International e-reading service Kobo, Inc., with more than 2.5 million digital book, magazine, and newspaper titles, approached IDEO to gain a strong foothold in the shifting publishing landscape. The design challenge was to create a new suite of advanced reading devices with the best aspects of paperback books—tangibility, portability, and a small footprint.

To make digital reading devices feel approachable, personal, and sophisticated, designers focused on the intersection of physical and digital interface design. The teams created a family of affordable e-readers with clearly differentiated feature sets, and the resulting design provides a reading experience that approximates holding and reading a paperback book. No larger than a novel, the front of the e-reader is designed for the reader’s eyes, while the back features a signature “quilted” back shell designed to create a pleasurable, tactile memory for the hands.

The Kobo family includes the Kobo WiFi, with a 6-inch glare-free E-Ink screen; the smaller Kobo Touch, with infrared touch-screen interface, E-Ink Pearl screen, and faster processor; and the Kobo Vox, a 7-inch Android tablet model with social and digital sharing options.

Kobo saw record sales of its digital reading devices during the 2011 holiday season, and was named “Editor’s Pick for Best e-reader” by Wired magazine.

The U.S. Green Building Council asked IDEO to help visualize how buildings might communicate environmental performance. Together they came up with the LEED Dynamic Plaque, an elegant public declaration of a building’s environmental efforts.

Located in a lobby or other common space, the plaque displays real-time measurements about a building’s resource use—from energy to waste disposal. IDEO designed and built the physical plaque, and the IDEO Digital Shop created an online interface that allows USGBC’s software to interact with it, enabling people to enter data, analyze details, and make personal decisions that influence a building’s performance.

WATCH: "LEED Dynamic Plaque" video

In China, most kitchen appliances available on the market are rooted in Western cooking practices. High-end kitchen appliance company Fotile, based in Ningbo, China, was looking to design a new cook top and range hood that would satisfy the unique needs of Chinese cooking culture.

The new appliances designed by Fotile and IDEO support a key need of Chinese cooking: the dual-cooking center. This two-burner range eliminates unnecessary burners, instead dedicating one side to the wok, the primary tool in Chinese cooking, and the other side to a flat-bottom pan. The wok burner has a special stand with angled posts to hold steady a round-bottom wok (typical in China) and ease the rigorous, constant “tossing” movement that is prevalent in Chinese cooking. The Fotile cook top and range hood have become popular with Chinese consumers since market launch.

Great art requires great openness, a space large enough to contain all the tragedy and comedy of the human experience.

The limestone walls and Palladian arches of the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) hold such a space. The institution’s building in Mayfair contains galleries where a wanderer can appreciate the everyday miracle of a Caravaggio or amble through the former home of Academicians, a group led by some of the most eminent artists in the world, from Anish Kapoor to Sir Norman Foster. This revered site has also been home to the Summer Exhibition for 246 years, an event open to submissions from any living artist.

As the RA approached its 250th anniversary, the institution came to IDEO to help create a digital strategy that would open new doors to these resources, reveal hidden avenues to new experiences, and offer broad vistas of the collection.

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After rounds of research with artists, staff members, and visitors, our designers immediately started building and testing. They ran workshops to refine digital tools, watched as patrons scribbled notes about things they wanted to know more about, and built pop-up design studios in RA’s galleries where they could generate insights on the fly.

The result is a rich, immersive site for different audiences. Art lovers can view stunning images of the works, artists can learn more about RA schools, and RA staff can share surprising stories about some of the most prized pieces.

Based around human needs rather than organizational structure, the new digital space allows audiences to wander freely in this immense storehouse of inspiration and awe. And perhaps most important, the RA organization has benefitted from a human-centered paradigm shift that will enable the institution to forge boldly into its next quarter millennium.

In Lima, Peru, people who give out free newspapers or sell water and snacks on the on-ramps to the highway use these little wooden crates to sit on or put products on. To avoid carrying the crates home every night, they tie a rope between the box and the railing, then drop it over the edge overnight. This keeps them from getting cleared or taken because they're virtually invisible from the other side. The crates aren't that valuable, but it's probably a hassle for vendors to carry them around or find new ones every day.

