Glide, a video communication software startup, came to IDEO to collaborate on the design of its first hardware product. With current Apple Watch models not including cameras, Glide sought to design a compatible band that would empower users to capture and share photos and videos directly from their wrist.

Faced with this challenge, IDEO designers embarked on a six week-long design sprint, involving users in the research to understand how they might use the band for interactions such as taking reminder snapshots and intuitively sharing photo and video messages with friends. The team then brought these ideas to life through a comprehensive industrial design and engineering process, working to meet a range of technical and performance requirements along the way.

IDEO’s final band design elegantly integrates two cameras—one nestled in a wave-shaped notch above the watch face, and the other on the band’s outward-facing surface. Together, the cameras ensure that, between recording themselves and the vibrant world around them, users never miss capturing a moment worth sharing.

IDEO also designed a compatible, on-the-go charging dock that conveniently refuels both the watch and band with a single plug-in, completing an effortless user experience.

Today’s younger workers are more comfortable dressed casually. They prefer an impromptu meeting over coffee, than at the conference table. They’re used to working flexibly, collaboratively and creatively. And, via smartphones, tablets and laptops, they’re accustomed to having everything from hailing a cab, to doing work, to getting groceries, at their fingertips.

Tech-savvy, independent, entrepreneurial, demanding: this new generation of business people and the lingering impact of the financial crisis, are reshaping hospitality.

To that end, Crowne Plaza approached IDEO to understand the needs of this audience, the macro trends impacting them, and to develop a new meeting and work offer that expressed the brand’s values.

Research, sensor data, surveys, interviews with potential customers revealed what modern travelers wanted, but lacked: informal, flexible experiences; energizing and uplifting spaces; peer-style service; curated choices; and integrated technology to control it all.

IDEO translated those customer insights, and Crowne Plaza’s promise—Making Business Travel Work—into an integrated, designed and built-out branded offer. Launched with two pilot schemes in Atlanta, Ignition is a free-to-use, innovative new meeting and working experience, housed in the lobby of Crowne Plaza hotels.

Spanning space, food and beverage, service, and digital, every touchpoint is designed to keep travelers in a state of flow, and heightened productivity. From single-person Pods, to the Nooks and Huddles for four-person impromptu meetings, to the 10-person Apartment (bookable by the hour), Ignition’s spaces cater to every professional’s needs, whether they’re on the road or in their home city.

Food and beverage offerings have been redesigned specifically for work meetings. Delivered to where you’re working, it’s non-drippy, made to be eaten one-handed, and served on square plates to sit neatly alongside laptops. Out of hours, a new self-service marketplace offers 24-hour premium sustenance.

A new role, the Host, provides peer-style support, whether greeting guests’ guests, helping with meetings, or sourcing local restaurants for a client dinner.

Underpinning Ignition is a new tablet-based ordering system (Food To You), and Host chat platform, to easily get everything from photocopies to coffees.

But ultimately, IHG’s ambition for Ignition goes beyond its existing guests. It’s designed to become a local business fixture in its own right, attracting people to meet, and work, irrespective of whether they’re staying. As one guest summed it up: “There is nothing any hotel brand in this range is doing to stand out. This concept, however, could completely change that. It could even live on its own. It’s what you would seek out.”

Fender, a brand that’s been synonymous with rock ’n’ roll since 1946, is best known for its iconic electric guitars—think Stratocaster—played by everyone from Eric Clapton to The Edge, the lead guitarist of U2. Less well known is the imprint Fender has made on the acoustic space. IDEO worked with the company to design a new family of acoustic amplifiers: one professional and one with stereo effects.

After gathering insights from amateurs, professionals, music magazine editors, and producers, the team explored portability, storage, materiality, and form through a series of early prototypes that they tested with users.

While most acoustic amps in the market don’t look all that different from their electric cousins, the new Fender product line reflects the pure, natural sound at the core of acoustic. This new line of amps uses a unique manufacturing technique with bent plywood that’s new to acoustic amp design. Not just a design statement, the innovation also improves sound quality.

The acoustic amps were also designed with simple, intuitive controls, and with illuminated features that balance high-tech performance with a satisfyingly analog experience. The design emphasizes portability and maneuverability, targeting the acoustic artist who often may have to make a tough choice between traveling light and using the often unreliable house PA.

