicity, and physical rejuvenation in their fast-paced lives. This insight presented a unique opportunity for Master Kong. Instead of positioning its new sugar-free tea brand as merely a “healthy alternative” to other beverages,  it could spark a meaningful connection to tea culture, seamlessly integrating into various moments of modern life.  

Armed with this insight, IDEO designers and dozens of Master Kong beverage team members participated in a series of immersive, hands-on tea innovation workshops. Teams of experts from R&D, marketing, supply chain, and other company departments temporarily set aside their job titles to explore, iterate, and refine dozens of new tea concepts that were commercially viable, feasible for mass production, and aligned with consumer needs. The cross-departmental collaboration allowed for a broad mix of perspectives, experiences, and expertise, enriching the innovation process.

The co-creation sessions led to a new sugar-free tea product and flagship brand called Cha De Chuan Ren (“Descendants of the Tea”), which celebrates fine, origin-sourced tea and the passion and dedication of tea farmers. The novel concept resonated strongly with consumers and was validated during subsequent rounds of quantitative market testing, ensuring its relevance and market potential.

Cha De Chuan Ren launched with two signature flavors: Tieguanyin (green tea) from Fujian and Pu’er (black tea) from Yunnan. The unique mottled bottle design pays tribute to traditional handcrafted glass containers and the handiwork of tea farmers. The tactile paper label, which features Jia Ma-inspired woodblock illustrations of local tea fields and tea farmers’ hands, nods to the artisanal craft of tea making and the source of the tea inside.

“Descendants of the Tea” debuted on Tmall in April 2024. It claimed the top spot on the commerce site’s Tea Beverage V-List in August and September. Offline, it launched in FamilyMart convenience stores in May and has since expanded nationwide. The new brand received a 2024 Red Dot Award for “Brands & Communication Design.”

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“We are honored to collaborate with IDEO, a global leader in innovation, as our strategic partner. ‘Descendants of the Tea’ is not just an exceptional product but also a tribute to the rich heritage of tea culture. Only by continuously integrating culinary traditions with innovation can we sustainably meet consumers’ true needs.”

Richard Chen
‍CEO, Master Kong (Tingyi Holding Corporation)

“Innovation is incredibly fragile. If even one leader is unsupportive or hesitant, the culture of innovation can collapse. I always encourage my team to take risks, as long as they’re not high stakes. After all, what’s the worst that can happen? At the very least, we’ll have a fair chance at creating something new.”

Wei Hong-Chen
‍Chairman of Master Kong Beverage Holdings Co., Ltd.

Sugary bottled teas were once very popular in China. Today, rising consumer demand for healthier beverage options has expanded the market for sugar-free tea.

#1

on Tmall’s Tea Beverage V-List, August- September 2024

2024 Red Dot Award Winner

‍for Brands & Communication Design

Twenty years ago, carrying a single-use plastic water bottle was a status symbol—no more. Growing awareness of the negative environmental impact of plastic pollution, combined with the adoption of healthier lifestyles and social media influencer trends, has made reusable water bottles “it” accessories for on-the-go consumers. While brands such as Stanley, Yeti, S’well, and Hydro Flask own the under-$100 market, fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dior, and Prada have etched out a new and growing market for high-end bottles that appeal to discerning, trend-conscious young people looking to perfect their hydration habits.

Spotting an opportunity to disrupt the predominantly utilitarian water bottle market, Steinmann partnered closely with IDEO, tasking the team with developing an industrial design that perfected the tactile and sensory user experience, from drinking and carrying to disassembling and cleaning thoroughly. The collaboration deepened over time, with Steinmann and IDEO working together to develop the high-level engineering concept, the OKAPA logo mark, and packaging ideas.

Key user-centered features of the OKAPA bottle include a medical-grade German borosilicate glass interior for superior taste of hot or cold beverages with no lingering odors; a Swiss-engineered thermoplastic lockable and leak-proof tilt cap that can be easily operated with one hand when driving or doing other activities; and an ergonomically shaped mouthpiece for a pleasurable drinking experience. Precision-engineered for maximum longevity, the inner glass bottle is suspended via a shock-absorbing system inside a bead-blasted, extruded, and anodized aluminum outer shell. Eight modular parts come apart easily for either a quick or thorough cleaning.

