For more than 40 years, Sage has helped businesses of all sizes navigate complex business environments. While many of its larger customers have the means and the structure to support climate initiatives, many of its smaller customers do not.

Sage wanted to help its SMB customers get ahead of future climate regulations and meet consumer expectations. And building carbon-footprint evaluation and mitigation tools would also dovetail nicely with Sage’s own climate aspirations: cutting its own emissions in half by 2030. Together, Sage and IDEO investigated how the company could leverage the data in its platform to calculate its customers’ emissions, both direct and indirect, and how that information could spur action as they aim to hit net zero.

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To get started, the design team went deep with customers running all kinds of businesses—from a taxi company to a champagne bar to a falconry center. Business owners shared that their focus often has to be on the day-to-day, a series of small decisions that, when added together, lead to business success. For many, tackling a problem as complex as climate change felt overwhelming. IDEO and Sage synthesized those insights and began working across verticals and products, bringing together experts from marketing, technology, sustainability, and operations to build out new concepts. With the help of two carbon accountants, the team worked to figure out how existing data could inform customers about both their direct and indirect emissions, which can be harder to track. Given how tight SMBs’ margins are, they focused on how that knowledge could fuel emissions-cutting changes that also save money, giving businesses extra incentive to take action. Together, the team created a roadmap of customer outcomes and experience guidelines to help shape future products.

Sage has taken that work forward, launching Sage Earth, a platform that aims to help businesses measure, manage, and mitigate emissions—even across supply chains. With carbon accounting now built directly into all Sage Accounting and Sage for Accountants products in the UK, Sage has made climate action practical and accessible for millions of SMBs. By automating emissions measurement and reporting, Sage Earth removes barriers of cost and complexity, empowering business owners and their accountants to stay competitive in supply chains where up to 95 percent of emissions occur. 

From co-developing the UK Voluntary SME Carbon Reporting Standard to launching a Carbon Accounting API, which gives banks, fintechs, and other platforms access to Sage’s Carbon Engine, Sage is embedding sustainability into the systems people already trust—helping hundreds of thousands (and rapidly increasing) small businesses turn climate ambition into everyday action.

Small- and medium-sized businesses—companies with fewer than 500 employees—make up about 90% of the world’s businesses, according to U.N.-backed SME Climate Hub.

Two thirds of small businesses don’t know how they’re going to reach net zero, and lack the resources to do so, according to a recent survey by SME Climate Hub. Still, the majority reported they want to act on climate, recognizing it can help them become a more resilient business.

Large companies may be the biggest emitters of greenhouse gasses, but an estimated 80% of those emissions come from supply chains—often made up of smaller enterprises.

Scaling rapidly

in the three years since the launch of Sage Earth, which is now being used by hundreds of thousands of businesses

World's 1st

open-source hybrid emissions factors dataset, Carbon Commons, led by Sage, helps SMBs calculate carbon footprints using existing data

Menopause is much more than a biological transition—it is a profound shift that often arrives just when people experiencing it start to feel invisible. Because it has long been shrouded in darkness as an unmentionable female affliction, those going through menopause often feel unprepared and alone.

Recognizing that its customer demographic makes QVC uniquely positioned to surface conversations and provide support to those dealing with menopause, the video commerce retailer partnered with IDEO to figure out how it could not only meet customer needs, but also flip the conversation on midlife. To learn more, a team of female design researchers held in-depth interviews with folks experiencing it firsthand. The people they spoke to had limited information about what was going on with their bodies, and in some cases, it took years before they understood that symptoms they were experiencing were related to menopause. Respondents also reported that midlife brought a change in social status and the feeling of being boxed in by stereotypes.

QVC and IDEO worked together to design an integrated suite of offerings that could give customers a safe space to discover and share more about menopause. That included an on-air programming series called “Menopause Your Way,” where QVC could support those going through menopause in the privacy of their own homes, a digital landing page with useful solutions, and social media campaigns to help women share and learn more about each others’ experiences. Because people experience menopause and choose to manage it in many different ways, the team wanted to create an integrated ecosystem of content that women could access according to their unique journeys. The new offering helped QVC  reach its core audience with solutions and relevant products, and created a space where menopause is out in the open and part of an ongoing conversation. And in the process, QVC evolved to become a more customer-centric company, putting its audience and their needs at the heart of its offerings.

9/10 of British menopausal women say society and brands overlook them.

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1 in 2 women in the UK admitted they didn’t know what was happening to them during perimenopause.

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Nearly 40% of menopausal women are being prescribed antidepressants to help manage their symptoms, despite 4 out of 5 describing the treatment as “inappropriate.”

Season 2

a series focused on menopause is now in its second season

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Healthcare is a complex web of institutions, interaction, relationships, and services. In England, the National Health Service consists of thousands of separate organizations spread across the country. This fragmented structure means that rolling out digital tools and using them to their full potential can be difficult.

