Increasingly, digital spaces are proving detrimental to youth mental health. By co-designing with youth, Kooth and IDEO set out to flip the script, creating a positive digital space for young people to safely explore their mental wellbeing. 

When Kooth, IDEO, and Blackbird, IDEO’s longtime development partner, first started working on the project, the window of opportunity was narrow, and the stakes were high. The group was up against a nine-week deadline to create a working proof of concept app. Also on the line: a $188 million contract with the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS)—one that would open an entirely new line of business for Kooth. 

The app needed to do more than demonstrate functionality—it needed to prove its value. To ensure that they were creating an asset that truly fit the needs of young people, the team turned to an initial cohort of 13-25 year-old co-designers who explored early features, created video diaries, and shared their questions about and experiences with mental health. These young people often gravitated toward self-service tools that helped them take action based on their feelings. With their feedback, the team created new expressions of clinically-validated behavioral health tools like journaling, breathwork and white noise—and built novel tools, such as Starboard, an expressive drawing tool and a nod to art therapy. 

The team took inspiration from content the co-designers liked to consume, such as story-driven video games that enable freedom of exploration, deepened by a unifying mythology. That led them to a constellation theme, which made the experience more intriguing and playful. The co-designers also recommended a dark color palette, because they preferred exploring the app at night. 

With these insights, the team refined the proof of concept, and then conducted a one-week pilot with another 50 young people across California. Their positive feedback gave the State the confidence to invest in a $188 million, four-year contract for Kooth to bring the app to a platform at scale. 

Over the next year, the team engaged another 150 young people to help design, shape, and test the app. At the same time, Kooth and IDEO created a clinical oversight group, which included a pediatrician, therapists, and other clinical specialists. This group anchored the platform in the practices of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), cultivating psychological flexibility—the mindful acceptance of positive and negative emotions. Young people are invited to complete short reflections and surveys throughout their journey with the app, which includes rigorous, science-backed measurements to assess the therapeutic benefits.

Behind the scenes, the team developed a clinical-facing service and digital platform that empowers Kooth’s peer specialists, social workers, community curators, and clinicians to support the youth experience, all while protecting privacy and confidentiality. They also navigated a complex landscape of state requirements and government legislation, ensuring that the platform could cover topics like substance abuse and gender identity, and that users could access coaching within 24 hours, and choose from a diverse set of experts. 

The last step was to select a name that worked across multiple languages, trademarks, and competitor branding, and didn’t come off as a mental health service, something the youth co-designers believed was critical. IDEO and Kooth landed on Soluna, a name that alludes to the app’s presence in both the bright (“sol” for sun) and the dark times (“luna” for moon). 

Now, Soluna is available for free to all youth in California, and the state has set ambitious targets for reaching all young people at scale. Soluna is a living platform that will continue to receive product and design updates for years to come, all deeply rooted in youth co-design.

The US Surgeon General named mental health “the defining public health crisis of our time,” and cited social media, online bullying, and the isolation exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic as major drivers that have significant negative outcomes for youth.
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In California alone, more than 284,000 youth cope with major depression. 66% of kids with depression do not receive treatment. Between 2019-2020, the suicide rate for kids ages 10-18 increased by 20%.
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In 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Master Plan for Kids’ Mental Health set aside $4.6 billion to increase access to mental health and substance abuse support, the largest commitment to youth mental health ever made by a state.

94%

of proof-of-concept app users would recommend the Soluna app to a friend, and believe that engaging with the app would be a positive addition to their daily/weekly routine

6 million

young people in California had access to Soluna at launch in January 2024

Creating a better cervical cancer screening experience is an important mission, but also a challenging one. Not only would Teal have to address the regulations that face healthcare device companies, it would also need to build a comprehensive telehealth platform and a physical product—a wand that could easily collect an adequate cell sample, even in the hands of an untrained person. 

The first challenge was to create the wand. The device would need to do a lot: It’s impossible for a person to see their own cervix, so the user would have to be able to find the cervix blind, collect the sample themselves, and remove the wand from their bodies without contaminating it on other parts of their anatomy. Because this is something users are likely to do in their bathrooms, where there is no space to lie down, they would need to be able to use the device while standing—and with one hand. From the beginning, the IDEO team set out to design functional, testable prototypes to make sure the idea was viable, and incorporate diverse voices into the research process, including trans, minority, and disabled women. 

