When it comes to food, we often have to choose between health, convenience, and taste. Parents struggle to get their kids to eat veggies. The same daily salad can become boring or bland over time. Produce often withers in the crisper drawer.

Betterer Foods set out to make one of the world's favorite foods healthier. Rice is a beloved food across many cultures, but many people now avoid simple carbohydrates due to diet restrictions or health concerns. Innovations and alternative options have mostly been limited to products in the freezer section, like riced cauliflower.

Betterer Foods created RightRice: a dry, shelf-stable grain made from rice and vegetables, including lentils, chickpeas, and green peas. RightRice has more than double the protein, five times the fiber, and 40 percent fewer net carbs than traditional rice. But the product still tastes and looks like rice, and is faster and easier to cook.

RightRice founder Keith Belling, the founder and former CEO of popchips, asked IDEO to design a brand that would communicate the product’s benefits. The start-up needed everything from a defined target consumer and brand story to a stand-out package design, website, and go-to-market materials.

The team listened to people's challenges with rice and eating healthfully: home cooks find it difficult to store fresh foods without them going bad, busy professionals are strapped for time when preparing balanced meals, and parents sneak vegetables into dishes like casseroles or mac and cheese. Some consumers say they avoid rice because it’s a carbohydrate, which is forbidden in so many of today’s diets. People describe themselves as “carb phobic” or say they consider rice a “guilty pleasure.” Others don’t eat rice because it makes them feel sluggish or bloated, or is too difficult or time-consuming to prepare. Overall, people wished rice could be healthier, simpler to cook, and still taste delicious.

IDEO translated these insights into a brand foundation that helped RightRice come to life on shelves, online, and in the world. The package messaging emphasizes the vegetable ingredients, and the cut-out window lets consumers see that the product looks like rice. The shape of the window simultaneously forms a bowl of rice and a smile.

Rice is a household staple around the world. The RightRice brand makes it easier for consumers to have health, convenience, and good taste in one accessible product. RightRice launched nationwide in Whole Foods and Amazon in February 2019.

Since this launch, the company has expanded both its reach and product line. RightRice is now available in nearly 5,000 retailers nationwide in addition to Whole Foods and Amazon, including Sprouts, Wegmans, and approximately 1,800 Kroger stores. Over one million bags have been sold.

The company has received numerous awards and acclaim, including being named “Best Plant-Based” by People’s 2019 Food Awards. Building on the success of RightRice, Belling and his team launched RightRice Medley, a blend of RightRice, ancient grains, and vegetables, in 2020. This new product, which features the same branding the company created with IDEO, has doubled the company’s shelf presence at Whole Foods.

After 40 years of rapid development, China's economic growth has reached a critical turning point.

However, looking at the world, today is also the most complex and uncertain era in human history. The traditional engine of economic development is slowing down, while innovation and other emerging ideas are helping the economy burst into dynamism. To ride this trend, China has already put in place comprehensive policies to ensure that the country can achieve this magnificent transformation—not only to maintain economic growth, but also to achieve high-quality development. To this end, what China needs most is a group of new business leaders with a sense of cooperation and innovation to lead and realize this change as a pioneering force.

People of insight can often see the situation clearly with a forward-looking eye. China's society and economy are undergoing transformation and upgrading, and market demands are constantly changing driven by technology. While seeking business development, many mature entrepreneurs with successful experience have realized that they need to explore some of the most essential issues inwardly, including: The original intention and mission of the enterprise and the role that enterprise leaders should play. However, without a systematic approach, transformation and upgrading, strategic decision-making, management mode and cultural construction cannot truly serve the enterprise

As a top institution of higher learning in China, Tsinghua University has always placed an important strategic position on cultivating innovative talents for China. IDEO is the world's leading design and innovation consulting firm. As a pioneer of design thinking, IDEO has always been committed to applying design and innovation capabilities to solve the world's most complex problems. After discovering the need for China's economic and social transformation and the need for innovative leadership by Chinese entrepreneurs, Tsinghua University and IDEO jointly launched the "Leading China" program in 2018. This program is aimed at senior management of Chinese enterprises, and aims to train entrepreneur trainees to use new perspectives and ideas through a one-year innovative leadership course to seek solutions for the systemic changes that need to be achieved in the process of social transformation in China.