NHSX approached IDEO and Public Digital, IDEO’s sister company, for help designing user-centered resources that would empower Children and Young People’s Mental Health (CYPMH) practitioners to use digital tools more effectively, shifting service design from a reactive to a proactive process, and allowing each regional organization to create the best digital services for their children and young people.

The team took a human-centered approach, tapping into the perspectives, challenges and needs of NHS practitioners and leaders across the system over months of research. They then designed a set of accessible, straightforward online resources, courses, and templates that would enable a practitioner to start their own local service transformations. These included everything from practical advice on improving users’ experiences of CYPMH, to teaching methods for service design, to content focused on achieving digital transformation at scale.

The resources were easy to implement and replicate, allowing mental health practitioners across the country to seamlessly integrate physical and digital, create firebreaks in the system, and better bridge the gap between seeking care and receiving it. They were designed to evolve over time, and the work is replicable across the NHS, with the potential to touch millions of lives.

By empowering practitioners to utilize these digital tools to ease the burden of care, NHSX plans to create a positive ripple effect across the entire NHS, its partner organizations, and the country at large.

In a study undertaken in July 2020, the first summer of the COVID pandemic, the NHS found that clinically significant mental health conditions amongst children had risen by 50% compared to three years earlier.

More options, more access

digital resources are helping children and young people access more options for their mental health care

It’s not easy to shift the paradigm for an entire industry. But when a company comes along that promises to reinvent air travel, it opens up a blue sky of opportunities. That’s the flight path for Boom Supersonic, which is thinking big about how passengers arrive at their destination not only faster, but also with a greater sense of wellbeing.

To really comprehend the experience of flying in the unique contoured profile of this ultrafast jet, and to help Boom make key decisions about the design of the plane, the IDEO team believed that you had to go beyond algorithms and schematics—you needed to actually board it.

Using a “build-first” approach, the team quickly constructed a full-scale mockup of the fuselage from plywood and foam core. That became a prototyping platform to test multiple seating configurations, galley and lavatory size and placement, luggage storage solutions, and other concepts that would differentiate and add value to the passenger experience. For the first time, the Boom team was able to set foot in its own aircraft and truly understand the experience from the perspective of its clientele. The exercise allowed the Boom team to confidently make decisions by comparing multiple cabin configurations and options in full-scale.

Throughout the project, Boom and IDEO invited future travelers aboard to interact with the prototype and offer feedback. That input culminated in a more refined model, with augmented windows, moonroof, in-flight entertainment screens, and sound design—all further augmented by a Virtual Reality component to allow our future travelers to fully immerse in this new experience.

Together, Boom and IDEO brought a sneak peak to the Farnborough International Airshow, a biannual exhibition for the aerospace, aviation, and defense industries. The event was an opportunity to give the industry and potential customers a preview of Boom’s innovative new jet. In collaboration with the client, an exhibition architect, and a digital production agency, the team created an immersive environment designed to make the Overture experience feel tangible, eliciting the wonder of this revolutionary plane.

Boom’s presence at Farnborough not only underscored the Overture’s progress but provided an inspiring glimpse into the future of air travel. During the air show the company announced the production Overture design, a market-expanding alliance with Northrop Grumman, and agreements with tier one suppliers Collins Aerospace, Safran, and Eaton. Not long after, Boom received its largest order to date, this one from American Airlines. 

The prospect of getting to London in time for dinner just got a little closer.

Boom plans for Overture to get from New York to Frankfurt in just over four hours instead of the eight hours spent on a commercial jet today.

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The Overture supersonic jet has a cruising speed of Mach 1.7, about twice as fast as today’s commercial planes. Overture is built to fly on 100% sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).

20 Overture deposits

made by American Airlines, joining current customers United Airlines and Japan Airlines

But somewhere between unlocking a new badge and being reminded that your streak is on the line, you wonder, “Am I actually getting healthier—or just getting better at this game?”

Gamification, the technique of borrowing principles from game design to nudge behavior, promises motivation wrapped in fun. It has taken hold for a reason—it works. At least in the short run. Our products now nudge us at every turn. Fitness apps keep us running (literally) after digital rewards; loyalty programs make us strategize our coffee orders like it’s the Olympics; and even financial markets have started to feel more like Vegas, where winning means flipping assets before the music stops. But the important question isn’t whether gamification works. It’s who is it working for?

When game mechanics are used for product strategy without understanding consumers’ deeper motivations, it breeds fatigue, churn, and mistrust. It’s not just bad design, but rather a larger risk to customer loyalty and long-term growth. Gamification strategies that emphasize winning can also unintentionally encourage overconsumption, while attempts to gamify health, community engagement, or sustainability risk reducing meaningful behavior change to shallow, performative tasks.

In a well-designed game, the relationship is symbiotic—you play because you love the experience, and in return, the game designer thrives as more players buy in. But gamification can sometimes feel like a system imposed upon you, where participation is required to unlock basic functionality, avoid penalties, or simply keep up. When this happens, gamification starts feeling more like an obligation—or worse, a trap. The game stops being something we choose to play—it plays us instead.

So how do we harness gamification’s immense promise in a more productive way?