Because the product is meant for people who aren’t medical professionals, the team worked to design something as simple, intuitive, and unintimidating as possible. They used a 3-D printer to create multiples of every prototype, autoclaves to make sure that the designs they were creating were sterile, and leaned into shapes women are already used to, like the cylindrical shape of a tampon. The wand they created has that same basic form, but with a soft sponge that the user can deploy with the turn of a dial to collect the sample, then close to protect it from contamination on the way out of the body.

With working prototypes in hand, Teal set out to test their efficacy. In an initial study with 220 participants varying in age, race, socioeconomic status, and geography, Teal found that not only were participants able to successfully self-collect samples, they also preferred them over the speculum, the device doctors typically use during a screening. Some 92 percent said if they knew the results were equal they would prefer self-collection, while 87 percent reported they would stay current with screening if Teal Wand was an option. Self-collection took the vast majority under two minutes to complete, and 97% of study participants reported it was very easy or easy to use. The Teal Wand recently received a patent for its unique design.

The IDEO team also worked on the packaging and unboxing experience, which plays an important role in supporting the user through the self-screening process. The team built in thoughtful design cues to give users reassurance that they are using the wand correctly, and to provide the same level of confidence they would have in the results of an in-clinic screening. 

In January 2023, Teal raised an $8.8 million seed round from Serena Ventures, Emerson Collective, and Metrodora, and later that year, launched a nationwide clinical trial with leading health organizations including Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, the University of Colorado, Washington University, and others. In 2025, The Teal Wand became the first FDA-authorized device for at-home cervical cancer screening, with virtual medical provider support. Today, it's available in all 50 states. i’s an enormous step toward its North Star: catching cervical cancer earlier and saving lives.

Cervical cancer is nearly 100% preventable when it’s caught early, yet one in four women in the US are not up to date on their screenings.
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More than 12,000 people in the US are being diagnosed with cervical cancer every year, and more than 4,000 people die of the disease, which disproportionately impacts Black, Asian, and Hispanic women.
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More than half of cervical cancer cases are found in women that are not up-to-date on their screenings.

97%

of clinical study participants said the Teal Wand was very easy or easy to use.

87%

of participants said they would be more likely to stay current with screening guidelines if Teal Wand was an option.

94%

of participants said they would choose to collect their own sample from home rather than the current standard of care where a clinician collects it in-office.

2025

The Teal Wand becomes the first FDA authorized device for at-home cervical cancer screening, with virtual medical provider support.

Cities United already had a strong foundation with its stated mission, vision, and values. IDEO brought those to life with a new visual and verbal brand identity system that celebrates Cities United’s inclusive approach to building relationships and reimagining public safety.

To help Cities United with its verbal identity, the IDEO team defined the organization's voice, tone, and key messages, making it easier to tell its story more consistently and clearly, a crucial step toward engaging stakeholders.

To define the new visual identity, the team created a new logo, a letter C composed of interwoven shapes that represent the three tenets of their vision—“safe, happy, and hopeful;” a new design language that references city grids; and a typographic system anchored by the typeface VTC DuBois, inspired by W.E.B. DuBois’s own custom lettering and designed by the Black-owned Vocal Type Co. The team also designed a color palette that embodies the textures of city life with hues reminiscent of asphalt, sunrise, and brick. 

To amplify the refreshed branding, the team designed a new responsive website, citiesunited.org. The intuitive site shares the organization’s mission, resources, ongoing projects, and partner network, inviting stakeholders to join in their transformative work. IDEO also created a video to humanize Cities United’s mission and showcase its nationwide impact. It underscores the unity, resilience, and hope embodied by the organization through a chorus of voices.

This comprehensive rebranding widens Cities United’s reach and impact, helping the organization share its goal of creating safe, healthy, hopeful communities for young Black men, boys, and their families, and reintroduces the organization to a national audience. 

The Cities United work was supported by IDEO’s Racial Justice Impact Fund, part of a commitment IDEO made in 2020 to ​​address systemic racism and advance equity within our own organization, our client work, and beyond.

