More than 7 million people each year came to the Boston.gov site to tap into all sorts of city services: reporting a pothole, learning the assessed value of their property, paying a parking ticket, checking recycling schedules.

Boston wanted to create a beautiful platform that would make the process of finding and navigating information easy and intuitive, one that prioritized the needs of its people.

The Boston.gov site had outgrown its existing structure and needed an overhaul. The user experience was mired by the fact that Boston City Hall has nearly 50 different departments, each with its own microsite, navigation and content standards that feed into a centralized site.

So the City of Boston hired IDEO to design its new digital home, Boston.gov. IDEO designers worked with the major stakeholders—department heads, employees, and Boston residents, with a focus on those in underserved communities and those with varying levels of technical proficiency—to gather insights into what users needed.

The objective was to design something that would simplify how people navigate the site, to make it easier for residents to find answers to common questions, and, in the process, serve as a community facilitator—an up-to-date, reliable resource that makes life in the city more manageable.

Rather than organize the site by the city’s departments, the design solution was rooted in illuminating relevant content by topics—people’s life moments—many of which overlapped through different branches of government. Owning a car in the city, for example, is closely related to preparing for winter, so bridging those common threads allowed for a more intuitive organizing principle.

In the process of the site redesign, IDEO also helped to create a visual identity system that underscores Boston’s strengths: the city’s confidence, humility, personality, and optimism.

In addition to the web architecture and redesign, IDEO also produced a comprehensive style guide to help maintain design consistency, so departments can add content without compromising the overall integrity of the site, as well as a brand look that the city has decided to adopt across nearly all of its consumer-facing media. Now you’ll see the famous underlined B on T-shirts, banners, and even snow shovels.

Holding true to its mission to include Boston residents and all site users in its design process, the new Boston.gov site was piloted for six months, and the process document on the city’s blog (including the IDEO designed brand guide), before a full launch was rolled out in July 2016.

“The website should act like a helpful human. This is one of the big differences between the old site and the new site,” said Jascha Franklin-Hodge, the city’s chief of information technology in a Boston Globe article. “Oftentimes, when you looked at something on the old site, it would feel like you were interacting with some sort of lawyer-robot that was speaking to you in government-speak, using very formal language. We are trying to move away from that so your experience is akin to a person.”

The City of Boston was in need of a new digital home—one that emphasized a shift to a more welcoming tone and commitment to its citizens.

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In the Western Hemisphere, The North Face brand has long represented an active, sporty lifestyle that’s filled with challenges and adventures. But appreciating “the great outdoors” in China is less about extreme sports and more about connecting with nature in a communal, spiritual way. This research-based insight led the team to identify new opportunities for The North Face to better target its messaging.

Designers found a key opportunity: Encourage Chinese consumers to escape the pressures of hectic city life by enjoying the freedom and renewal that comes with spending time outdoors.

Today, as people find less time to enjoy the benefits that lie just beyond China’s large cities, there’s a tangible desire to return to the outdoors to refresh, reassess, and renew oneself. The North Face aims to help consumers do exactly that.

To create a compelling new brand vision for The North Face in China, the team’s design research tapped into Chinese ways of spending time outdoors. IDEO’s insights and creative brief provided the essential brand story for The North Face in China and informed the tagline of the company’s current marketing campaign, “Go Wild” (去野). The North Face brand’s new messaging links “old nature” and “new outdoors” through a combination of digital, retail, and interactive community channels.

IDEO also collaborated with the company on designs and prototypes for a new digital platform and an updated store-within-a-store merchandising display. The digital community aims to attract newcomers and connect them with more experienced outdoors enthusiasts and clubs. As the platform evolves, it will help aspiring adventurers plan trips, learn skills, and share their experiences through photos.

The retail community space aims to integrate this digital community with in-store shoppers and an effort to turn the “buy-a-product moment” into a “join-the-outdoors moment.” Both will be integrated to provide a holistic brand experience in China centered on nature and community.