At the IDEO Play Lab, we leverage game design to help businesses drive deep, sustainable engagement. Because most successful products don’t just lean on gamification’s surface sparkle—they dig into the sturdy mechanics of game design itself.

Here are some of the myths of gamification and real ways thoughtful game design can lead to better products.

Myth 1: To make an experience sticky, just add points or badges!

Reality: The deeper opportunity lies in leveraging game thinking to make transformative experiences.

Reducing game design to points and leaderboards sells it far too short. True game-thinking involves designing systems that embody the foundational mechanics of games—like challenge, choice, feedback, and progression—to create deeply engaging, motivating, and transformative experiences.

One example: We were partnering with an organization to develop a digital platform to support the mental health of people aged 14-25. We could have simply added a point or reward system to make the app engaging for this young audience—after all, social media and other apps do just that. But we knew that the benefits of working on one’s mental health aren’t tied to those types of metrics; in fact, employing them can have the opposite effect. Instead, we ran game design workshops to explore specific mechanics and principles that would tap into users’ intrinsic motivations, then used those as a springboard to explore compelling—and beneficial—new features. One of the simplest—and most popular in testing—was a fidget drawing board, where users could make little finger drawings on a starry background that would fade after a few seconds. This playful interaction was a compelling feature that drew our testers back again and again. No leaderboard needed.

Myth 2: Make an experience feel like a game with competition!

Reality: Games do not have to be zero-sum.

Games often have a winner and a loser—one person’s success comes at the expense of another’s. But not always. Over the last two decades, we’ve seen a big rise in new kinds of gaming experiences—cooperative games, cozy games, storytelling games, and more. Games like these leverage game mechanics to build community, encourage expression, or even intentionally lower the stakes to design for new kinds of emergent experiences

On a recent project, IDEO worked with a client that was looking to introduce generative AI workflows into employees’ day-to-day work. They told us that the team responded well to competition and recommended leaning into that to motivate and incentivize participation. So, we split the group into two teams and started tracking achievements to see which team could achieve the highest overall score each week. At first, the teams enjoyed tracking points and competing. But when we introduced a challenge where harder tasks earned more points, participation collapsed. Some tried, but after high scores hit the leaderboard, they felt embarrassed to share lower ones. Others skipped it entirely, assuming they couldn’t measure up.

So, we changed course. Instead of rewarding skill, we gave points for effort and encouraged mentorship over competition. Participation rebounded immediately.

Dialing in the right mechanics for a leaderboard is trickier than you might think. Done poorly, you might discourage the very behavior you’re hoping for. Ultimately, gamification should encourage progress, not perfection.

Myth 3: Gamification works because it’s fun.

Reality: Motivations are much more complex than just fun, and game elements work best when they are tied to more meaningful values.

Fun is suuuuuper subjective. It’s not even helpful to say it’s a motivation. It is an outcome. Some games create fun through storytelling and narrative explorations (think Dungeons & Dragons); other games offer fun through the satisfaction of strategic or tactical problem-solving (think chess). Game designers look at these deeper, more nuanced motivators when they shape an experience.

When we designed the initial prototype for Ethiqly, an AI-powered writing platform for teachers and students, we began with a fundamental belief: motivation goes deeper than fun. Ethiqly is built to support the writing process, not replace it. We applied a play-centered design methodology to uncover intrinsic motivators at every stage. Students don’t just complete tasks—they explore writing voice, style, and critical thinking. Meanwhile, teachers take on the role of game designers, shaping the learning environment through challenges, feedback, and progression systems. Instead of automating away the parts of the writing process that bring users satisfaction and purpose, like students building confidence and skill in developing their point of view, we built experiences that work with their intrinsic motivation. Just like in a great game, the platform gradually increases difficulty, offers meaningful choices, and delivers helpful feedback that sparks growth. Gamification, in this case, works because it isn’t just icing on the cake—it’s a deliberate system for sustained engagement, where technology augments human creativity rather than bypassing it.

Many of the industries that are leaning into gamification—exercise, eating habits, medicine, education—tap into motivations that are similarly complicated. Organizations need to take care to align the ingredients for fun with the criteria for other meaningful outcomes.

Myth 4: Gamification has universal best practices.

Reality: You can’t slap any old game mechanic onto any experience and expect to improve it.

Picture what would happen if you added dice rolls to chess—a game that is deliberately devoid of randomness. You’d change the very essence of it. Similarly, you can’t just add badges to a workout routine and assume it will make the workout better. You might even ruin the original, desired experience.

IDEO once helped design an FDA-approved program to help people quit smoking. The team made early games that were fun to play, but something didn’t feel right.  So, we took a cue from roguelike games, a genre that uses repeated failure to make players’ eventual success more meaningful. (After all, the journey to quit smoking can often include repeated failures.) Some roguelike games even require you to fail in order to level up. Inspired, we applied this kind of game psychology to design a core loop, providing feedback that users could reflect on, understand, and apply on their next attempt. The setup gave users a reason to continue and ultimately succeed.