At its core, the OKAPA bottle elevates an everyday ritual through meticulous design and uncompromising engineering. Launched in January 2025, the new bottles are available in eight contemporary colorways curated by renowned color and materials specialist Beatrice Santiccioli (BSD), including Misti Pinku, Goldie Samba, and Fetishe Noir, among others.

In the US, the reusable water bottle market is estimated to increase from $10.2B in 2024 to $14.1B by 2031, with 69 percent of Gen Zers owning at least one. Customization trends, such as personalized design and branding, are anticipated to boost the market, ripe territory for disruptive startups such as OKAPA. (Persistence Market Research)

Once a practical accessory for hikers and outdoor enthusiasts, reusable water bottles have gone mainstream. Yet none check all the boxes in terms of purity of taste, hygiene, durability, functionality, and beauty.

8

modular pieces ensure hygienic cleaning is quick and easy

100%

recyclable materials in each bottle

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s mission is to interpret and conserve the earth’s biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science. Over its 110-plus-year history, its offerings grew to include everything from a quarterly magazine, popular websites and apps with millions of users (Merlin, eBird), partnerships with outside organizations, and the world’s largest database of photographs and audio recordings of birds. This abundance is a testament to the passionate enthusiasm of its employees. Still, it confused potential members and led to siloed internal efforts, preventing the Lab from advancing its urgent collective vision. “Birds and biodiversity are in peril,” said Executive Director Dr. Ian Owens. “We must take radical action with a coherent vision, united voice, and purpose.”

IDEO began by helping the Lab better define its audience. While primarily composed of people passionate about birds, IDEO discovered its larger audience was nature lovers interested in biodiversity, bioacoustics, conservation, and science. From there, IDEO created a brand strategy and architecture focused on helping the Lab streamline its efforts under the “One Lab” brand. The brand architecture visually articulated the relationship between Cornell University, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the Lab’s many products and offerings. IDEO designed a comprehensive brand identity system to work across mediums, including a simplified logo system, new colors, type, graphic language, voice and tone, and key messaging.

When the Lab’s design team began implementing the new branding elements across its website and many digital products, it became clear that the organization also needed IDEO’s help in creating tools to facilitate cross-department collaboration. To better understand the day-to-day nuances of the organization, IDEO designers worked out of the Lab, co-creating a brand activation playbook. The playbook, launched in 2023, contains recommendations for new cross-functional working groups (partnerships, visual identity, and brand voice), as well as exercises and interactive tools designed to build trusting relationships, gain alignment, foster collaboration, and manage change at scale.

Post-collaboration, the Lab has applied the new brand across its website, apps including Merlin and eBird, Living Bird magazine, email and newsletter templates, and its line of merchandise. A new internal brand guidelines site has become central to employee onboarding, while new working groups are helping to bring down barriers between teams and spur collective action. Like a flock of birds, the Lab now sings one collective song.

The Cornell Lab’s 300+ scientists, professors, staff, and students were passionately dedicated to their individual team’s unique conservation projects, but segmented internal systems could stymie their collective impact.

1 brand

unifying 300+ employees and 8 departments

Founded in 2008, Ascend Public Charter Network prides itself on providing “rich, joyful learning experiences that unlock lives of boundless choice” for its students, 93 percent of whom identify as Black or Latinx. The organization is also proud of being Black-led: 78 percent of staff and 80 percent of the executive team are people of color. Using co-design and joy, IDEO held a mirror up to Ascend’s core optimistic spirit during a moment of anxiety and change, helping its new CEO, staff, students, and parents reflect a dynamic, collectively imagined vision.

While the project’s goal was serious, the combined team centered the collaboration on bringing back fun, beauty, and imagination to those who could use it most: educators. Through engaging interactive activities, the IDEO team invited principals, PTA members, student council representatives, and board members to join “organizationally sanctioned play” moments like creating collaged vision boards and writing poems about Ascend’s impact. These interventions helped burned-out educators escape the day-to-day tasks of running schools and dream expansively about Ascend’s future. The team also solicited written, visual, and audio stories, asking community members to describe Ascend at its very best.

Stitching together submissions from 551 students, 75 parents, and 16 staff members, the co-design sessions resulted in a powerful new purpose, mission, and values, as well as a vibrant visual language and activation tools to bring Ascend’s vision of a “dope,” “unapologetically Brooklyn” charter network to life. The joyful, eye-catching visuals are embedded throughout its 17 Brooklyn schools, staff recruiting and training materials, and digital presence.