The students of the first "Leading China" program came from more than 30 entrepreneurs from 20 different industries. The teachers who participated in the lecture included 73 Chinese and foreign experts including Shan Jixiang, the former dean of the Forbidden City, Masahiro Kuroyama, the father of Japanese industrial design, and Jake Knapp, the inventor of "Design Sprint". As China's first innovative leadership course with design thinking as the core, the project is equipped with "design to open enterprise creativity", "reshape enterprise competitive advantage", "forge innovative business system", "innovate with the help of finance", "embracing Industrial Revolution 4.0" and "Win-win China Created 2030" six modules. The trainees traveled to nine cities in one year, and completed the courses in the interactive teaching of inspiration and the exchange and sharing of practical experience. Many students said that the course not only helped them find the direction and path of enterprise reform, but also improved their way of thinking, strategic planning and leadership models.

Liu Feng, the founder of Top Intelligence, gave an example of the inspiration brought by the six pillars of "vision-led" enterprise reform. Through "vision leadership", he not only sorted out the original intention and values ​​of the company, but also launched a series of measures based on this starting point, which improved the company's various aspects from the telephone customer service process to the organization of the annual meeting, and mobilized the enthusiasm of employees. This greatly improves the company's efficiency and flexibility. Ting Zhihong, chairman of Hongtu Logistics Co., for example, said that the biggest change brought by the course is her awareness of the importance of empowering the team. The company has now built many platforms to give employees more room to play, to create markets, to put decision-making on the front line, and to let employees play the role of company operators. Her company doubled its profits in 2018. Hu Chao, founder and CEO of Leyou Pregnancy and Baby, introduced that what most executive courses learn is knowledge, and what this course learns is people-oriented values ​​and ways of thinking.

The students of the first class of "Leading China" graduated in December 2018. Regarding the course of this year, Wang Jingwei, former assistant dean of the PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University, commented: "Since the project was launched, we have not only witnessed the true value of design in a business context, but also experienced first-hand the use of people-oriented The difference between the designed executive courses is that the entrepreneurs who participated in the courses quickly entered a state of immersive learning, and many students quickly began to practice the methods they learned in the enterprise.”

On April 8, 2019, the list of winners of the 3rd "Changing the World Innovation Award" was announced, and the "Leading China" project was shortlisted for case nomination, becoming the only Chinese innovation case in the education category. The "Change the World Innovation Award" was announced by Fast Company, one of the world's three major financial and business media organizations.

As one of the world’s leading smartphone manufacturers, the Chinese brand vivo is widely known for its exceptional technological innovation and top-of-the-line photography and gaming hardware. But in an increasingly saturated phone market, vivo understood that it wasn’t enough to lead the pack based solely on technological excellence. To win the hearts of young Chinese consumers, they needed to become a beloved brand.

China consumes roughly 30 percent of the world’s smartphones, presenting a tremendous market opportunity to brands who wish to capture young consumers’ loyalty. In order to achieve that, vivo wanted to design a complete brand experience beyond the devices themselves—one that would express the joyful vivo brand spirit through services and retail experiences. One of their first key initiatives was to build its first concept store in an iconic building in Shenzhen, China.

Before building the concept store, vivo approached IDEO to explore what kind of in-store experience would resonate with young Chinese people. The concept store needed to convey joy in a meaningful, tangible way, while also setting the stage for vivo’s future brand systems. With this in mind, IDEO set out to explore how vivo’s young consumers experience fun.

After conducting research in four different cities, IDEO shared the stories of young Chinese consumers back with the vivo team. Their interviews revealed that young people value experiences that enrich their lives and create a feeling of positive personal transformation. They seek opportunities to expose themselves to new experiences, express themselves in different ways, expand and deepen their social connections, and build knowledge and skills.