Layering game elements onto existing activities requires intention and design to dial in the right experience.

When done well, leveraging game mechanics isn’t about points, competition, or chasing fun; it’s about designing experiences that tap into deeper human motivations. The best games can shape how people engage, learn, and grow. But getting it right takes more than a leaderboard—it takes thoughtful design.

At IDEO, we apply play and game mechanics to complex challenges, designing experiences that empower rather than manipulate, motivate rather than pressure, and create lasting impact beyond the next dopamine hit. If you’re looking to build experiences that go beyond the surface and truly engage, let’s talk.

Imagine this: You’re halfway through your fitness challenge, hitting milestones with satisfying progress bar updates and an occasional trip up the leaderboard.

As part of that work, I attended an event last year hosted by the Biden-Harris Administration’s Kids Online Health and Safety Task Force and Stanford University. There, I reconnected with Megan Jones Bell, Director of Consumer and Mental Health at Google. Throughout her career, she has drawn on her own experiences with mental health to build and improve digital tools, access to resources, and safeguards.

Now at Google, she’s helping one of the world’s largest and most influential companies shape policies that help kids and teens safely access information, play, and connect online. After the event, we came together for a conversation about how Google is working to promote digital well-being among kids and teens, the ways organizations across tech and other sectors are uniting to protect them, and how friction can help keep people safe. (Content warning: The following text includes mentions of suicide, mental health issues, sexual abuse, self-harm, and eating disorders.)

‍Michelle Lee: It was wonderful to catch up at the event and get a peek into what you're up to right now. I’m curious—how do you define digital thriving in your work?

Megan Jones Bell: When it comes to kids and teens, it's really about how we design experiences that help them get the best out of technology to be creative, to learn, to play, and to safely connect with others online.

ML: I love that. What are the core principles that help guide your approach?

MJB: Our cross-cutting principles are built to protect, designed to respect, and created to empower kids and families. These overarching principles guide our approach across Google products. Last year, YouTube also announced Youth Principles that further clarify our commitment to creating a safer and more enriching environment for young people. Our principles include:

1. The privacy, physical safety, mental health, and well-being of children and teenagers require special protections online. That's the one a lot of my team's work ladders to, and I love that we were able to be declarative about it.
2. Parents and caregivers play an important role in setting the rules for their family's online experiences, particularly for the youngest children. How do we put the right tools into their hands so that they can manage their kids’ exposure to technology?
3. All children deserve free access to high-quality and age-appropriate content that meets their individual interests and needs. This is really about the fundamental right to information that is appropriate for different age groups.
4. The developmental needs of children differ greatly from those of teenagers, and should be reflected in their online experiences. This is also an area that we’re deeply focused on.
5. With appropriate safeguards, innovative technologies can benefit children and teenagers.

ML: I appreciate how you started with safety as the baseline, but progress to helping youth benefit from technology. Last month, I saw YouTube and other global partners announce the 2025 Youth Digital Well-being Initiative. Can you tell us more about this, and what you hope it will accomplish?

MJB: YouTube has joined over a dozen regional content creators and distributors representing 10 countries to participate in the initiative. The goal is to support a unified vision for the development of high-quality, age-appropriate content for young people. It will involve responsible product design and content creation tailored to local needs. We hope this will raise industry standards and positively shape the online experiences of youth around the world, across a diverse set of languages. We also hope the effort will give kids and teens access to content that promotes media literacy and digital citizenship, foster learning in and outside of the classroom, support child development and well-being, and enable a setting for healthy screen time.

ML: That's great. I'm so excited to see that partnership come together. To back up a bit, I first met you when you were at Headspace. I see a theme in your work across tech and mental health. What’s brought you to this work?

MJB: When I was in college, I decided I wanted to turn my suffering and hard experiences with mental health into something that was a strength. So I became a youth advocate for mental health. As I was running a body image and eating disorder prevention program that we ultimately scaled through the Girl Scouts, I found out how hard it was to scale and maintain quality. I became convinced that technology was a tool that could help us scale access to preventive interventions—which is really where my passion is.

At that point, in 2004, my main interest was promoting mental health and well-being by identifying and modifying risk factors to prevent the onset and progression of disorders. But I felt that being in academia would limit my impact, so I became an entrepreneur quite reluctantly.

Then, when I switched from having to literally write the code of the programs I was building at Stanford to working with actual engineers and UX designers, I thought, “I'm never going back.” So pretty quickly, I got pulled out of my academic path into more human-centered design and real product development, and actually did a bunch of programs at IDEO to learn about the methodology.

ML: Oh, that's great! I didn’t know that.

One of the themes that came out of the Stanford event was the importance of nuance. We hear so much about how tech is the problem. But tech also has benefits. Where are we seeing it help us in our work addressing mental health issues?

MJB: It is absolutely nuanced. Across our products, our approach has been to ensure that we are elevating authoritative, meaningful, accurate information that comes from a verifiable source.