Shortly after the collaboration with IDEO, Ascend received an unsolicited  $11 million donation from MacKenzie Scott's foundation, Yield Giving, the most significant gift the then-14-year-old institution had ever received. The pivotal funding will allow the organization, with its bold new “grown-up” vision, to focus on becoming the school of choice in Brooklyn by 2027.

In the summer of 2021, one in four K-12 teachers was ready to quit. Pandemic stressors and increased curriculum scrutiny were to blame, according to a 2021 Rand Survey.

In 2022, 44% of K-12 workers reported burnout, the most of any US professions the time, according to a Gallup Poll.

Pandemic exhaustion and leadership turnover left Ascend’s new CEO eager to align staff around an exciting new vision.

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$11M grant

Ascend received an $11M grant from the MacKenzie Scott Foundation a few months after the collaboration

1 collective vision

to guide a network of 17 schools

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At the time, even telehealth appointments were a rarity, until COVID-19 forced us to adapt. We brought human-centered design to the front-lines of the pandemic, helping design and launch new virtual care platforms, patient health and education platforms, and smart at-home diagnostics. Since then, digital tools have become a normal piece of the toolbox for providers and patients.

Now, digital health is shifting into another new era. M&A is accelerating, AI is shifting from back-office automation to real patient care. And a new administration is actively reshaping the regulatory landscape at a moment where patients are craving choice and transparency.

We’ve been designing for healthier human futures for over 45 years, shaping everything from patient therapeutics like digital diabetes programs to connected medical devices like smarter drug injectors, and clinical software like drug discovery tools. As part of that work, we’re always tracking the signals for what’s coming. Here’s what we see on the horizon in 2025.

1. Co-design is the key to M&A survival‍

Many digital health ventures that raised post-pandemic bridge rounds or early AI funding are running out of capital, which will trigger a new wave of mergers and acquisitions. The companies that survive won’t be the ones with the best tech or the most funding. They’ll be the ones that have built deep, system-wide relationships with health systems and payers.

Too many startups fail because they design for only one stakeholder—patients, providers, or payers. But viability only happens when all three are aligned. And the only way to achieve that is by designing at the intersection of desirability (what people want and need), feasibility (what is technically and operationally possible), and viability (what is financially and systemically sustainable). The solutions that last won’t just check one of these boxes—they’ll be deeply integrated into the way healthcare actually works. And to do that, the companies behind them will need to co-design with all three categories of stakeholders.

That’s what we did in 2024, when we partnered with the California Department of Mental Health and Kooth to create and launch Soluna, a free mental health and coaching platform for youth across California. To create a resource young people would actually use, we worked with more than 150 youth between 13 and 25 across the state to understand their needs, habits, and wants, shaping a platform that felt accessible, engaging, and supportive. To ensure Soluna could scale and actually work within the behavioral health system, we also navigated the constraints of government needs and co-designed with mental health practitioners to create back-office tools adapted to existing workflows. This is what co-design looks like—not just designing what’s desirable for users, but making sure it actually fits into existing systems.

2. Trust is crucial for high-stakes AI products

Some 70 percent of payers and providers have invested in AI to help with documentation, scribing, and automatable admin work. But the true potential lies in patient-facing care, like diagnostics, care delivery, and even clinical trials—but only if we design AI tools that providers and patients actually trust. This year, AI will  increasingly move into at-home care, especially in metabolic health and mental health. With GLP-1 drugs and metabolic surgeries on the rise, patients are going to need long-term personalized behavioral support. AI is perfect for that. In mental health, AI could help close the massive access gap by offering real-time support where no providers are available.

But none of this will happen unless AI is designed with patient trust in mind. We’ve seen firsthand how hesitant health plans are to extend AI beyond internal operations. But AI in healthcare isn’t just a data problem—it’s a human problem. The companies that figure out how to make AI feel safe, clear, and integrated into care delivery will define the next era of digital health.

3. Point solutions are great—but human-centered integration will make them more effective

Digital health is full of point solutions—condition-specific digital therapeutics like in diabetes, sleep issues, and brain health. These solutions have been critical in proving that traditional models of care can be improved with technology. But now, patients are juggling a phone-full of apps; a patient who downloads an app for meditation might need another for virtual primary care, another for weight management, and still another for chronic stress, each siloed in care team, data, and clinical recommendations.