In the West, The North Face, with its decades-long history, has long symbolized an adventurous, active lifestyle. In China, however, the outdoor market only began accelerating in the early 21st century.

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Success in this growing market depends on building strong and deep connections with Chinese consumers.

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20% sales growth in China

from 2012 to 2013—the year the project was completed—propelling the brand from sixth place to a market-leading position

Over the last 36 years, IDEO and Lilly, along with the pharmaceutical giant’s other design, development, and manufacturing partners, have collaborated on more than 250 projects. During this time, Lilly has not only honed its engineering-focused internal device-development team but also transformed into a human-centered organization with extensive, robust in-house innovation capabilities.

Early in the relationship, a team of IDEO designers and Eli Lilly leaders traveled the world to understand how people with diabetes live with the disease. Their findings led to the design of a series of award-winning insulin injection pens like SAVVIO. Portable, aesthetically pleasing, and discreet, the pens are suitable for use in both medical and personal settings. Combined with Lilly’s technical design prowess, this human-centered focus allows the devices to seamlessly integrate into patients’ lives and routines, making a challenging disease like diabetes feel more manageable.

Fast forward to today, Lilly’s innovative, easy-to-use auto-injectors are not only continuing to provide life-saving treatments to people with diabetes but also enabling the adoption of the popular GLP-1 weight-loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound, which together accounted for the majority of the company’s annual revenue in 2025. Perhaps most importantly, patients consistently rate the experience of using Lilly’s auto-injectors as relatively pain-free, easy to use, and preferable to competitors’ brands, improving adherence, satisfaction, and health outcomes.

This unwavering focus on driving innovation through a patient-first mindset is evident in some of the most impactful projects Lilly and IDEO collaborated on over the years:

GLP Auto-injectors
Convenient and cutting-edge, the first Trulicity injection device was originally designed to deliver the GLP-1 drug to treat type 2 diabetes. Today, it has been adapted for use with other GLP-1s, Mounjaro and Zepbound, which are increasingly popular weight-loss drugs and are also administered once weekly via fixed-dose injections. A wide base enables the pen to be held securely against the injection site, and the device automatically regulates the dose and needle depth.

Taltz Injectors
For most patients, living with severe plaque psoriasis means being your own medical technician—metering your drug dosage each time, and attaching and removing needles by hand. Taltz provides patients with clear visual and auditory feedback throughout the injection process through simple icons, bright colors, a translucent material, and clicking sounds. The devices are available in both autoinjector and prefilled-syringe formats and are adapted for Emgality, a preventive monthly migraine treatment, and Ebglyss, which helps treat eczema or atopic dermatitis.

HumaPen SAVVIO Injection Pen
Key insights informed the design of SAVVIO, including patients’ preference for insulin pens that look less like medical devices and more like everyday objects you’d find in a backpack or purse. The sleek, colorful device was created to help patients feel comfortable and confident about fitting mealtime injections into their everyday lives.

Refillable Human Growth Hormone (HGH) Injector and Reconstitution Device
Designed to be kid-friendly, the Refillable HGH Injector leverages insights into pediatric treatment adherence to create a more integrated, systematic approach to treatment, while the Reconstitution Device makes mixing Lilly’s powder-and-liquid drug easier and less intimidating for parents and healthcare professionals alike.

KwikPen Insulin Pen
KwikPen is a next-generation, prefilled insulin injection pen that builds on the success of two previous designs, reducing its size to 5.7 inches and enhancing ease of use for patients.

HumaPen(R) Luxura™ Insulin Pen
HumaPen Luxura combines several innovations into a robust yet elegant pen that can be carried and used anywhere—an insulin pen solution that improves dosing accuracy, dose setting, and injection force.

In addition to designing products to meet the needs of people with diabetes, IDEO and Lilly have developed innovations in areas of oncology, autoimmunity, and men’s health. The results of this collaboration and expansion have won numerous design awards and produced one of the longest and most fruitful innovation relationships in IDEO’s history.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Eli Lilly had a number of new, life-changing medications and two big challenges: Most of its drugs were self-injectables, not pills, so patients were hesitant to take them. And its drug-delivery device platform lagged behind its drug pipeline.