Human-centered design requires us to observe human behavior with beginner's eyes, so that we can spot the innate ways people interact with the world around them. We call these intuitive and unconscious reactions thoughtless acts, and IDEO designers collect photos of them to inspire the invention of new products, services, and experiences.

Bringing new design to the way we die—what we see, touch, feel, and hear—is an idea with a strong tailwind. Advocates like BJ Miller, who was profiled in the New York Times this week, are spreading the message that we can do better for people who are dying if we pay close attention to human needs.

Sen, who gives Miller a nod in her video (see below), felt this firsthand when she was hospitalized for an illness. As a musician who started playing the piano when she was 3, Sen found the sounds of the emergency room traumatizing, and left committed to do something to save others from having the same experience.

We became instant fans of Sen’s work when she submitted it to our OpenIDEO challenge on end-of-life care, and gave a talk during Re: Imagine, a subsequent citywide conversation about death. We caught up with her in Washington D.C., where she’s a fellow at the Halcyon Incubator, a program that supports social entrepreneurs, and asked how she’s planning to bring beautiful sound to the people who need them most.

IDEO: WHY IS MUSIC SO IMPORTANT AT THE END OF LIFE?

I would say sound is important at the end of life, which includes, but is not limited to, music. For instance, a lot of people mention nature sounds as something they want to hear at the end of life; other examples are voices of loved ones, laughter, etc. You can hear people's responses here.

Sound is important because some people say hearing is the last sense to go when we die. I believe it has a profound effect on our sense of dignity, not just for the person dying, but also for those around them.

IDEO: HAVE YOU SEEN EXAMPLES OF THIS?

Morgan, a palliative care nurse in NY, got in touch with me after she saw the idea on OpenIDEO. She said that her team started to play a song moments before a patient's death to liberate them from the ventilator, with the expectation that they would die in the next few moments. The question inspired her to use her own iPhone to play music for the patients. One cancer patient she became very close with shared his favorite music, and she played that for him. People’s preferences are different, so it’s tough to find something that’s universal. It’s very awkward to say, “I’m assuming you’re going to die soon, what kind of music do you like?” I got the impression that it was helping her team and the family members as much as the patient. You can’t interview the patient after they’ve passed away—“how was your dying experience?”—but you can talk to the family and the nurses. I heard from cancer nurses at Sibley that when a cure is not possible, they are empowered to heal in other ways—do something seemingly simple that makes a big impact.

A couple of people mentioned that they played music when their grandparents passed away. “I had a sense that she could hear the music or my voice even though she couldn’t react to me,” or “I have faith that she could hear me.” It’s a story that we create for ourselves, but, as those who are left behind, feeling that we have made a positive impact gives us a sense of peace.

IDEO: ARE YOU PILOTING SEN SOUND IN HOSPITALS?

Yes, we are already working with Sibley Innovation Hub (part of Johns Hopkins Medicine)—though not necessarily focused on "end of life"—to test our ideas to transform the sound experience for patients.

As for the "end of life" sound—for now it's an art/conceptual project. I record the voices of people sharing stories of the sound they wish to hear at the end of life, to raise awareness on the importance of sound.

I also believe that it is a way to build resiliency in the community, by allowing us to approach the taboo subject with a somewhat light-hearted, playful way. It's dreadful to imagine death itself, but by imagining the sound, it's somewhat more approachable.

I would love to continue exploring ways to implement the idea with hospice and palliative care centers, and we are in conversation with a couple of facilities. I have done this as an artist and will always continue to do that, but I’m at the point where I’m transitioning to trying to inspire a team to do this.

It’s going to take time: Any medical conference you go to is about winning the fight [against death]. But this is a project to build resiliency in the community. There’s no wrong answer. If a young person says to me “I don’t like to think about how I’m going to die,” that’s okay. But I want to help people build a sense of community, to create music or sound or jam with the person with the same illness but not the same geographical location—connecting people who really need it through music and art.

For more about Yoko's work check out her piece in the OpenIDEO End of Life story collection.