The real opportunity lies in figuring out how to integrate these point solutions into conservative care models, trusted patient-facing brand names, and existing technology/EHR workflows. That means linking them to primary care, specialty care, and the broader health system—not expecting people to manage their own fragmented ecosystem of tools.

‍Maven Clinic does this well. Its mental health offering isn’t just a standalone app; it’s a wraparound service that connects to broader care. That’s the kind of design work we are hoping to see across digital health. As funding tightens and patient adoption slows, the future of digital health will be defined by integration.

4. AI-driven tools will soon replace entire departments

Digital health companies aren’t just pitching software anymore; they’re pitching end-to-end replacements for what were once human-run functions. Startups like InpharmD are using AI to deliver pharmaceutical recommendations at the clinic level, while Hippocratic AI is exploring drop-in AI nursing roles. These aren’t just AI-powered tools—they’re AI-powered workforces.

This isn’t just a shift in technology; it’s a shift in how healthcare organizations operate. If AI agents are going to supplant entire human functions, we need to think beyond just efficiency and automation. What happens to oversight? To decision-making? To the patient experience? The challenge is no longer just about designing better workflows. It’s about reimagining the future of work in healthcare.

5. New consumer choice offers a design opportunity

As people lose trust in the system, they’re looking for ways to take control of their healthcare choices. The question is: How will they actually make them?

With pricing transparency, new payment models where employees buy their own insurance and get reimbursed, potential regulation of pharmacy benefit managers, and a growing dissatisfaction with employer-based insurance, consumers are increasingly getting to choose which provider to see, what treatment to try, and how much they are willing to spend. But the interaction for how that all happens is still up for grabs. Will it happen through provider-led conversations? Employer benefits and brokers? Text-based interfaces like ChatGPT? Or will a new wave of agentic AI help people weigh cost, risk, and treatment options in real time?

So far, no one has cracked the interaction model for healthcare choice. IDEO and Newton-Wellesley Hospital pioneered one method with a concept called “Care Modes,” that allowed patients to decide the approach for how they receive care. The chosen mode flowed into every interaction at the hospital, even adjusting how health information gets logged in the EHR. But options like this are just the beginning.  The future of how people interact with complex healthcare decisions is still wide open. The challenge ahead isn’t just about giving people more data—it’s about designing how they engage with it, trust it, and act on it.

6. Designing for behavior change is still the foundation

Designing for behavior change is one of the most competitive and well-researched areas in healthcare, but there’s still so much room to grow. For the last decade, I’ve taught a course on Designing for Behavior Change at Stanford, where students work directly with patients to develop real lifestyle changes. Over the years, we’ve learned that the most effective interventions involve more than just habit tracking or designing nudges; they also create systems of accountability, community, and self-awareness in a way that aligns with people’s actual lives. That’s why observation and in-context research matter so much.

There’s a big opportunity to rethink how digital health supports long-term lifestyle change—whether that’s reimagining SNAP and WIC programs, integrating AI into personalized coaching, or pulling insights from the most engaging consumer and social platforms.

Prioritizing human-centered design

With so many problems to solve in our health care system (not to mention new ones popping up), there’s no limit to the possibilities for innovation in digital health. But our job as designers is bigger than just making things work; it’s to make a healthcare system that prioritizes user choice, deepens trust in the system, and uses the newest cost-saving technology, while integrating into the existing ways patients access care. That’s how we can drive radical transformation, by putting people—not just business or technology—at the center.

Thanks to Jennifer Lo, Ari Adler, Juho Parviainen, and Jesse Fourt for suggestions.

Four years ago, my colleagues and I were frantically working to bring the promise of digital health to a world in crisis.

What really brings value—and for what purpose—particularly in an era when budgets are tight? Similarly, folks focused on UX research argue that we are in the middle of a “reckoning,” questioning its ROI in certain contexts. Others disagree.

As this tension builds, the world of generative AI offers a new proposition: AI-generated—aka synthetic—users. Here’s the pitch: Are you sick and tired of going through the cost, time, and difficulty of crafting a research plan, finding participants, and creating thoughtful questions? Are moderated exploratory sessions and usability tests taking too long to conduct and synthesize into something actionable? There is a solution: generative AI tools that will simulate what real people might say and then feed it back to you instantaneously. Perhaps even synthesize it automatically!