99%

of Trulicity users reported the auto-injector was “easy” to “very easy” to use in a JDST study

$36.5B

of Lilly’s $65.2B 2025 revenue came from sales of its auto-injectable GLP-1s, Mounjaro and Zepbound, a 45% increase from 2024

‍“…the Advisory Council will recommend transformational programmatic, cultural, and physical change to San Quentin that can serve as a practical model that can be replicated and scaled to other institutions.”

Source: Office of Governor Gavin Newsom: Governor Newsom Names Leading Criminal Justice and Public Safety Experts to San Quentin Transformation Advisory Council, May 05, 2023  https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/05/05/san-quentin-transformation-advisory-council/

The Advisory Council included the expertise of established criminal justice, public safety, healthcare, academic, reentry, and rehabilitation professionals, along with system-impacted/formerly incarcerated community leaders, and representatives of crime victims/survivors. The premise of IDEO’s involvement is to augment the Advisory Council Co-Chairs’ and members’ expertise in evidence-based best practices and lived experience living and working in prisons, with expertise in collaborative design, synthesis, visualization, storytelling and bringing visions to life.

Specifically, IDEO was brought in to facilitate input-gathering, and assist with incorporating the many viewpoints into a single, cohesive report of recommendations to the Governor. This included meeting the challenge of bringing together the viewpoints of 21 people on the Council (17 members, three Co-Chairs and an advisor to the Governor); incorporating the views of people who are most impacted (those incarcerated at San Quentin, San Quentin staff, community-based organizations, victim/survivor groups, among others); and formatting and designing the final report.

IDEO’s facilitation included workshops with the full Advisory Council, individual interviews and check-ins with Council members to gather their input to inform the recommendations. Each Advisory Council member was asked to speak with, and record feedback from, no fewer than five people at San Quentin or in affected communities and to share this feedback with IDEO. IDEO integrated this information and feedback into this report.

Research activities included visits to San Quentin to speak with and facilitate conversations with:

• San Quentin residents (100+) including the Citizens/Inmate Advisory Council, focus groups with Spanish-speaking residents, former gang members, ACT (LGBTQIA+), Voices Heal, People in Blue, San Quentin Citizens Advisory Council.
• San Quentin staff (100+) including interviews with numerous officers.
• San Quentin staff and residents together.
• Current participants and staff at Amistad (MCRP) and Beacon (former lifer) campuses (many who were previously incarcerated at San Quentin).
  
  

IDEO also organized listening, information sharing and feedback sessions, both at San Quentin and in the community, between Co-Chair representatives and various stakeholder groups, including victim/survivor groups, labor unions, and advocacy organizations. These perspectives were also brought into the report.  

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Not wanting to disappoint her, I started searching for some craft that would satisfy that messy complexity. I tried what I knew. Illustration might bring my imaginary characters and stories to life. But my skills were limited. Collage answered the urge for messy assembly, but lacked precision.

Then I tried making a GIF, that looping relic of the old web that’s come back as an art form. The beauty of GIFs is that they preserve a single moment, with all of its feeling, and play it back forever. It was imperfect. It was messy. I was mesmerized. It struck the balance me and my inner teenager needed.

I’ve found that custom GIFs can be made for all sorts of scenarios—to show thanks, explain an idea, even tell someone you’re thinking of them. Flowers pale in comparison to a custom-made GIF for your loved one this Valentine’s Day.

With my internship at IDEO ending soon, I decided to create a parting GIF to share my gratitude. Here’s how to make your own:

1. Find a concept. Don’t dwell here. Get to making quickly and don’t overthink it! I landed on the metaphor of a rising sun, symbolizing illumination and a new beginning thanks to my experience here.