Through this understanding of how young Chinese define “enjoyment,” IDEO helped vivo identify the value proposition of the concept store as expressing oneself in new and different ways. The store would allow every visitor to see something unique and find a fresh perspective. The vivo team took that value proposition into a design brief and later built out the space and interactive experiences.

The concept store launched at Shenzhen on March 22, 2019, featuring an upper level dedicated entirely to interactive experiences with photo booths, sound recording, and lighting technology. The engaging, lively and positive atmosphere of the store represents a major milestone in vivo’s transformation from a smartphone maker to a consumer brand.

WATCH: Official launch video provided by vivo.

As China's agriculture moves towards scale and sustainability, helping farmers grow healthier food with resilience is a matter of national economic security and individual livelihoods.

Bayer Crop Science—with its mission to accelerate China's agricultural modernization and benefit Chinese farmers and consumers—has provided high-quality products for millions of growers in China over 18 years. Yet its service relies heavily on multi-layered distributors and retailers across the country. The last mile of Bayer’s product delivery spreads across tens of thousands of highly fragmented retail stores, making the quality of service difficult to monitor and control.

Together with IDEO, Bayer Crop Science aimed to uncover new ways to engage with local farmers and retailers, and develop design concepts for its diverse set of retailers—establishing local relevance as well as the potential to scale nationwide.

With this ambition in mind, a team formed by Bayer Crop Science and IDEO launched into a design sprint in the rice fields of China’s Anhui province. Field research uncovered multiple challenges facing Bayer Crop Science’s retailers. First, each store needed to serve more than one hundred farmers, many of whom rely solely on the store owner to understand how to use the products. Retailers struggled to meet a high daily demand for direct support in a way that provided a positive customer experience.

In turn, farmers felt they had insufficient access to expert advice. While many farmers shared similar needs, there was no system for aggregating requests or arranging group instruction. Given that many rice farmers are illiterate, pre-printed educational pamphlets had limited impact, and retailers lacked tools for providing targeted support. And because the retail stores were also used for storage, little space remained for educational or community programming.

With these constraints in mind, the team needed to come up with ideas and design concepts that could be easily integrated into the daily lives of the retail store owners. The team brainstormed hundreds of concepts and quickly prototyped a select few. One retail store in Dangtu was transformed entirely into a live prototype set. Over three days, more than 50 farmers and retailers came through and provided feedback. From there, the team was able to make daily iterations of the concept, evolving the experience in real-time.

The Bayer team was energized by the potential of these prototypes to enable more customer-centered retail experiences. An exhibition of the concepts was set up during the National Annual Sales Conference of Bayer Crop Science in China, during which a much wider audience from Bayer experienced not only the concepts, but also the immediate feedback from farmers.

One year after the project’s completion, more than half of the design concepts have been included in Bayer's support kit for dealers. In 2019, these concepts will be rolled out in more than 1,000 flagship stores across China.

The work has also accelerated Bayer Crop Science’s efforts to build an ongoing engagement mechanism with its retailers and growers. Its online platform, Bayer Joy Grower, now has more than 10,000 retailers and will be expanded to growers soon.

I’m grateful for Chicago’s trains—even amid the crush of people jammed into the morning’s rush hour commute and the thought-clouding clatter and clank that pervades every metal car. It’s a marvel that these hulking workhorses of public transport coordinate at all, and are generally safe, on time, and comfortable. And yet I often notice fellow train-goers challenged, like myself, by something basic: What do we do with our stuff? In my time as a commuter, I’ve seen myriad workarounds. Legs became walls propping up clothes and bags; thighs became resting ports for big headphones. And then there was the man who transformed his suitcase handle into a coat rack. Human ingenuity: It’s one more thing I’m grateful for during my commute.

Human-centered design requires us to observe human behavior with beginner's eyes, so that we can spot the innate ways people interact with the world around them. We call these intuitive and unconscious reactions Thoughtless Acts, and IDEO designers collect photos of them to inspire their work.

Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, shows how the techniques and strategies of design belong at every level of business.

The myth of innovation is that brilliant ideas leap fully formed from the minds of geniuses. The reality is that most innovations come from a process of rigorous examination through which great ideas are identified and developed before being realized as new offerings and capabilities.

In this revised and updated edition of Change By Design, Tim Brown reintroduces design thinking, the collaborative process by which the designer’s sensibilities and methods are employed to match people’s needs with what is technically feasible and a viable business strategy. In short, design thinking converts need into demand. It’s a human-centered approach to problem-solving that helps people and organizations become more innovative and creative.

Change by Design is not a book by designers for designers; it is a book for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization, product, or service to drive new alternatives for business and society.

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Know someone who might love this book? Purchase Change By Design here.

Our checklist made all the difference when the Wellcome Trust tasked us with designing a way to cut down on unnecessary antibiotics use in middle-income countries. The world’s antibiotic misuse has staggering implications: By 2050, antimicrobial resistance is expected to kill 10 million people every year. That’s more people than we lose annually to cancer.

What became known as Project Marvelous took us to Kenya and India, where we encountered patients who self-diagnose and prescribe for themselves and their friends, community health workers with very little training, and pharmacies that dole out antibiotics without a prescription in order to make a sale.

As far as complex systems challenges go, it was an extreme one, but after testing several rounds of concepts rooted in behavior change, we found an intervention with real potential. Smart Prescriptions, as we called it, was an endpoint that varied drastically from where we began. The original hypothesis was that the intervention should be designed for pharmacists. But after following the checklist, we found we had to start with doctors.

Here are the five steps we followed to address this complex systems challenge:

1. Define your ecosystem

We can’t claim to have reached an understanding of the whole ecosystem by a longshot—the sheer number of stakeholders involved is what makes it such a complex problem. So at the outset, we defined our ecosystem, drawing a line at pharmaceutical companies, which seemed beyond the scope of the design challenge Wellcome had set. We then set out to interview antibiotic users, doctors, and pharmacists. In doing so, we realized there was a category we had overlooked: India’s tens of thousands of registered medical practitioners (RMPs). They typically aren’t licensed to prescribe antibiotics but have studied Ayurvedic medicine. Being willing to pivot and expand (or contract) the ecosystem is key: We began interviewing RMPs after realizing the huge impact their population has on antibiotics consumption.

2. Adopt a beginner’s mindset

In interviews, we positioned ourselves as people who didn’t know much about the topic. We were there to learn about them as people—their motivations, their struggles, their day-to-day. We listened. We made sure our questions were free of judgement and left our assumptions at the door. What we came to understand is that a primary motivator for doctors is to succeed as a business. They depend on patients coming back.

This insight made it through to the final design. Smart Prescriptions is, at its core, a tool to improve the doctor-patient relationship. Features like automated advice for patients and medication reminders increase the personal interactions doctors have with patients. The antibiotics recommendation is a Trojan horse, tucked inside the features doctors were really clamoring for.

3. Lead with empathy

Continually put yourself in your user’s shoes and make sure you’re seeing the situation from their perspective. We quickly came to understand, for instance, that many people working in pharmacies aren’t actually pharmacists, and that their financial motivations eclipse any duty of care. They dole out antibiotics without a prescription because refraining from doing so means sacrificing a sale and possibly losing a customer to a rival. Rather than slapping a “bad” behavior label on this, we accepted it as their reality and used it as a design constraint.

4. Consider your language

Systems challenges are often as sensitive as they are complex (consider homelessness or mental illness). As designers we are outsiders, so in designing Smart Prescriptions, we needed to make sure doctors were upheld as the experts. We weren’t creating a diagnostic tool, but rather an intervention that offers a recommendation based on their diagnosis. The tool doesn’t actually change the way they prescribe, it just offers guidance. It’s tough to remember every antibiotics guideline, especially as they update. The language that was used was consciously designed to be light and supportive of their expertise.