With funding from Google, the National Academies convened experts to define online authoritative information for health overall: peer-reviewed medical journals, or accredited health institutions, like hospitals or health systems and government sources. Then, we asked the World Health Organization (WHO) to help us internationalize that framework. From there, we partnered with the Council of Medical Specialties to help us verify the licensure of individual creators. Whether it's a nonprofit, a company, or an individual creator, we verify. And they are badged, so that each video has a visual cue that says, “This information comes from a licensed mental health professional.”

At the same time, people also want to hear from someone who's walked a mile in their shoes. So, we built a personal story shelf that elevates lived experience content. It has guardrails around it to make sure that it is safe content, particularly for sensitive issues, like eating disorders or suicide. We’re also age-gating it to 18-year-olds.

The next piece is partnering with local resources to support people in crisis. In the U.S., on YouTube, the crisis resource panel is a full-screen takeover; it's essentially a pause page that helps introduce some friction into the experience with a clear call to action. We do that for suicide, and in certain countries, depending on the availability of appropriate partners, eating disorders, self harm, domestic violence, sexual assault, and substance use.

ML: I’m intrigued that you introduce the idea of friction, because one of the big promises of technology is that it's going to make your life simpler. Where do you think technology really needs to introduce friction?

MJB: We believe our responsibility as product designers is to provide external cues that help people have a chance to activate their internal ones—whether that’s helping someone realize they’ve been online longer than intended, or that it’s time to go to bed to be ready for school, or something more serious like showing a crisis hotline number such as 988 to someone potentially at-risk for suicide.

ML: As someone who feels like the world just keeps running at top speed, I really appreciate that.

As you look forward, I’m curious about what you think is going to shape the future of digital well-being for kids and youth, and how you and Google Health are preparing for that.

MJB: We joke that you can't get through a conversation right now without saying "AI" 100 times. My team is in the guts of our Generative AI products, making sure they’re safe. But we also need to be creative. We used GenAI on our suicide classifier to better detect personal crisis queries on Search long before it was a popular thing to talk about. And so we know how it works, and we also know what it's good at and bad at.

ML: Glad to hear that, because GenAI is accelerating quickly, and we have many lessons from apps, social media, video games—all these places where we have moved too fast in the past, and had to go back and fix our mistakes later on.

When we were at the event, I was fascinated by how different tech companies came together to have this conversation, when they’re often competitors. How does Google work alongside other organizations?

MJB: We've essentially said "yes" to joining most kids’ online safety and well-being initiatives. There are other predicates for how Google has worked across the industry on things like child sexual abuse material online. As soon as we do something, we try to be transparent about our approach. A year ago, we updated our eating disorders policy to take more of a preventative lens. And then several other companies updated theirs. Our reaction isn’t, “Oh they copied us.” It's, “Hooray! We're collectively protecting more kids.” I’ve heard from others in tech that they liked our approach so adapted it for their product.

But we shouldn't be the arbiters of defining what authoritativeness means in the context of health information; that should be an expert dialogue that we then align our product with, not the other way around. We’re in the process of doing it again with the WHO to figure out how to make developmentally-appropriate teen mental health content. As soon as WHO had a set of principles, they were published—even before we had a launch to go with it. And if another company took that and executed faster? Good for them.

ML: It’s great to hear about these positive strides. At the same time, Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation, is getting a lot of attention. His hypothesis is that digital devices and social media are strongly linked to the increase in youth mental health issues. I’m curious to hear your reaction.

MJB: I do have concerns about the science behind his work because it's not consistent with authoritative scientific bodies. When groups like the American Psychological Association or the National Academies have a point of view that differs from one person who is trying to write a fear-based bestseller, we should be skeptical.  

At the same time, I do agree that parents need to play a very active role in helping their kids navigate their online experiences. When my son wanted to play a particular video game, we went on Common Sense Media and read about why it wasn't appropriate for him. And he said, “Yeah, okay. What games can I play?” It takes work, but I am so intentional about where he is physically, what’s going on at school, and what he’s eating. We need to learn how to bring that attention to online experiences, too.

We also need to advance our understanding of the effects of technology. For years we’ve had Google Takeout, which essentially gives researchers access (with the appropriate consent) to data about everything people do online. Combine that with other markers of mental health, and researchers can begin to tell a story of cause and effect. It's not appropriate for us to go measure the mental health of a Google user. That needs to be done in an academic context. But we can encourage higher quality research methods that answer some of the open questions. We have a bunch of researchers in Google Health who are excited about helping organizations use these tools.

‍ML: That's one of the reasons I'm excited to have these conversations. Knowing that people are seeing this moment as a chance for us to mobilize, to work together and figure out how to make our relationship with technology better, across industries, government, and academia—that gives me a lot of hope. Thanks so much for sharing the work that you’re doing at Google, and for being a great thought partner on possibilities for the future.

Looking to design products and experiences with digital thriving in mind? Get in touch.

This article is part of a series of Q&As on digital thriving. Check out part one, an interview with a student advocate for more responsible social media, and part two, an interview with LEGO Senior Design Strategist Pia Breum Corlin.