2. Gather supplies. Don’t spend any money on materials—they’re all around you. I rounded up old San Francisco brochures from my landlord’s supply closet.

3. Form a composition. Clear a workspace or spread out on the floor (as I did here), collect your supplies, and start cutting. Cue Bob’s Burgers.

4. Photograph. Find a space by a bright window and a makeshift hand stabilizer—in this case it was an empty coffee machine. I shoot about 30 frames with my iPhone, moving each piece of paper by hand, frame after frame.

5. Assemble in Photoshop. With your batch of photos loaded into a Photoshop file, click “Create Frame Animation” from your Photoshop Timeline (pictured on the bottom of the screenshot below). This allows you to create a frame-by-frame animation, revealing one photo in your sequence per frame. Make any adjustments in light balance and cropping, and manually tweak the alignment of any shaky photos here, too.

6. Save and export. To export your finished GIF from Photoshop, choose “Save for Web (Legacy).” Adjust the export settings to pare your GIF down to a manageable file size. Add a watermark or signature if you want to ensure you'll get credit for your work.

7. Let it fly! GIFs can be embedded in email, posted on social media, even texted.

I’m an intern at IDEO who’s training to be an interaction designer. But one morning at 4 a.m., after an all-nighter studying a maze of sterile, methodically made wireframes, I felt the 15-year-old me frowning at my career choice. Who was this person obsessing over digital simplicity and efficiency? What happened to the girl who loved drama? Who loved a mess?

There I sat, staring at this person whom I deeply admired, witnessing a fleeting moment of vulnerability, and I realized that I’m not the only one that feels this way.

I’m someone who will walk by the espresso machine multiple times, trying catch a glimpse of how to make a latte, just so when I decide to do it myself, I’ll look like I know what I’m doing. I avoid confrontations, so as not to tarnish what others think of me. I convince myself I am where I am because of luck. I’ve spent the first few years of my professional life trying to be a good pretender, trying to ignore this voice in my head that takes over and says I don’t belong.

But, there are ways to shake off those feelings, to help you remember the value you have, that you should trust yourself, and that you belong in your job. It took me a while to figure it out, but I’ve developed ways to cope. If I could take a time machine back to when I first started out, here are the three things I would remind myself:

1. NEVER STOP ASKING FOR FEEDBACK

I’m an introvert who, for years, kept my vulnerabilities wrapped up. Fake it til you make it was a subconscious motto. What I didn’t realize was how empowering it is to openly admit the things you are afraid of, and the empathy and advice you get from others when you do. The sooner you are able to identify these fears and voice them, the sooner others will be able to help you through these challenges. Don’t try to pretend your insecurities don’t exist—voicing them is the first step to overcoming them.

2. GET OUT OF YOUR WORLD OF EXPERTISE

Throughout school, I was laser-focused on learning everything I could about design. When I came to IDEO, this passion for design was no longer something that made me unique. It’s what you know beyond design that allows you to come up with a solution that your peers haven’t considered. Good design skills are most powerful when they are applied with another discipline or two, or three. I found the designers I most admired were experts in some other area—neuroscience, climbing, magic, baking.

3. MEASURE YOURSELF BY YOUR OWN YARDSTICK

It’s so easy to be consumed by other people’s talents, but comparing yourself to others is an impossible game to win. Instead, try competing with yourself. Where were you a year ago? Six months? Can you measure your improvement over time? It’s a commitment to continuously learning that will make you grow as a designer. You went from getting coffee at an internship to distributing the first magazine article you designed? Growth!

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I first heard the term impostor syndrome from a fellow designer. We were chatting about the projects we were on, and comparing each other’s work to our peers: designers we knew, designers we didn’t know, even super-influential icons we swooned over, like Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Hische.

“How did we even get hired?” he asked me. “It’s like I have perpetual impostor syndrome—it’s bad.”

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How so? A classic rookie mistakes in design work is “me-search”—doing research on yourself and creating something tailor-made for your needs, rather than seeking broader inspiration from the outside world. So, in service of greater creativity—and maybe a more clear-eyed body politic—here are four ways to escape your bubble.