The synthetic users proposition is meant to be a silver bullet. Already, folks are using it, skipping the time, cost, and hassle of doing research with real people. As leaders in this space, we felt obligated to take it seriously enough to try it out (with a healthy mix of skepticism and optimism).

As one of our teams kicked off a project to improve rural healthcare, they decided to enlist the help of ChatGPT to provide synthetic patient and practitioner insights, using several GenAI tools to create artificial users to interview. It turns out, after three weeks of swimming in a lukewarm sea of AI-generated information, all we needed was one hour with one real flesh-and-blood patient and a human physician who works with marginalized communities in rural areas to show us just how deep and complex real human experiences are—far more than our artificial users could convey.

What design research accomplishes vs. what LLMs can deliver

Relying on synthetic users—really just a lot of data in an LLM model—isn’t just bad for practitioners; it’s bad for business outcomes, and the people we’re designing for and with. AI is unable to provide the key ingredients of research that are critical to our work:

‍Important tangents‍

In open-ended interviews, we follow the lead of participants, inviting them to take us on their journey, even when—or especially when—it seems to deviate from what we thought we were going to talk about.

‍Unexpected insights

Looking at something from research participants’ points of view leads to things we never would have learned otherwise, and creates sparks of insight that help us shift priorities or radically reimagine the problem we’re trying to solve, as well as potential business outcomes.

‍Context clues

When you spend time in someone’s home or place of work, their artifacts, photos, prized possessions, accidental intrusions from family members—and a host of other things—can dramatically alter the course of a research experience and lead to new insights.

Contemporary generative AI products enshrine design principles and methods of working that run counter to what we know about good research practice.

‍People pleasers

They are designed and trained to please you and be helpful. Sometimes participants try too hard to be helpful as well, but researchers are trained to sense this and dig further. There’s nowhere to dig further with a synthetic user.

‍Emotionless entities

Contemporary LLMs lack authentic emotion. They don’t leave the markers and cues that participants often drop to signal there might be more to learn. And if you want a more emotional response, then it’s up to you as a researcher to prompt it—which defeats the whole purpose of doing research in the first place.

‍A shallow context pool

LLMs have to be fed the right context. They can’t say unexpected things beyond what you’re already asking about. Meanwhile, researchers are only able to define what’s relevant as the process unfolds.

‍Forced assumptions

Actually writing a prompt that gets you meaningful answers requires you to make a ton of assumptions about what you might learn.

A disembodied “person” composed entirely of data, which has been synthesized by an LLM looking at vast collections of other disembodied artifacts or words, simply cannot provide the insights and discoveries that research is designed to produce.

Others agree.  Even ChatGPT. When we asked it, “Is it ethical to use synthetic users instead of real ones?” ChatGPT told us, “Users provide valuable qualitative feedback, emotions, and insights that synthetic users cannot replicate. Overuse of synthetic users might result in missing these important human factors in design.”

Or, as researcher Christopher Roosen puts it, “Using synthetic humans for direct research is like navel gazing, but not at our own navels, but into the great messy, cluttered, and often- disgusting navel of the Internet-with-a-capital-I. The solution isn't to make up fake people. It’s getting better access to real people.”

Scrappy ways to accomplish the same goals

Design research can feel like it takes too long or is too speculative or unrewarding. Sometimes, it can lead to a lot of swirl, creating an anxiety gap between insights and the creation of new solutions. There’s also the real problem of resources. Or maybe your stakeholders are looking for immediate results. It’s reasonable for teams to wonder how they can take a more direct path.

But that doesn’t mean you have to discard human-centered research and design altogether. We too are often working on tight timelines, and having to find scrappy ways to get real data from real people. Here are some practical strategies for even the most shoe-string budget.

Friend and family interviews

You should strive to recruit a balanced sample of research participants and work to eliminate any bias baked into the sample design. But doing design research—especially in the early stages of the process—is different. At this stage, it’s actually beneficial to embrace the bias of the sample and use it as a tool to learn. Talking to friends and family to get feedback on early concepts is a viable way to recruit research participants—so long as those people care deeply about the subject matter and you understand the limitations of their perspectives.