Cities United is committed to reducing the epidemic of homicides and shootings among young Black men and boys ages 14-to-24 by 50%.

Between 2009 and 2019, the number of Black children who “did not go to school at least one day in the past month because they felt unsafe at school or on their way to or from school” increased by 84%, according to Cities United.

Homicide is the leading cause of death for Black men and boys from birth to age 44, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

2023 SF Design Week Award

In recognition of IDEO’s brand work with Citizens United

Sleep is a critical resource for shift workers—and their employers, too. Together, IDEO and Somni worked directly with people with acute and chronic sleep challenges to create concepts that could support their sleep goals, and provide employers with the means to improve employee health.

When IDEO and Somni first partnered, the startup was an early-stage company, so the team started small, with focused sprints and workshops to redesign the core aspects of the company and product offerings. The team interviewed shift workers about their sleep patterns, which can vary quite a bit. Even when people keep to a specific schedule on work days, they often have to change their patterns on days off to spend time with family and friends, leading to a very disruptive sleep cycle. Research revealed that many third shift workers were dealing with sleep and health issues, but also a pervasive “machismo” culture,  pressure to “tough it out,” and a reliance on energy drinks to deal with lack of sleep. 

To address those issues, the team designed a digital experience for sleep cohorts, support groups where members could share their experiences and sleep strategies, and work with a coach and sponsor who already had been through the program. The platform analyzed workers’ data, and provided AI-enabled recommendations for improving their sleep. The big takeaway? Data by itself wasn’t necessarily helpful, and could be confusing for folks who were less digitally-fluent. Providing context, like a calendar that displayed sleep experiments at a glance, was crucial. 

The IDEO team also created a new user experience for a genetic testing program that could uncover factors associated with sleep issues. Somni aims to use a saliva-based genetic test to monitor for DNA damage caused by circadian disruption, then leverage its sleep improvement program to prevent further damage. Because biomarker testing is a differentiating offer for Somni, it was extremely important that the team get it right, both to make sure that users could understand its utility, and for Somni to provide real value. The design challenge was unique—and not just because of data privacy concerns. Presenting data about DNA damage in a non-human-centered way could increase the anxiety workers had around their sleep.

At the end of the project, Somni leveraged the insights the IDEO team surfaced to improve products like its sleep coaching service, and to refine its biomarker testing offering. Based on this work, Somni has also created a pilot with a Fortune 100 company, which is currently in progress, as it works to mitigate the ill effects of disrupted sleep for employees and the companies they work for.

In the short-term, circadian rhythm disruption leads to an array of jet-lag-like symptoms, and in the long-run, it may contribute to weight gain, obesity, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

It also impairs people’s ability to work, affecting productivity, creativity, and the overall work environment. Productivity loss can lead to employer baseline healthcare costs that are 26% higher, and over time, insomnia can result in an average cost of $4,267 more per employee per year.

In June 2019, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified shift work as a probable carcinogen.

75%

user retention in Somni's sleep program

$2,450

savings per year per employee for users who complete the program

33%

improvement in sleep quality, and 41 more minutes per night

1. Create agreements, not rules

For our weekly bits&bites meeting about the intersection of digital and creative technology, we decided to carve out five minutes from an existing office-wide gathering—our weekly Monday lunch—and offer the mic to anyone who wanted to talk about a piece of digital wizardry that's really rocking their world.

For the open mic share to catch on, we created a set of agreements that was structured enough to describe to people what and how to share, yet loose enough to encourage them to take risks.

• Whatever excites you, excites us. Pick a topic that combines digital with another craft, discipline, concept, or anything else that you’re passionate about.
• Keep it real. Talk about something that you either use, or would have loved to design.
• Keep it short. Remember, you only have five minutes! Keep it simple—don't overthink it.
• Take initiative. Interested in presenting? Add your name to the calendar!
• Take ownership. Once you’re up, you’re up. If you can’t make it, find someone to take your spot.