1. Talk to Strangers

Now that the time and directions are available on every smartphone, it's amazing how little we need to talk to strangers. But think about what is lost when you never have a serendipitous encounter. To reignite this habit, seek out contexts that are naturally social: bars, book clubs, craft circles. Go alone, so you're required to interact with someone new. Going solo not your bag? Here's another approach: Follow Bill Murray’s advice and strike up a conversation with every taxi driver you ride with. Ask them plenty of questions beginning with the word “why.” Maybe you’ll figure out, as Murray did, what’s preventing them from doing what they love.

2. Unfollow People Like You

If you're choosing to hear from people who think exactly like you, you're going to get sucker punched every time public opinion swings the other way. Are you a bleeding-heart liberal? Try following conservative pundits, think tanks, and some of the average Joes who tune into them. Lean to the right? Look to the left! Hat tip to Harper Reed, CTO of the 2008 Obama campaign, for this one. Reed recently unfollowed most of the white men in his Twitter feed, instead directing his attention to women, people of color, and people with disabilities. Just to be clear, this was not an act of political correctness—his motivation was to expose himself to different points of view, in service of inspiring his personal creativity.

3. Join a Different Demographic

When it comes to picking a night out, most of us choose something that we know we're going to enjoy. And chances are, we’ll be surrounded by people just like us. As an alternative, go for an evening activity in which you're immersed in a completely different demographic. If you're a millennial, hit up bingo night with seniors. If you're a Boomer, grit your teeth and shake it off at a concert full of teenagers. If you're visiting a new city, seek out a comedy open mic and see what people are talking about. Yes, there's every chance that this evening’s experiment won't be as comfy as your usual fare... but we bet that it will help you understand people’s needs in a different way, making you better suited to creating new things for them.

4. Volunteer

Giving back is always the right thing to do, and it has the seldom-mentioned added benefit of easing you out of your filter bubble. Whether you're helping the homeless, people with disabilities, or any other group, you will be eye-to-eye with people you rarely encounter on your Facebook feed. The fact that you're serving others is a bonus. The person you may be helping most is yourself.

Illustrations by Ashley Holtgraver.

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In the aftermath of the 2016 election, there has been a new focus on the “filter bubble”: the phenomenon of being fed news and social media that is tuned to your existing point of view, rather than challenging it.

Filter bubbles are a problem for democracy. We believe they’re a problem for creativity, too.

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10 graphic novels to read right now:

1. Fred Korematsu Speaks Up (Fighting for Justice) by Laura Atkins (Author), Stan Yogi (Author), Yutaka Houlette (Illustrator) profiles a Japanese-American man who went into hiding to avoid being relocated into an internment camp, and was later arrested and put in a camp until 1945. (For 10 - 13-year-olds)

2. The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation by Jonathan Hennessey (Author), Aaron McConnell (Illustrator) breathes life into our nation's central document of values and principles.

3. March by John Lewis (Author), Andrew Aydin (Author), Nate Powell (Illustrator) chronicles the life of the Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis as he fought to end segregation.

4. The Complete Maus, 25th Anniversary Edition by Art Spiegelman tells the tale of a Holocaust survivor and his son and how they grapple with the past.

5. Palestine by Joe Sacco is an eyewitness account of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the early 1990s.

6. Economix: How Our Economy Works (and Doesn't Work) by Michael Goodwin (Author), David Bach (Author), Joel Bakan (Author), Dan Burr (Illustrator) is an accessible, eye-popping guide to understanding the economy.

7. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi is a memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.

8. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes (Author), Chuck Dixon (Adapter), Paul Rivoche (Illustrator) is the graphic version of Amity Shlaes's nonfiction book. It highlights the struggles of the men and women of the Great Depression, and argues that the New Deal actually prolonged it.

