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

Where did the idea for Antibotics come from?

Stina Jonsson: It started as a simple brainstorm idea. I was doing a project in Boston around nerve monitoring, and I drew a small pill on a Post-It that looked like a little character. It had nothing to do with pills really, or the project at hand, but I liked it so much that I brought the Post-It back with me.

From that initial idea grew a larger one, to think about how we could use these characters and storytelling to help people with their medication. We’d done a ton of adherence work for rheumatoid arthritis sufferers, as well as helping people take their insulin. Eventually the characters become little robots and the Antibotics were born.

Can you explain how the Antibotics work?

When a child is prescribed antibiotics, their parent receives a pack of the Antibotics. The pack holds clear pills that have individual robots inside them. The child picks one and swallows it. Their parent then logs onto a computer or tablet, and along with the child, proceeds to read the first chapter of a fun, educational story about the robot-fighting bacteria inside the child’s stomach. Each day after that, parent and child pick another robot to join the crew, and with each episode learn more about how antibiotics work, until the course and story finishes.

What problem is Antibotics trying to solve?

The overuse and incorrect usage of antibiotics—not finishing the entire course, for example— can make bacteria multi-resistant. Without effective antibacterial drugs, a simple operation might lead to an infection that can kill. And the economic consequences are huge, one estimate puts it at £1bn annually in the UK alone.

You’ve got a background in cognitive psychology. Can you explain the science behind using storytelling to improve adherence?

Research on the impact of storytelling on memory shows that the human brain is better at retaining and recalling information and concepts when they are presented in a story format.

Information structured through a narrative makes for very powerful mnemonic devices because stories provide order, allowing new information to slot into existing schemas and cognitive maps we already have about the world.

The story format provides familiarity and predictability, setting us up to take in new information and vicariously deal with emotional stress and conflict through the the story’s protagonists.

Studies have also shown that stories affect brain chemistry, which is connected to behavior change.

What’s next for the concept?

At this stage Antibotics is only a concept, but we’re looking for someone to work with to take it further.

*The Antibotics were brought to life with help from communications designer Jack Haslehurst and interaction designer Miha Feus.

Bacteria beware, here come the Antibotics. Created by London-based interaction designer Stina Jonsson, these cute robotic germ-fighters educate kids and parents alike on how to take antibiotics properly, and defeat the rising army of resistant germs. We asked Jonsson to tell us more about how the 'botics came to life.

At least that's what the listeners of Studio 360 said when host Kurt Andersen asked them to suggest places or experiences that could use more joy as part of the WNYC radio program’s Redesigns series. Inspired by IDEO Design Director Ingrid Fetell’s Aesthetics of Joy blog, our New York team did an extreme Monday makeover—in three weeks.

But first, the team interviewed the founder of a pet-therapy program and explored the physical and emotional benefits of chuckling with a laughter yoga teacher. A teammate’s 5-year-old daughter, quickly dubbed the “giggler-in-residence,” upped the joy quotient, as only a small child can do.

The result is MonYay!, a collection of objects and digital concepts designed to make Mondays fundays.

Listen to the Studio 360 episodes and check out our microsite to get a behind-the-scenes peek into the design process.

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The shrill beep of an alarm clock. The rush-hour commute. A calendar that looks like a failed game of Tetris. Of all the weekdays, Monday looks most like a problem in search of a solution.

Part of Project Literacy, a campaign founded and convened by Pearson, the installation is intended for large, influential gatherings like the General Assembly of the United Nations, the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, and the Social Good Summit, so the concept needed to scale to different physical contexts. But because the goal was to reach a much wider audience, there had to be a way to distribute the work easily through digital channels.

IDEO had just eight weeks to research the topic, develop ideas, test them with users, and build both physical and digital prototypes. Along with Toronto-based content studio Secret Location, who executed the concept, IDEO and Pearson launched a stunning virtual reality installation at Davos in January. In conversation with Ed White, designers Martin Brown, Kate Burn, and Jure Martinec reveal the backstory of prototyping with the new technology, including software and storytelling tips for others beginning to work in the medium.

What inspired you to use VR?

Jure: It was clear that we would have to find an engaging way of stepping into the shoes of those challenged by illiteracy. It wasn’t just about showing some confusing scrambled text on a website, which is forgettable in seconds. The problem is often marginalized, so we had to do more than just show it. We had to make people really feel it. VR seemed like a natural choice.

Martin: Chris Milk and Spike Jonze have done some great stuff with their VR platform Vrse, particularly “Clouds Over Sidra,” which is the story of a girl living her life in a Syrian refugee camp. The feeling that you’re actually, physically there in the camp with her is intense. Chris Milk calls VR “the ultimate empathy machine,” and he’s right. No amount of statistics or explaining can substitute for the visceral empathy that VR is capable of creating. Though the medium is still very much in the experimental phase—a bit like the early days of film—we felt there was a very compelling opportunity to use it to create empathy for a situation like illiteracy, which many people find impossible to imagine.

What other avenues did you explore to express this story?

Martin: We looked at a lot of different possibilities. We really wanted people to experience illiteracy from the inside, so we thought about immersive theatre, in the vein of Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More, or You Me Bum Bum Train, or even physically immersive games or puzzles that the audience would need to solve, similar to Hinthunt. We really felt that we needed a physical aspect to the experience, because no matter how good a digital-only solution might be, the age of truly viral content seems to be over, and without a huge marketing push, it would be incredibly hard to cut through all the cat videos on the Internet.

Why was VR a good choice for the presentation and distribution needs of this project?

Martin: Because VR is so new, it really suits an exhibition context where users can experience it for the first time in a guided and controlled setting. At the same time, the availability of Google VR, Samsung Gear VR and even YouTube VR meant that it was also something that could spread beyond the initial exhibition and be experienced anywhere.