Pi Jacobs, a singer-songwriter who participated in the design research process, said acoustic sound requires its own unique medium. "Acoustic is raw, pure, no bells and whistles. You see someone playing and singing, it’s like looking through a window into someone’s soul," he said.

For Fender, the work proved to be transformative. "Working with IDEO was an eye-opening and refreshing experience," said James Gifford, vice president of design for Fender. "The result of the work that was done with IDEO on the acoustic amp project was a game-changer that challenged the traditional definition of the design and experience received from using acoustic guitar amplifiers."

To better articulate the Bigelow family values—obsessive about ingredients, environmentally conscious, community-oriented—the company asked IDEO to help convey its story to a younger demographic, for whom tea was popular but the Bigelow brand was not. Any changes to the product or its packaging would have to improve the offering without alienating Bigelow Tea’s loyal customers.

IDEO worked with the company to update its positioning statement, brand identity, and packaging. After many interviews with tea drinkers, IDEO and Bigelow executives learned that the brand could differentiate itself by crafting a strong point of view—one that cultivates and celebrates tea enthusiasts with a superior yet accessible product. With a refined positioning statement in hand, a refreshed identity system followed.

The new packaging ties together all of Bigelow’s lines of tea. Each box features bold graphic elements like a larger, easier-to-read logo, instructions for brewing a perfect cup of tea, a caffeine “caff-o-meter,” and the name of the team member who packed the box. Bigelow boxes now stand out when stacked on store shelves, winning over tea drinkers and retailers alike.

We have become accustomed to relating to these interfaces, and increasingly they are able to relate to us—taking in the world around them, talking to their users, and even inferring our emotions from how our faces change shape. I call this layer an Affective User Interface (AUI), a term borrowed from the field of Affective Computing.

Affective Computing is a field of computer science that develops technology that we might consider intelligent and emotionally aware. These new interfaces present a slew of opportunities and challenges, because as Dr. Cynthia Breazeal of the MIT Media Lab points out in her book Designing Sociable Robots, when a technology “behaves in a socially competent manner” our evolutionary hardwiring causes us to interact with it as if it were human.

And once we enter into that relationship, the personas we design for these bots affect our behavior, too. I’ve heard many people say that unassertive bots often bring out the worst in kids. When there are no social checks on rudeness—bots don’t tattle, after all—children tend to be more blunt, and can even become abusive.

That lack of assertiveness also affects adults. Reporter Leah Fessler researched how female-gendered bots respond to sexual harassment. It turns out that the assistants’ permissive personas can reinforce some disturbing stereotypes about women, and allow the user free reign to degrade them at will.

If bots can have a gender, I started to wonder whether they might also have a cultural or even racial identity. Considering the fact that these products allow us to choose between various accents, it would seem that designers have created nationalities for our bots.

I'm certainly not the first person to surface these issues. This New York Times piece by AI Now's Kate Crawford about "Artificial Intelligence’s White Guy Problem" comes to mind. And there are many people here at IDEO who are thinking through what it means to be inclusive human-centered designers as we work on Augmented Intelligence projects.

To explore this further, I decided to conduct an experiment to surface the personality of these bots by interviewing them.

The key was to ask soft questions: Where are you from? How old are you? Do you have any kids? What do you look like? Even, Tell me a story.

These interactions were not actionable queries, and thus triggered purely conversational responses that revealed the “personality” that the bots’ creators had designed.

I recorded a video interview with each voice assistant and handed these over to a number of illustrators commissioned via the social gig site Fiverr. While a few of the artists had previous exposure to the bots, I was able to source English-speaking international artists in markets where Alexa and/or Siri were not available. Countries of origin included Indonesia, Pakistan, Ukraine, Venezuela, the Philippines, and the U.S. For many of them, my videos were their first meaningful exposure.

Here are the images that came back:

Drawings representing Alexa and Siri based on video interviews I'd done by illustrators who had little to no previous exposure to the assistants.

Gender came through clearly, but I would also argue that none of the illustrations depict a person of color. Whether they were intentionally designed that way is not the issue. If users perceive the bots this way, what kind of cultural pressures are they carrying into the home?

It’s something I think about a lot as a first-generation American who has worked in and around tech throughout my career. On my father’s side, I’m the second U.S.-born family member, and on my mom’s side, I’m the first. I grew up in a diverse community, and the tapestry of cultures I experienced was simply normal, everyday life.