2. Design and brand it

Create a distinctive identity. In this world, even meetings need a brand to maintain their appeal. To make bits&bites really stick, we came up with a name, a look, and a jingle, and turned to our community for a design boost. Writer Jason Baker took inspiration from the bite-sized format and lunchtime milieu to come up with the moniker. Communication designer Peter Antonelli lent his talents to a simple, eye-catching visual identity. And design researcher with musical talents Alex Gallafent composed a catchy theme song, seemingly extracted from a 1980s science show. Taken together, the attention paid to designing this meeting has made bits&bites an exciting familiar moment every week (we often catch people absent-mindedly humming the jingle around the office).

3. Make it interdisciplinary and inclusive

Invite people from across disciplines. Our intent for bits&bites was to shift our thinking from digital as a craft to digital as a medium or mindset. This lens prompted people to share work that explored questions like, what does digital mean when it overlaps with the idea of delight? Or protest? Or the sense of touch? How can we explore digital in the context of analog experiences? What lies at the nexus of digital and fright? The interdisciplinary approach not only made the bits&bites meeting more robust, it turned what could have been a closed door session with a few into an inclusive event.

We’re now entering our 9th month of this inspiration part of our regular lunch meeting. We’ve accumulated some of our favorites here, including Selma Durand’s “Digital Magic”, which celebrates digital illusions within industrial design, and “Hello World Wide Web” from Fuzzy Wobble, which looks at the rich history of firsts since the Internet began. Check out this slideshow.

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“Oh god, not another meeting.”

Yes, we know, communication is important. But most meetings end up feeling more like black holes in your calendar—rote check-ins that suck up more energy than they create. And just as with black holes, we who design meetings may not observe how bad they are directly, and only observe their effects—frequent phone checking, a battle to sound like the smartest person in the room, zero follow-through. So, how do you reinvent a workplace ritual so that it truly inspires? Here are 3 tips:

People squint at "Adwoa" and tell me how creative my parents are. But my name is not that unusual in Ghana, where my parents are from. It just means that I’m a girl who was born on a Monday. My mother is also an Adwoa: We are legion. It was hard to explain that growing up, and even harder to fit in with my many cousins when I went back to Ghana for all too brief visits. I had the name, but not the language, culture, or history I’d need to belong.

I spent a lot of my school years apologizing for that name; it felt like an albatross around my neck. I used nicknames, and prefaced my response with, “it’s a long one!” whenever anyone asked me to spell it out. And then I got to high school.

Over the years I’d become keenly aware of the long pause that ensued on the first day of school, as the teacher taking attendance nervously approached the end of the Gs. So I was shocked to find that when she did pause, it wasn’t just on my name. Oluwakemi Adegoke. Shuchi Dwivedi. Chloe Jhangiani. Fungai Machirori.

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t the only one weird one. Who was this magical tribe? It turned out they were all, like me, first generation Americans. They got it. Here were my people.

My life was upended by the realization that there were more of us than I’d ever thought possible. We held America within us, but we also had one foot on other shores. And the water between all of our feet was alive with shared experience.

East Asian friends and I laughed ourselves sore about our parents’ hyperzealous focus on education. (Overheard in my household: “Unless you are at death’s doorstep, you are going to school today.”) At the end of the year, we shared knowing glances when perfect attendance awards were given out.

Indian friends and I lamented our low tolerance for spice; Filipino friends teased me about our mutually lengthy names. I am still in disagreement with Nigerians about whose jollof rice is better (Ghanaian, obviously). As an undergraduate, my experience in the U.S. left me uniquely prepared to be a stranger while studying abroad in Italy and Portugal—I already knew all about shapeshifting to accommodate people’s expectations.

It was an Iranian-American professor who gave me back my name, shaking aside the abbreviations and waking me up to the fact that it should never have been a source of shame. My undergraduate thesis was about Sex and the City, which always makes people laugh. But it had a deep meaning for me. I used the show as text to unpack the way we construct our identities in urban spaces. When you come from somewhere else, as most New Yorkers do, people can only know you by what you show them. In arriving, you can transform into whoever you’d like to be.

Art that speaks directly to the labor of rebuilding home—El Anatsui’s paintings, the music of Alsarah and the Nubatones—is especially good at conjuring up the longing and resilience of those new beginnings that require us to reconfigure our very selves: our ways of expression, and of being in the world. Moving between two worlds is perhaps the ultimate design act.