For the past few years, IDEO’s Play Lab has focused on a concept we call “digital thriving”—the idea that we can and should design online spaces that support mental health and well-being.

But it’s not about going back. It’s about reclaiming control.

Across markets—from Seoul to London to New York—young consumers are reaching for clunkier, older tech: The original iPhone SE, with its physical home button and hazy-colored photos; point-and-shoot digital cameras; even new versions of decoupled technology, like offline MP3 players.

It’s tempting to accept these trends at face value and think, “We should double down on nostalgia!” Or, “Let’s bring back retro products!” Or even, “This has nothing to do with our business.” Instead, leaders need to look at the underlying need driving these behaviors in young people: a desire for a more human and connected world they didn’t get to experience, and a rebellion against automated, algorithmic pressure. This shift poses a critical challenge for brands and retailers—and an incredible opportunity for the future. For brands willing to reimagine themselves not just as sellers, but as enablers of identity, connection, and co-creation, there is an enormous opportunity to lead.

‍From chasing trends to building identities

Especially for this generation of customer, the constant pursuit of the next “it” thing—the next viral aesthetic, the next must-have product—has become exhausting.  For too long, filters and algorithm-driven feeds have pressured them to represent themselves in unrealistic ways that relate less to who they are and more to a perception of how society, their peers, and algorithms think they should be. Instead of trying to keep pace, they’re trying to discover, “What actually feels like me?”

Last year, we worked directly with a group of Gen Zs to test out a handful of AI product concepts focused on creativity, travel, and relationships. Across the board, they were clear: They do not want companies glossing over the awkward parts of growing up, building relationships, or exploring their own creativity. They crave real-life experiences that shape their sense of self, and help them foster new connections.

For customer-facing brands, this is a wake-up call. Brands of the future will serve as connectors, offering consumers an active role in co-creating content and programming. Instead of mass-market activations like yet another celebrity sneaker drop, they’ll invest in community-driven experiences like LEGO’s Ideas platform, which lets fans share what they’ve built, propose new ideas for bricksets, and vote on models built by fellow fans. The next wave of influence and brand building will come from enabling customers to co-author the future of their favorite brand and its products, sharing their identity to inform and build experiences for and with others. Younger customers are drawn back to brands that reflect their identities, because they feel they belong.

From points-of-sale to places to connect

For a long time, the industry narrative declared that physical retail was doomed, outpaced by the convenience of e-commerce, and compounded by the catastrophic disruption of a global pandemic. But now, consumers are increasingly seeking out in-person experiences, especially those with a community dimension. This shift is especially visible among younger consumers. In the last quarter of 2024, 88 percent of UK consumers visited a physical retail destination. Under-35s are leading this shift, making more than twice the number of in-person retail visits compared to those over 55. For them, shopping is no longer a solo, efficiency-driven task—it’s a social and immersive experience. Smart retailers are responding, going beyond maintaining established brick-and-mortar storefronts to re-imagine them as destinations, hubs of culture, connection, community, and value-add experiences beyond shopping. Why? Because physical retail isn’t about a customer journey that ends with a purchase anymore. The future of retail will reimagine methods for connecting with customers, and serve their needs in ways digital simply can’t replicate.

Digital-first and social media influencer brands like MyGlamm and Shein are making the leap to physical storefronts. Saint Laurent opened a sushi restaurant in its Rive Droite store. In addition to its workout gear, Lululemon has built a lifestyle brand through community engagement, in-store experiences, and digital fitness platforms. Sephora has kicked off its largest capital investment project since its founding—to transform its stores across North America—all 700 of them, and also partnered with IDEO to build the store of the future in Asia.

Meanwhile, for Printemps’ first opening in the US in its 160-year history, the French department store’s New York location launched with a façade that proclaimed, this is “not a department store.” Instead, it has been designed as a French apartment, a place where customers can peruse Printemps’ unique curation of French products, take a French class with other customers, or get a head massage while enjoying a glass of champagne with dishes created by Chef Gregory Gourdet. Retail spaces today are becoming third places for people to meet and share—blending hospitality, cultural relevance, and discovery.

From passive consumption to active co-creation

Young consumers are over the whirlpool of social media influencers whose product recommendations are bought and sold right off their screens. Since 2023, a movement rejecting influencer culture has been picking up steam (ironically tagged #deinfluencing). That same year, “authentic” was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year. In an interview IDEO conducted with Khoa-Nathan Ngo, member of #GoodforMEdia, a group at the Stanford Center for Youth and Mental Health and Wellbeing led by college-age students, we learned about the critical importance of companies directly involving young people in the development of new offers. Ngo argues that when their voices weren’t considered in the design of social media, for example, it “created a major crisis in terms of our mental health.”