I was aware of code-switching pretty early on; many of my friends and family had their normal voice and their “professional” voice, and they chose which to use in different environments.

Looking back, I first learned about it when my mom gave a wedding speech.

My brother was shocked; he didn’t recognize the voice that he heard. I had to explain to him this was my mother’s work voice. Code switching isn’t inherently bad—we all do it to some degree—but if we’re to design Affective User Interfaces that are truly human-centered, then we must consider that for some, the switch requires more effort.

Inclusivity is not just an issue at the bleeding edge of tech. We’re seeing a growing body of evidence that those who speak outside of mainstream vernaculars have a harder time being properly recognized by affective systems.

This represents an accessibility challenge, but one that is resultant from a cultural rather than physical challenge. In a tech industry that is known to be monocultural, we must take steps to ensure our affective systems are not just designed to be useful to their creators, but inclusive of the full spectrum of people their products will serve.

Because ultimately what’s at stake is trust. Studies have shown that when brands lose trust, they lose customers.

As designers, it’s our job to expand the usability of our affective devices to ensure they serve the rich tapestry of people, cultures, and vernaculars they will encounter.

Beyond being good design, it’s good for business, because in our affective future the products that win will be the ones that users trust.

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Behind every interface, there's a designer. More like a team of them. And those designers have a lot to consider: What should Siri sound like? What kinds of things will people ask Alexa to do? How will users expect the Kuri robot to respond when they crack a joke?

It all started when we partnered with the American Refugee Committee (ARC), an organization that provides services to 3.5 million refugees across Africa and the Middle East. We teamed up to imagine a future where refugees have a voice in shaping the services provided to them, and are able to hold humanitarian organizations accountable for the services they receive.

The result was Kuja Kuja, a platform that has the potential to fundamentally shift the way humanitarian organizations serve refugees.

Kuja Kuja, a visual platform for tracking refugee feedback.

In a deep and humbling way, the friendships we made during those two weeks reminded us of how refugees, who are typically lumped together as a faceless, nameless group of displaced people, are smart, educated, optimistic human beings who've been brutally ripped from their homes by war and the vagaries of governance.

There are more than 65 million refugees and displaced people around the world today. That’s nearly 1 out of every 100 people on the planet. These people are no different from you or me in their need for safety, shelter, work—the most basic human rights.

On our last day in the settlement, at the end of the workday, we went to play ping-pong at a community center.

It was raining on and off, and there were a lot of people packed inside. There was a group of Congolese refugees breakdancing and practicing for a hip-hop dance competition. One of the dudes was beatboxing while his friends pop-n-locked and windmilled.

I started to beatbox with him and soon we had all kinds of people busting into our jam-circle to throw down raps in multiple languages—French, Swahili. It was the best example of getting close to the people you're designing for I could ever imagine.

I will certainly never forget that day. I glimpsed a world in which, if we were were all trapped in a room together, and broke out in song and dance, there would be no more war, no more displacement, no more refugees.

Back in August 2017, I was embedded at the Nakivale refugee settlement in Southwest Uganda for two weeks. I was there with Nathalie Collins from IDEO.org, to build a web application that collects refugee feedback and then visualizes that data in meaningful ways. Those two weeks could have been two months—Nathalie and I developed deep friendships with many of the refugees on the team. I'd been vocal-jamming earlier in the week with a pentalingual Burundian refugee and Kuja Kuja team member, and someone started videotaping...

More than 60 food, clothing, jewelry, and art vendors—including 25 IDEO designers—are stocked up to serve, while also raising money for the non-profit La Cocina. There's a little something for everybody, even...

1. The DIY Gardener

Plant your own succulent garden in a glass terrarium, or stock your home bar with cocktail mixers, artisan bitters, and local honey, courtesy of Radish.

2. The Girl Who Has Everything (She doesn’t have this.)

Jessica Hannah makes small-batch perfumes inspired by Hollywood classics and even the smell of worked leather. She also hosts regular workshops to help people craft custom scents from plant essences.

3. The Craft Brew Obsessive

You’ve tried microbrew, but not like this. IDEO designer Sean Hewens combines homebrewing with making fantastical maps—charting a fictional submarine race across the San Francisco Bay, for example—to create Bean Brew. Lucky drinkers (just 16 per micro-batch) answer a survey about the map on their Bean Brew bottles, and Sean turns the results into a one-of-a-kind poster.