Everyone has felt that they were different at some point in their lives; all of us have taken steps into the unknown. If we’re lucky, we’ve found our people there. At a time when the planet holds 65 million displaced people—the highest number in history—seeking out the shifting stories of those who aren’t like us is more important than ever. We may realize, along the way, that we’re all each other’s people.

Illustrations by Lisa Hsia.

In the first week of kindergarten in rural Ohio, I learned to write my name. The teacher probably thought it would be an easy lesson. My classmates had names like Amy Lewis, Leslie Williams, Jennifer Green. I imagine her blithely scanning the attendance sheet, then getting to my name and thinking something along the lines of “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” That was how I first learned I was different: eking out cursive letters long after the others had moved on.

In this picture you see one of my colleagues on her morning trip from our studio kitchen to her desk. She's carrying her morning coffee, purse, and phone in the usual way—so her hands are full. But to save a second trip, she's cleverly stashed her breakfast supplies in the back-pockets of her jeans. A spoon, yes, but would you think it possible to carry a tub of yogurt in your back pocket? This tub has a molded split—intended to keep the yogurt and fruit in separate compartments—but that split creates a perfectly-sized and balanced hook. It's an unanticipated benefit that turned out to be very handy.

Thoughtless acts are fascinating to me simply because I enjoy discovering the details in the everyday interactions around me. They also help me remember that, as designers of products and systems, we will never anticipate everything that people do. It's best if we strive to humbly provide simple, understandable, responsive and reliable things that allow natural human creativity to thrive.

For my latest project, I worked with a Japanese insurance company to explore the mindset of "digital natives." Who are they, and what do they care about? After doing ethnographic research, we made a film to communicate what we learned. Juggling the roles of producer, creative director, and design researcher, I worked alongside Sean, a videographer, to bring the story to life. We looped back with one of our research participants in Tokyo and tagged along with her for a day, asking some targeted questions.

9:30 AM: Arriving at IDEO's Tokyo studio to start the day.

10:30 AM: From the studio we set out to meet our subject, Yoko*, and begin filming.

The purpose of the film was to bring the client closer to the people they want to serve, to help them understand the texture of their lives and what matters to them. We chose film as a medium because of its intimacy—allowing the viewer to feel as if they are hanging out in Yoko’s world for a day.

We had a translator with us to be sure we understood the nuance and intent of what Yoko told us. We tried to get to the heart of things. When people truly feel as though you're listening, they start to reveal themselves. That’s the magic that happens in design research. You are there to listen, not to respond.

1:00 PM: Taking a break to enjoy some authentic local cuisine.

You can learn a lot about a culture's rituals and values through food!

2:30 PM: Capturing B-roll to round out the story.

Doing the research is one thing, but how do we capture and share it in a way that incites action? If we’ve created nothing more than an esoteric emotional piece, we’ve failed. We set out to inspire change in our client organizations.

4:00 PM: Precious cargo.

As a nursing mother, I have to juggle a whole new set of responsibilities on business trips. The ice cooler is the new messenger bag.

5:13 PM: Jet lag is no joke! Catching a pre-dinner cat nap.

Traveling to cool places around the world can sometimes seem more glamorous than it is. But still, I always find myself filled with so much inspiration. I run on adrenaline, and then at some point I crash.

8:00 PM: A happy team moment at the end of a long day.

Want to get to know your team quickly? Travel together! The shared experience of exploring new places while working hard is a great way to bond.

Learning about different cultures and customs is one of my favorite parts of design research. We get to understand so much about people by looking in on the day to day of their lives, their habits and routines. Cultures can vary, but regardless of where we are in the world, human needs are so similar. Uncovering these needs and helping to design for them can feel incredibly fulfilling.

*We've changed the name of our interview subject out of respect for her privacy.

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When people ask me what I do for a living, I say, “I try to understand why people do the things they do.” What inspires them to act? What motivates them to make certain decisions? What really makes them tick, or what makes them feel understood? Design research is like being a reporter or anthropologist or therapist—you’re given access to people’s lives that feels like a great privilege, and with that privilege comes great responsibility.

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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.