Diary studies

When you want to quickly get data from people’s daily lives, often over a specific period of time, diary studies—having people log daily activity or respond to specific prompts throughout their day—come in handy. The size and scope of data you can study can be tailored to meet your immediate needs: You can ask participants to log their habits and thoughts throughout the day in a text or audio journal, take photos and videos, and reflect on your product or similar ones. There are even platforms like dscout that streamline the recruitment, data collection, and analysis process. In one diary study, we asked  a couple dozen participants to show us the moments that mattered in their week—which completely changed how we design for major TV moments in the streaming era.

Intercepts

An intercept is a quick conversation with someone in a physical context. Where better to discuss a hospital’s waiting room experience than in that same waiting room? While the insights from intercepts are often targeted and specific, they’re ideal for quick, actionable feedback—and relatively inexpensive, too. On one project, we showed up at a major home appliance retailer to talk to customers and associates about the problems they were trying to solve together. We discovered that people often came in for a face-to-face interaction that would help them decide whether to repair or replace their home appliance. But while associates were eager to solve the problem, they felt incredibly ill-equipped to do so and could only offer anecdotes based on personal experience.

Expert interviews

Experts not only bring knowledge, but also intuition that can only be acquired through lived experiences, critical perspectives, and sometimes even information that may not be widely accessible. When our colleagues worked on that project to improve access to healthcare for rural populations, talking to one expert in that field gave them the broadest view of all the challenges that population is facing and helped them design for it with greater empathy. Instead of trying to create something purely digital, the team pivoted to creating solutions that foster trust and understanding between the doctor and patient.  

Expert interviews are typically more expensive (they can range from $250 to $1000/hr depending on your expert) but luckily, you don’t need too many of them. You can also think broadly about what qualifies someone as an expert. Communities tied together by a common interest (e.g. Reddit) may get you a different kind of expertise than the capital E experts available for hire.

Social signals

If all else fails, sometimes it’s more impactful to hear the opinions of people directly through the data they leave behind online in the form of posts, comments, and reviews.  Subreddits visited by particular interest demographics, trending topics on social media sites, and product reviews can uncover deeper insights around people’s true feelings and experiences, both bad and good.  When we worked with a music gear manufacturer dealing  with increased returns and customer dissatisfaction, a simple analysis of their own review data helped us identify specific problems, and customers’ suggested solutions.

Looking ahead

Generative AI and LLMs are very useful tools that we’ve embraced in many of our distinct design crafts. And we still believe that there is an opportunity to use LLMs in design research. They can help us think about problems in new ways, help shape a research plan, and guide interviews. After all, LLMs do have access to a wide variety of material that could be quite inspirational in planning phases—so long as we realize they are not providing insights from real people. At least, for now. (We remain open to what the future might bring.) Because today, unless you’re designing for LLMs, not accounting for real human input is a shortcut to nowhere.

Design research is at an inflection point. Practitioners and budget-setters are going back and forth over whether it’s worth the time and money.

Her home page had been crowded with English content and an attention-grabbing hashtag: #TikTokRefugee.

For years, Chinese and American netizens have largely lived in separate digital spheres, playing within their own ecosystems. But thanks to the change in TikTok’s legal status in the U.S., all of a sudden, we’re seeing a digital cultural exchange. On Red Note, people from the two countries are helping each other solve math problems and complete English assignments. They’re sharing photos of their pets, homes, food, and cities. They’re even fact-checking with each other about life on the “other side”—like what authentic Chinese food looks like beyond what’s offered at Panda Express.

We don’t know how long this migration of users will last, but it hints at what could be the beginning of a social experiment that could reshape norms, trends, and the way global internet cultures interact.

For us, two technologists, one currently living in Shanghai, working on a project on Chinese content creation and e-commerce platforms, this digital mingling kicked off a big conversation about what designers from different cultures can learn from each other. After all, firewalls have led to us building our tech ecosystems in totally different ways, with different design sensibilities and cultural use cases. And it’s really fun to see these two digital cultures coming together in one app.

Here’s what we’re learning from exploring this cultural exchange.

💫 The power of shared digital spaces to bring people together

We’re always fascinated to see what happens when two people who are siloed connect with each other as human beings. On Red Note, people are finding ways to learn from each other, sharing photos of their pets and families, and asking  authentic questions like, “May I have the pleasure of seeing the streets of America as you see them? ” Meanwhile, the folks who came from TikTok are trying to learn Chinese terms, and even taking quizzes. These spontaneous exchanges are more than casual interactions; they hold immense potential to create a powerful inspiration pool for intentionally designing spaces for connection and positive interaction. It’s an opportunity to uncover design hints and signals for commercial and social innovations, inspired by shared values, behaviors, and the nuanced differences between users.