What was your process for prototyping in VR?

Jure: We tried many different experiences, from simple gimmicky Cardboard apps to quite strong Gear VR narratives and cutting-edge Oculus Rift examples, also using extensions such as Leap Motion. I spent a lot of time tripping over things and waving my hands around the office. Once we had a somewhat good understanding of the dos and don’ts of the medium, we made the first script, recorded some sound on a laptop, and played it over Google StreetView’s VR view to see what a first person, in-the-scene narrative feels like and got some quick feedback. Then we tested interactions to find out how the story would feel if we broke linearity. We took a basic Cardboard example in Unity and tweaked it to show a static scene with interactive hotspots. This let us finalize the script as well as define the assets we needed for final production.

Kate: We invited a few of the people we'd met during our research interviews to help us test, iterate, and develop the prototype. This was potentially very nerve-wracking! We were very conscious of how easy it might be to misrepresent, patronize, or trivialize the issues surrounding illiteracy, and we sought feedback from pre-literate people and our expert adult literacy teachers at a midpoint in the design to ensure we were communicating people's experiences accurately and respectfully.

What hardware, software, and coding languages did you use, and why?

Jure: The scene had two major requirements: It needed to feel realistic and the hotspots had to be in optimal positions. So although live-action video would have been great, it would be hard to iterate on it quickly. Instead, we went for a fully custom photorealistic 3D render to set the direction for the feeling and interactions of the story. We hit a bit of a wall with Unity, but luckily there was an Android developer floating around. Since at that point it was clear what we needed to make, we wrote a pretty dirty Cardboard/GearVR app directly in Java. Just to put it in context, I think it took us around a week and a half for all of this.

What were the technical challenges that came with designing in VR?

Jure: The medium is fairly new, so unlike when you design apps or websites, there are few approachable tools that help you prototype and learn quickly. None of us had really worked with VR before, but that was just another excuse to go for it. Luckily there is a lot of talk online about how to design for the medium, and pioneering companies like Google are sharing tools like Cardboard Design Lab. Their Cardboard SDK is also quite accessible, so it was easy to get started. If you’re familiar with game engines like Unity, you can quickly create advanced experiences for many different platforms, including the Oculus Rift. As WebVR is being pushed, frameworks are starting to pop up and many web developers are suddenly in the VR world as well.

What were the storytelling considerations you faced in VR?

Martin: Everything is so new that there is no rulebook. Google, among others, is starting to codify what the language of VR filmmaking should be, but no one really knows. For example, who or what is the viewpoint you’re looking from? Is it invisible, like in film? Possibly, but that somehow feels weird, like you’re a voyeur. We intuitively felt like you had to be experiencing the scene from the first person.

What are your technical tips for coders prototyping in VR?

Jure: Be smart and inventive. Yes, you can make very complex things, but it's really fun to think about how you can learn with smart interactions and storytelling. Also, be mindful of the platform you're designing for. A Google Cardboard app will be much less immersive than an Oculus Rift app, but on the other hand, it will be much more accessible to people. Think of who you're designing for and why.

What about filmmaking tips for budding VR directors and videographers?

Martin: Prototype and test everything. Traditional filmmaking took decades to figure out the basic tropes. I think that as VR filmmaking evolves, things will become standardized, but it’s the Wild West at the moment. For now, simplicity wins. The audience is so wowed just to be there, inside a movie, that you don’t need to resort to a lot of tricks to keep people entertained.

What do you see as the most exciting potential for the technology moving forward?

Jure: VR is becoming big. Technical standards are being established, making development and prototyping tools more powerful and accessible for developers. As platforms like Google Cardboard and Oculus grow, their distribution channels are lowering the barrier of adoption for developers and viewers. The medium is maturing, so the content is becoming much more engaging, with rich storytelling, which almost forces big production companies to move into the field. Things are definitely happening soon.

Martin: There’s that story about the Lumière brothers in 1895, screening a film of a train arriving at a station. People in the theatre, who had never seen moving pictures before, ran away because they thought they’d get hit. That’s where we’re at with VR. It’s raw and unsophisticated but still incredibly visceral, and because of that, it’s powerful. I think it has the capacity to be the dominant art form of the 21st century—like film was for the 20th. I really think it will be that big. We just might need a few decades to figure out how to make it work best.

If you’re reading this now, chances are you have no idea what it’s like to navigate the world without full literacy. In May 2015, Pearson asked IDEO to design an experience that would inspire empathy for the struggles of people with illiteracy.

For human-centered designers, there is nothing more valuable than discovering what matters to people—what triggers frustration and what provides ease, what brings grief and what sparks joy. That’s why IDEO studies subtle and often unspoken details of daily life: habits, circumstances, thoughts, feelings, and reactions. We rely upon access to people’s unguarded selves. Their trust is precious, and comes with responsibility. How do we seek and share insights about people’s lives in an ethical way?

Three timeless principles guide all our work: respect, honesty, and responsibility. While the concepts are well known, they’re abstractions that resist concrete definition, and applying them to the ambiguities, complexities, and messy scenarios of real life is no simple task. The Little Book of Design Research Ethics provides a practical guideline, along with tools and examples from IDEO's work in the field. It integrates more than a quarter century of IDEO experience with advice and recommendations from ethicists, as well as codes of conduct in related professions, from journalism to market research. Though it was originally created for IDEO designers, the book offers applicable guidance to a wide range of situations in which it’s crucial to build relationships of trust. It’s the first of its kind, and we hope it will facilitate ongoing conversation and reflection about what it means to work with empathy and cultural sensitivity and ensure that interactions are safe, fair, enjoyable, and mutually beneficial.

Download the book here.

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.