In 2021, Lush Cosmetics boldly exited from major social media platforms, stating, “Social media is making it harder and harder for us to talk to each other directly. We are tired of fighting with algorithms." Bottega Veneta also decided to shutter its social media accounts, replacing them with a quarterly digital journal, trusting that meaningful engagement would come from content that is deeper, slower, more thoughtful, and curated. The result? The rallying of passionate customer fan accounts like @newbottega, which now rivals the brand’s original social media following, demonstrates that community-led advocacy can be just as powerful—if not more so—than brand-owned channels. One benefit of this approach is that it creates a deeper sense of trust and reciprocal engagement rather than a one-way push from the brand. While industry experts observed Bottega Veneta’s social media strategy skeptically, the brand entered Lyst’s ranking of the Top 10 hottest fashion brands for the first time in 2020—and has maintained its ranking in the Top 10 since.

Companies that want to continue to engage with the next generation need to eschew the traditional paradigm of the seller-buyer relationship and invite customers into a participatory role, inviting them to become true co-creators who help shape the future of the brand experience, offers, and engagements. In our partnership with Athleta, we brought together a council of women to co-design an equitable, inclusive, and sustainable model for omnichannel community-building that is unique and authentic to their brand and customers. This is a powerful example of a belief that IDEO has championed through our work; that people care about what they’ve had a hand in co-creating, and it’s the best way to create long-term brand loyalty and advocacy.  

From selling products to meeting needs

If community is the future of brand-building, then participation is the future of retail. Brands need to move beyond traditional omnichannel thinking to strategies that invite customers to directly shape brand meaning and value in real-time, through a living ecosystem of customer co-design touchpoints, both large and small.

The companies that win over this next generation won’t just sell products, they’ll actively invite them to shape what the brand stands for, how it shows up in the world, and how it delivers value. This goes beyond one-way engagement, to strategic collaboration that turns customer participation into a market advantage. For young shoppers, brand advocacy comes from feeling seen, heard, and influential. Businesses that meet these genuine needs will move beyond fleeting attention, unlocking lasting loyalty, sustainable growth, and entirely new avenues for continual innovation.

Looking to design new products or retail experiences of your own? Get in touch.

The surge in sales of “dumb" phones and digital cameras among Gen Zs is easy to misread as a throwback to nostalgia.

Together, the LEGO Group and UNICEF (with funding from the LEGO Foundation), created the Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children (RITEC) project. Through deep research with children at schools and in homes around the world, the project created a toolbox for incorporating support for children’s well-being in the design process.

In addition to this important work, Senior Design Strategist Pia Breum Corlin led the creation of the LEGO Group’s own Digital Design Principles for Kids, which help shape every digital product the company creates. She and her team also developed one of the cooler design tools I’ve ever seen: a physical toolkit that leads designers through the process, helping them design for well-being and a diverse play experience. I caught up with her to learn more about the company’s approach to digital thriving, how M&Ms can help fuel the design process, and much more. 

Michelle Lee: There are a lot of people who grew up with the LEGO brand, myself included, and we know it primarily as a company that makes toy bricks. But a lot of the work you’re doing has to do with digital play. Could you give an introduction to that work?

Pia Breum Corlin: At the LEGO Group, it's not just about games; it’s about redefining play entirely. For kids, there’s no real distinction between physical and digital play—they naturally blend the two. That’s why we focus on hybrid play, where the physical and digital worlds intersect. That way, we don’t end up having kids just sitting in front of a screen—we actually foster their creativity. 

Michelle Lee: What does that catalog of digital play look like?

Pia Breum Corlin: It’s actually quite big. It includes partnering with games, like with LEGO Fortnite, and also the LEGO Builder app, which is the digital version of the building instructions. We all know the paper version from our childhood. It's very structured, starting with opening bag number one. It feels like something you do on your own. But the digital instructions let you open different bags, and then build small parts of something, which you can then pass off to someone else. It’s more like a board game. So you can suddenly have a set as a family and build together.

Michelle Lee: That sounds incredible. I'd love to learn a little bit more about your role as a design strategist. What does it look like? And how did you get here?

Pia Breum Corlin: My journey to this role is anything but linear. I am trained as a civil engineer in industrial design. It’s a mix between engineering, a lot of math, and design—focused on that intersection between the product and who is using it. That’s where design strategy came in—it taught me that design is more than making things pretty and pixel-perfect, and really about catering to a need. 

I joined the LEGO Group about 10 years ago, and my real interest in play came when we started to create design principles to really understand what it is. I have a tendency to get deep into things that I design for—I really want to understand the user's needs and the behavior behind them. 

Michelle Lee: What led you to this path of wanting to focus on play and well-being within the LEGO Group?

Pia Breum Corlin: At the LEGO Group, everyone talks about digital well-being and thriving in everything we do. We don’t want to do any harm. We want kids to be in a better place after they use an app or product.

When we created LEGO Life, a social media app for LEGO fans, including kids, we wanted to have an internal language that designers could use to say, “Yes, we can do it from a legal perspective. But the big question is, should we? Does it fit into the ethics and well-being perspective that we are trying to promote?” So we created digital design principles that provide a really strong language for that. 

Michelle Lee: I’m curious to hear more about the core principles, and how they guide your approach.