Humans really like the sound of the ocean. We like it so much, the lapping of waves top the list of last sounds we wish to hear before we die. That’s one thing you’ll learn from Yoko K. Sen, an ambient electronic musician whose project, Sen Sound, aims to transform what we hear at the end of life, replacing shrill alarm bells and bleeping machines of the hospital with a soothingly oceanic sonic environment.

I have three. Instead of writing in a journal, I want to summarize each day in a creative drawing. I also plan to listen to more podcasts. And, whenever someone asks me, "How are you?", I will try to never to say "good," and instead use a more descriptive adjective.
—Katie Kirsch

I really want to work on being in the moment—which means putting down the phone, and being delighted by who and what is around me.
—Amy Bonsall

My creative resolution: Write, draw, or create more physical letters and postcards for friends and family (at least one per month!). And use more of the Airpost service that we helped design out of IDEO Tokyo!
—Mike Peng

I have two. One, to be more aware of what contexts and situations work in favor of my creativity. And two, to inspire others around me to be creative.
—Michaël Harboun

I plan to sew a new outfit and wear it, turn my photos into different series and make a portfolio website, and to read a Poem-A-Day.
—Rebecca Lee

I'm going to try to dedicate the first hour after waking up exclusively to creative pursuits, rather than looking at email, social media, or cat videos. This will require getting up early every day, so fingers crossed.
—Neil Stevenson

My resolution is inspired by Julia Cameron's morning pages. But since my practice is choreographic (I'm a dancer/choreographer outside of IDEO), I'm resolving to create a movement phrase everyday. I’m not sure yet what the dance equivalent to three pages of writing is, but I'll figure it out.
—Eileen Farrell

Slackline (or highline in this case) is both a new habit and skill. I find that balancing on a line is a powerful way of coming to terms with fear and a kind of forced meditation, counterintuitively creating fear and calm at the same time.
—Jonah Houston

I want to learn to lathe wooden baseball bats. I'm looking to make an art piece to show in a gallery.
—Samuel Bertain

I plan to find a living space that inspires me to do good work; to sign up for a class so I can make arts around other people and osmose creative energy (and hopefully give back too?); and to be more intentional about my passwords (I don't have a method to my madness, it's just madness).
—Momo Miyazaki

I am pushing my modern calligraphy for 2017. I did a class this year and for Christmas have ordered books and more pens. I am hoping to also try out brush lettering. I follow Seb Lester on Instagram and he makes it look so easy... even though it’s not.
—Bobbie Brightman

I will download and use the Headspace app.
—John Ravitch

I want to channel Charlie Rose and learn how to host better video interviews on Creative Confidence. I also want to rock climb more.
—Suzanne Howard

In 2016, I did the 100 day project, which got me going on weaving and watercoloring. In 2017, I want to create my first large-scale tapestry. Who knows if it'll happen... we'll see!
—Emma Scripps

I want to to start writing again. I used to write a lot, both for fun and as a freelance advice columnist, but have gotten away from it in recent years. Doesn't matter to me if this manifests in jokes, stories, reflections, whatever—so long as pen meets paper and my brain is flexed regularly.
—Adam Moulter

I want to do at least one thing each week to celebrate the ubiquitous creativity in New York City. It can be a concert, a class, or just a walk around a new neighborhood to explore the graffiti and architecture. I moved here a year ago and have so much more to explore!
—Shauna Carey

I want to say "I don't know" more, so I learn something.
—David Good

Illustrations by Matt Avallone.

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After the ball drops and the champagne is gone, we have 365 days ahead of us to be more creative people, with new and better habits, mindsets, and skills. Seeking inspiration? Here are some of IDEO designers’ resolutions for 2017.

1. Waste Land

“A social documentary framed around art. Brazilian artist Vik Muniz spent a couple of years at the world’s biggest landfill, and created art with the people whose job it was to pick through the garbage. This is an inspiring example of how you can take waste and transform it into something beautiful and meaningful.”

Waste Land Trailer

2. Iris

“Iris is a fearless and fiercely creative 95 year-old fashion icon and businesswoman. The film highlights her life, her creative pursuits, and her lust for a life drenched in accessories. She has inspired my take on interior design and fashion—there are no rules and if you love it, it works.”