9. Climate Changed: A Personal Journey through the Science Paperback, by Philippe Squarzoni is a stark, black and white depiction of our dependence on fossil fuels and how that's affecting our planet. French author Squarzoni sweeps through the science, economics, international policies, and politics that influence our climate.

10. Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm is a historical glance back at the race to build and decision to drop the first atomic bomb during WWII. (For young adults)

A spread from Fred Korematsu Stands Up about the daily grind of discrimination.

We spoke to Laura Atkins, coauthor of the new graphic novel for 4th-6th graders, Fred Korematsu Stands Up (#1 in our list, above). Google put Korematsu, the Japanese-American civil rights figure who went into hiding to avoid being relocated into an internment camp, and was later arrested, on its U.S. homepage yesterday to commemorate what would have been his 98th birthday (he died in 2005).

IDEO: Why were you drawn to the topic?

Laura Atkins: It’s such an important theme for us to pass along to kids today. I was an activist growing up, arrested twice in high school protesting against apartheid and nuclear weapons. We are entering a renewed period of activism and protest. I feel honored to have been part of a creating a book that introduces young people to a remarkable man who stood up when it was so hard to do so.

I’ve worked in the children’s book world for over twenty years on the editorial side, and with a focus on multicultural children’s books. So a book, and series, focused on people who fought for their rights, was a perfect project for me. Fred Korematsu stood up against Japanese American incarceration when very few people did. He was ostracized within his own community and rejected by his family at the time. He shows the courage needed to stand up for your beliefs. But people did rally around him over time, and he was not the only person to fight.

Why are graphic novels good ways to deal with complicated historical, cultural, and political subjects?

This isn’t quite a graphic novel, though we were definitely influenced by the graphic novel look. We did want to create a book that used visuals in a predominant way, in an effort to make the book attractive and inviting for young readers. My nine-year-old daughter will always choose a graphic novel first. And I’ve found some graphic novels that introduced me to socio-historical contexts better than just fiction (Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and Palestine by Joe Sacco come to mind). John Lewis just received multiple awards from librarians for his March graphic novel.

I actually wrote my MA thesis on graphic novels that depicted personal memory and collective history, focusing on WWII (coincidentally). Drawing from Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, I looked at how the interaction between text and visual elements can create a deep and complex reading experience. This is true for readers of all ages. I think graphic novels offer some of the most innovative and exciting reading opportunities today.

What did you look at for inspiration? Are there other great examples of graphic novels or other graphic treatments of historic figures/movements that you could point us to?

I read a lot of children’s book depicting history, especially in terms of our diverse country. Voice of Freedom, a picture book biography about Fanny Lou Hamer, a civil rights activist, was a big influence. I love how the author, Carole Boston Weatherford, wrote in a first person present tense voice to bring us deeply into Hamer’s experience. Marilyn Nelson writes powerful poetry to introduce us to historical figures and events. Her biography, Carver, is one of my favorite books of all time. She uses photos and a variety of voices to introduce readers to George Washington Carver, going way beyond just inventing peanut butter. Her picture book, A Wreath for Emmett Till, shows how deep and complex picture books can be. Ashley Bryan just won awards for his gorgeous and moving book, Freedom Over Me. He deals with the lack of primary source records from slave times to create and give voice to several enslaves characters, along with transcendent artwork. Freedom in Congo Square by Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrated by Gregory Christie, Javaka Steptoe’s recent biography of Basquiat, Radiant Child—so many great books out there. Kids can learn about Josephine Baker and the Shackleton expedition. I could go on and on…

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When trying to gain empathy for people unlike you, panels can be more powerful than headlines. Some of the best books published in recent years have used comics to crack open sensitive political, cultural, and historical topics. You'll note that this list isn't without bias. Graphic nonfiction is a tool more frequently used by the left, and it's hard to find many examples with a more conservative outlook—trust us, we tried. But we believe that all of the books on this list have a different perspective to offer, and can help us look at the world in a new way. Did we miss any others? Tweet us. We'd love to hear what you think.

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.