5. Generate unlimited ideas, then co-create

Don’t fall in love with your first good idea. Every assumption we made was challenged in our first trip, which ended up being more exploratory than we expected. We made a point to talk to every stakeholder and actor about our sacrificial concepts—early ideas we put in front of people to spark reactions. We gauged whether they had a positive or negative response, then iterated accordingly. After the discovery phase, we came up with seven concepts to test with participants and gauged their reactions. Smart Prescriptions was the clear standout, generating the most interest and excitement. We refined the concept back home, then returned to India and Kenya to gather more feedback. This allowed us to design something that spoke to doctors’ primary motivation, and to add features that the doctors felt would make it even more useful.

Unlike pilots, we don’t have the benefit of a known destination. Our checklist doesn’t just guarantee a smoother ride, it plays a major role in mapping the route itself. When the ecosystem is unfamiliar and the complexity is vast, it is a must.

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Every time we board an airplane, we assume our pilots aren’t going on instinct alone. They’ve worked their way through a checklist—fuel levels reviewed, the flap setting confirmed—to ensure the plane is ready for takeoff. They may be pros, but they’re human, and the complexity of the job makes it easy to forget a step.

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While I occasionally geek out over numbers, I spend most of my time going deep with clients, sketching business models, and building prototypes to test our ideas with real people.

I’m currently working on a project to create a new taxi experience for Japan. We’re working to help our client, a taxi equipment supplier, stay relevant when taxis themselves are being disrupted.

There’s really no typical day for me at IDEO, but here’s a little peek at what a recent one looked like.

8:30am: Commute

On nice days I walk to work through Yoyogi Park, one of Tokyo’s largest. It’s hard to believe that I live in a concrete jungle with views like this! Most days, though, I take the train. It’s exactly 16 minutes to get to work. (Perk of living in Tokyo: Trains run like clockwork.)

10:00am: Team stand-up

Our team has daily morning and evening stand-ups. We’re supposed to plan the day, but we get sidetracked and spend most of it playing with our taxi prototype.

10:30am: Business model review

I sketch out our current idea using our Business Model Tiles. They’re a quick, visual way to bring our plan to life, and they make it easy enough for anybody to come in and iterate with me. (The team liked this version.)

12:00pm: Monday lunch meeting

The entire studio gets together every Monday for lunch. The food is amazing—we have different caterers provide freshly cooked, seasonal dishes every week. Usually, we share silly photos from the previous week and studio/project updates. Everybody takes a turn as host, and shares personal inspiration. This week it's Ryo, introducing one of our new D4V (Design for Ventures) portfolio companies, Tabi Labo, to the studio. (More on that later!)

1:00pm: Crash course in graphic design

Outside of work, I run a pop-up curry shop with some friends. We make curry with a Japanese twist, using seasonal ingredients or flavoring that you might not usually find in curry. I’m lucky to be surrounded by talented graphic designers who helped me transform my very analogue potato stamp logo into a digital masterpiece.

2:00pm: Video shoot

We’re making a short user journey video to showcase what our taxi service might look and feel like. As a business designer, making things tangible is important, because it makes the service feel real, and empowers clients to take risks and launch new businesses. Our client got really into it, and even starred in the video as the taxi driver!

5:00: Design sprint

IDEO Tokyo is co-located with D4V (Design for Ventures), our in-house venture capital fund. I really enjoy working with the startups, which have different needs from our typical clients, and move really fast. Here, we’re helping Famzon (a company that makes shoes with interchangeable heels) create its first pop-up store in the Haneda Airport.

6:30pm: Heading home

It’s been a long day. Can’t wait to go home, eat dinner, and recharge for tomorrow.

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When people ask me what I do for a living, I say, “I find innovative ways for companies to transform and grow.” I think a lot about the intangible parts of creating a new service. How do we make money? Who do we partner with? What resources do we need to begin?

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.