Iris Trailer

3. Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang

“Famed for The Ninth Wave, an installation commenting on China’s environmental policies, Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang works with everything from taxidermy to fireworks. Sky Ladder documents Cai Guo-Qiang’s biggest dream yet: to build a ladder to connect the earth to the universe.”

Sky Ladder Trailer

4. Alive Inside

“Memory is inherently creative. Every time we reflect and look back, we use creativity to reimagine our past life experiences. But what happens when we lose our ability to remember? This film shows us the power of music, creativity, and imagination to bring back the memories of those who have been living without them.”

Alive Inside Trailer

5. Herb and Dorothy

“A charming look at a mailman and a librarian—Herb and Dorothy Vogel—in New York City who love (absolutely love) art. The Vogels live frugally, and over the years have filled their small, one-bedroom apartment with one of the most important collections of minimalist and conceptual art. Not only did they buy the art, they also built relationships—in many cases close friendships—with the artists. The documentary chronicles their lives as collectors—we see how they see, we see how they remember each work of art, and we hear from the many artists inspired by the Vogels' deep appreciation. You can't help but smile watching these two gallery hop or huddle in their tiny kitchen packed with art.”

Herb and Dorothy Trailer

6. Jiro Dreams of Sushi

“A lovely documentary about the spirit of the shokunin (craftsman) and the inscrutable Jiro. It’s inspiring to see the amount of time and effort that can go into the creation of great sushi. This movie is good for anyone who loves food, travel, and culture, and is also a great reminder of the power of craft.”

Jiro Dreams of Sushi Trailer

7. Eames, the Architect and the Painter

“The documentary illuminates how Ray and Charles Eames fused craft and thinking in their design process. It also chronicles the transformation of their work from furniture and products to ideas and communication, as they tackled larger and larger problems. There are many parallels with how IDEO's work has evolved over the years as we have honed our craft.”

Eames, the Architect and the Painter

8. American Movie

“Wisconsinite Mark Borchardt has dreams of making the ultimate psychological horror film on a micro budget. American Movie is an all-access look at his gritty and creative attempt to make his lofty dream a reality. It's a uniquely human documentary that's inspiring and entertaining for anyone who's ever been consumed by creative confidence.”

American Movie Trailer

9. Sans Soleil

“Sans Soleil is a genre-bending documentary about the limits of memory and how it affects history and current events. Chris Marker invites us into the scaffolding of his grand design, provoking us out of circumspect craft. “Frankly, have you ever heard of anything more stupid than to say to people…not to look at the camera?” Age has only increased its relevance.”

Sans Soleil Trailer

10. Bill Cunningham New York

“Way before Instagram, Bill Cunningham was the original street style photographer. This documentary paints a portrait of Bill and his quietly-obsessive creative pursuit that spanned half a century. Watch this this film to be inspired by this great human being's purity of passion and commitment to his craft.”

Bill Cunningham New York Trailer

11. Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time

"This 2001 documentary follows Andy Goldsworthy as he makes art with nature, painstakingly assembling leaves, sticks, rocks, or blocks of ice to create beautiful, ephemeral sculptures. Not only is this the most calming movie you can imagine, it is also inspiring. It reminds me that there are opportunities all around us to create meaning and beauty, if we only have the vision and the persistence to make them real."

Rivers and Tides Trailer

12. A Ballerina's Tale

"Dance, to me, is a grossly under-appreciated art form. It takes a great deal of trying, failing, and perseverance. It's strikingly similar to the world of design in many ways. I love this documentary because it tells the story of Misty Copeland, a black ballerina. There's a lot of history there, as black dancers were often overlooked (and still are) for not having the "typical" ballet body. It makes her rise to the top of this extremely selective world that much more powerful and inspiring."

A Ballerina's Tale Trailer

Thanks to Sally Clark, Piper Loyd, Maura Cass, Chris Hill, Brett Brownell, and Mark Del Lima. Illustrations by Matt Avallone.

We all know that going out into the world and witnessing other peoples' lives is a powerful source of inspiration. But what about when you don't have time to get out in the field? Sometimes a documentary is the next best thing. We asked IDEO designers to nominate the documentaries that they find most inspiring.

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.