🔮 Cultural cross-pollination

Behaviors that developed organically in one context are already getting adopted by the other. For example, the "😺 cat tax" concept from Reddit—a friendly requirement to share a photo of your cat to participate—has made its way into Chinese social platforms, blending humor and engagement strategies from Western online spaces with local norms. Slang from both sides is proliferating; American terms like LOL, AMA, JK, as well as Chinese ones: XSWL (laughing to die), NB (really really good). This cross-pollination feels like a preview of a future where internet cultures from the U.S. and China become even more intertwined.

📲Shifting data privacy norm

On a recent project on interaction design in content creation platforms, we found that some users from China, the U.S., and the EU were unfazed by the idea that the platforms are collecting and using their data. As one participant told us, “It’s okay to use my data for training if it gives me a better experience as the payoff.” Meanwhile, some American users on Red Note said they were knowingly trading data privacy for community (in slightly less polite terms).

While this sentiment doesn’t align with traditional data privacy ideals—prioritizing minimal data collection, strong user consent, and transparent usage practices—it highlights how people crave connection and great experiences, and are sometimes willing to pay for that with their data. It’s a nuanced area that presents both opportunities and challenges for designers and tech creators—and one where they need to tread carefully. Consent is extremely important, and experiences need to highlight choices to opt in, surfacing microexplanations for new users clarifying how their data will be used or implementing scenario-based toggles that help users understand data sharing.

😻Unique engagement strategies

While researching Chinese digital products, we noticed a fascinating norm: many apps cultivate unique ways for users to address each other. On Red Note, for instance, users don’t call each other "bro" or "buddy" but instead use "sister." This stems from Red Note’s design strategy, which intentionally engages female users by fostering a female-friendly community that feels safe, authentic, and supportive. It’s a small detail with a big impact, shaping how users interact and building trust through thoughtful, culturally-tailored design. It’s also a great lesson in intentionality.

👥A wider range of features and use cases

Many apps created in Western context have one function that they do really well. Think Pinterest, Uber, Zillow.  But if you spend time using various apps in the Chinese tech market, you’ll discover there’s a lot more usability and depth to the products. For example, at face value, an app like Red Note could be seen as an Instagram-style app focused on real-life story sharing. But it also has a ton of deeper features: it’s heavily social, commenting with self-moderation on things like political speech, livestream, notes, and more. China’s UX designers have figured out how to distill the purpose of a product, and create deeper dimensionality in a way that aligns with user needs, and makes it easier to express yourself and accomplish goals on the platform..

🌎Protecting culture

The influx of new users and ideas is transforming platforms like Red Note into vibrant spaces for creativity, commerce, and cultural exchange. This evolution raises questions about how global norms and trends will influence—and be influenced by—local platforms, potentially reshaping the landscape for content creators and businesses.

As delighted as we are to watch and learn from these interactions, we’re very aware of the power of globalized social media to flatten cultures. Part of the fun and learning here is that they are so different. But that offers yet another design provocation: How can we balance connection and understanding and cat memes between people without flattening culture? That’s a question we’ll continue to explore.

Last Wednesday, when Zoey opened Xiaohongshu ( aka 小红书” or Red Note), her go-to Chinese social media app, to scroll through some of her favorite local food, fashion trends, and K-Pop content, she discovered something unexpected.

We headed there together—Keren to speak on a panel about raising AI kids responsibly, and Dan to meet with clients and partners and check out what’s coming in the world of media and technology.

What stood out most was the contrast between our panel discussion—where we focused on how AI can genuinely enhance kids’ lives in meaningful ways—and the exhibit halls, where much of the tech seemed designed to become the centerpiece of daily life. There were some promising ideas, like digital health assistants and travel concierges, but it was clear that many companies were betting on people reorganizing their lives around their products. That could be a tough sell for consumers, and one that leaves a big opportunity for companies to design technology that integrates into people’s lives, amplifying what they already value and care about.

Here were the most interesting things we saw, heard—and wished we’d seen.