Pia Breum Corlin: For me, the principles are about empowering children to navigate, engage, and create positive social connections that can support their well-being and personal growth.

The first is, “Let me explore,” which is about giving kids agency and autonomy.  “Show me the way” is a reminder to us to not be the police—kids have enough authority in their lives. It’s about helping kids feel supported and to learn something from what they’re doing. “Make me feel joyful” links into emotions, and the level of immersive play. “Support my right to play” taps into creativity from a well-being perspective. And the last one, “Speak my language,” is about identities, diversity, and inclusion.  

LEGO Life was one of the first apps that was designed with the “Show me the way” perspective. The concept was to give kids the skills and tools to navigate a digital space and social environment. How do you write comments? How do you not write comments? Instead of telling them, no, you cannot take pictures, we teach them how to create better pictures. We think of it kind of like a mama duck and baby duck. We’re leading the way, but always looking to see if they follow. 

We also had a non-player character in the app called Captain Safety who shared tips and advice about staying safe online, and who they can contact if something happens. 

Michelle Lee: I’m so glad you brought up LEGO Life, one of the first efforts to create a safe social space for kids. The camera is a really nice example of that—what are some other ways you navigated that tension between safety and freedom?

Pia Breum Corlin: We’re in close contact with the legal and safety teams, and they’re always involved in early analysis. But for us, it really comes down to not telling kids what to do, but showing them possibilities of how to do things. And of course, everything is moderated. But we’ve also discovered that kids are good at regulating each other. It’s one of the really good things about these communities—they learn, and they try to teach others how to get it right. 

Michelle Lee: I’m very interested in hearing about the work by the LEGO Group, the LEGO Foundation and UNICEF that led to Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children (RITEC), an initiative to promote children’s well-being in a digital world. How does your work tie to that? And how does that link to the LEGO Digital Design Principles for Kids toolkit?

Pia Breum Corlin: RITEC is a three-year project between the LEGO Group, the LEGO Foundation, and UNICEF. It began with research with children across the globe, and culminated in the RITEC Design Toolbox. It’s a framework to help designers create digital experiences that promote positive wellbeing. We have been so lucky to be a part of it.

We actually wrote our design principles before RITEC started. But when I saw their work for the first time, I said, “We need to find a way to get all that information into something tangible and practical, so the designers don’t have to read a 200-page report.” And that led to the LEGO toolkit. 

Michelle Lee: I love that. There are so many people who are bringing digital thriving into the conversation, but they're not necessarily putting it into a form that's easily accessible by designers. 

Pia Breum Corlin: Our toolkit is tangible—a box you can unfold. When you open it, you see our five principles laid out in a matrix so you can see how each links back to the different pieces of RITEC as well as strategic choices designers can make in each experience they create . For example, a game that’s low agency, high guidance is about learning to follow rules, which is a pretty good skill to have as a child. But from a play perspective, it can get quite boring. So we need to have different types of play in the portfolio.

Before we even start thinking about any features, we activate the principles by asking ourselves, “What type of play are we designing?” As a team, we’ll agree on, for example, a play experience that is medium in agency, but flexible depending on the kids’ skill level, so they can grow. It needs to be low in playfulness because we need it to be calm and relaxed. We want low creation, meaning that we want them to use what is already available—like a coloring book, or a set you can add your own bricks to. Social connection is low (playing solo) to medium (playing with a few friends). 

Michelle Lee: Once the principles are clear, where do you go from here? How do you then design the features of the experience?

Pia Breum Corlin: That's where my role stops, and the designers’ role begins. They rely very much on the design principles and the prompt questions that we included inside the box. It's made to spark curiosity, not to be a checklist. Because there's no right and wrong answer to these things. 

Michelle Lee: Can designers outside of LEGO access the kit?

Pia Breum Corlin: Originally, it was designed for internal use. We were finally allowed to talk about it publicly last year, and there’s been huge demand for it. But it’s an expensive box, and we hold an in-person training for it. No slides, set in a children’s room, decorated with toys and posters. To get participants in the right mindset, we hand out M&Ms: a red one at the start, when they have to play like children. And then we pause and give them a blue M&M when they have to become adults again. I’m hoping to work on how we could share it externally next year.   

Michelle Lee: I can’t wait until more people have access to this! In the meantime, do you have any advice for parents or designers navigating the digital age? 

Pia Breum Corlin: Go play with kids. As parents, we have a tendency to have feelings about what’s right and wrong in the digital space. Instead, play with kids to understand what they think is so fun. See what you can learn from them, and earn their trust. 

We know the data is really bad. Kids are getting mean messages and pictures they shouldn’t online. But if we are there playing with them, and they know we support the things they like, I believe they will be more likely to tell us if bad things happen there. 

The same advice goes for designers. If you're designing for kids, go out and play alongside them. You will learn so much.

Trying to solve your own challenges with digital thriving? Get in touch. We’d love to help.

As we explore best practices in digital thriving, we couldn’t help but think of the LEGO Group, a company that is at the forefront of thoughtfully designing engaging experiences for kids.

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.