Things we heard

Kids aren’t impressed by AI alone: While adults can go ga-ga over everything AI, Keren’s co-panelist, Joshua Garrett, COO of Readyland, astutely pointed out that though adults might feel an experience is magical because of a novel tech interface or capability, kids aren’t wowed by the flash if the experience itself doesn’t deliver. At the IDEO Play Lab, we often see that adults will try to figure out how to make a product work because they're too embarrassed to admit they don’t get it. But kids will tell you right away if something isn’t intuitive. Youth have also told us directly: They want a chance to learn how to form relationships with real people, not a chatbot that might stunt their emotional growth during their formative years. While these insights were focused on designing for kids and youth, the idea of novelty wearing off applies to any audience. During our panel, there was consensus: Just because something can be automated or replaced, doesn’t mean it should be. There are the human moments we should hold on to and protect.

Things we saw

‍Smart glasses galore (or wearables that go anywhere but your wrist): On the way out of the CES showroom we were overwhelmed (well, almost) by just how many versions of smart glasses there were, not to mention all the people in line waiting to try them out. The Xreal/BMW partnership was particularly packed, and won a bunch of “Best of CES” awards. We were particularly intrigued by Rokid’s approach to the device, which included a separate controller and ability to take off your prescription glasses (a big win for Dan!) and adjust the image quality in the lens. For now, it seems like the smart glasses market is still in flux, and popularity will be determined by how well these companies pitch something that fits different social moments (e.g. being the passenger of a car, sitting on an airplane, hanging out in cafe, walking down the street, just saying hi to a friend, etc). One thing that still felt way underdesigned? The audio experience and the relationship between the glasses and the audio devices you might already have.

‍Creator tech ISO heart: As with most hype cycles, buzz around the creator economy has risen and fallen many times over the past few years. Are we on our third spring? We saw plenty of “pro creator” tools that can empower users to do everything from quickly capturing human motion (inertia-based motion capture and animation—no room sensors needed) to importing image assets with nothing more than a bluetooth connection and to software developer kits (SDKs) that enhance immersive experiences. Before, only professionals could access these powerful tools; now anyone (with the budget) can build an immersive game. Still, amid all this progress, it felt very refreshing to have dinner with execs in the creative space who emphasized the need for human stories and heart. The challenge isn’t just making creation faster; it’s ensuring the stories these tools help tell resonate on a deeper level, connecting with audiences in ways that transcend the tools themselves. After all, it’s the heart in the work that keeps audiences coming back.

‍IP content flywheel: Some of the longest lines we saw at this very techy tech convention were for the The Last of Us proof-of-concept immersive experience and the Demon Slayer photo opp at Sony. The uptick in location-based entertainment (aka, experiences that let people live out their fandom IRL) is a good reminder that characters and connections are the thing. The tech was in service of the experience. On the other end of the spectrum of the storytelling medium, at the Variety Summit, we heard about how webtoons and anime—long popular in the Asian market—are now finding incredible traction in other geographies. It was somewhat of a full circle moment for those of us who were coming of age during the era of LiveJournal and lo-fi sketches. There’s something nostalgic and comforting about the quick drawings and the 2D experience of absorbing a story in that way that appeals to users in the age of high-speed and seamless experiences. It’s a good reminder that some experiences benefit from slowing things down.

Things we wish we had seen

‍Solutions to big human problems: We were really hoping to see some innovative approaches to some of the looming problems we’re eager to get working on—like decades (centuries?!) of under-investment in women’s health. (And we’re not talking about period-tracking apps, either.) There is such a large opportunity area here.
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We did really appreciate the AgeTech section, which was sponsored by AARP. Believe it or not, 2024 was actually known as “peak 65,” the year when the largest-ever number of Americans ever hit 65 at once. We need new solutions and interventions to support dignity and care in the aging process, improving not just the physical health experience, but mental and emotional health too. Some of the things we saw were cool and fun, like versions of classic games, tailored to audiences of different abilities, making it easier for families to connect. We’re hoping to see more solutions like this, that extend care beyond capturing health metrics, designing for delight and connection, which are important for longevity and joy.

Need help solving a problem in one of these opportunity areas? Get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.

This year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was a whirlwind of AI—in your kitchen! In your car! In your bedroom!—smart glasses, “pro-creator tools,” and new media experiences (see-through tv screens, anyone?).

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.