4. The Jewelry Minimalist

Angular and understated, the gold-filled trinkets from Batsu Maru might be right for the best-dressed woman in your life.

5. The Upcycler

Waste not, want not. So says The Consistency Project, which sells vintage and customized clothing that’s been given a second chance.

6. The Recent Transplant

Bare walls? Why not fill them with whimsical, colorful, and soulful art from IDEO designer Felicia Chiao and illustrator Yoshi Yoshitani. Prints, postcards, art books, and coloring books are more than enough to liven up your space.

7. The Makeup Maven

Blood orange vanilla. Rose cardamom. Peppermint Eucalyptus. These aren’t flavors of bon-bon; they’re lip balms from METTA GOOD. The balms are made from beeswax and jojoba, coconut, and avocado oils, and METTA donates one percent of its proceeds to nonprofits.

8. The Pet Pamperer

Make your pooch look as posh as you do with colorful bandanas, bowties, and leash bags from The Foggy Dog.

9. The Happy Homebody

In her free time, IDEO.org senior designer Nicole Kraieski loves to throw down on her pottery wheel. She describes her tasteful tableware as, “ceramics made of clay by the Bay” in San Francisco.

10. The Eco-Chic Toddler

Apila Designs crafts organic cotton clothing—from beanies to onesies to leggings—for fashionistas ages zero to six. The screen-printed pieces are made in and inspired by Northern California.

11. The Avocado Lover

Pretty prints with a hint of snark—such are the whimsical greeting cards from Coffee n Cream Press.

12. The “Nasty Woman”

Give young women the gift of leadership by hosting a workshop with Girls Driving for a Difference. IDEO’s Katie Kirsch co-founded Girls Driving for a Difference in 2015 with the goal of helping middle- and high-school girls use design thinking to boost their self-confidence and improve their communities. The group offers a “workshop in a box” to get you started.

And remember, if you can't find anything off the shelf, there's still plenty of time to make your own gifts. Here's an impassioned plea for doing just that.

Design snobs are hard to shop for. But don't despair: We wrangled our favorite craftspeople for Wunderfaire, our annual winter celebration. The party is sold out, so we're sharing a sneak peek of gifts you can nab online.

The constraints and complexity of working on those challenges can be overwhelming. To help us all push through, we developed a few simple tools to keep in your back pocket. Here are three of them, drawn from the Design Kit Travel Pack, a new deck of bite-sized exercises we’re working on to help social impact organizations and busy professionals unlock their own creative genius.

1. Write a postcard from the future

In the social sector, the language we use is all about fixing things that are broken. We talk about reducing unintended pregnancies or increasing the number of people with access to financial services. It’s important work, but not always framed in the most inspiring way. Before you kick off a new project or initiative, take the time to paint a more audacious vision. Close your eyes, picture a time 20 years in the future, and imagine your work has been a resounding success. What does the world look like? How are people’s lives different? Be as specific as possible. Then, write a newspaper headline for a New York Times story capturing this impact and sketch an image to go with it. Share your vision with your team, and use it as your North Star as the creative process becomes more murky and new challenges emerge.

2. Take an inspiration tour

When we’re designing in conditions with tight constraints—like a tightly-packed informal settlement outside of Nairobi or a rural village in India—it’s vital that we understand and work within the local context. But to unlock fresh solutions, we also need to look elsewhere and gather inspiration from other (sometimes unlikely) places. To design your own inspiration tour, start by naming three adjectives you want your product, service, or experience to embody. For example, maybe we want the new health clinic we’re designing to feel safe, fun, and community-affirming. Then, quickly brainstorm 10 places, businesses, or brands that do this well in your city. (Examples: a sports team’s locker room, a Bible study group, a Weight Watchers meeting, a co-working space, or a comic convention.) Choose a couple of places that are most interesting to you and take a day to visit them in person. Note down your observations as you go, take photos, and look for clues about what might inspire your project. By casting off the constraints of the context you’re working in, you’ll start to see new possibilities.

3. Make time for retail therapy

When you’re feeling stuck and not sure which direction your project should take, try getting tangible (even before you might feel ready). One fun way to do this is a trip to your local hardware or container store. Give everyone on your team 15 minutes to explore the store and create their own scrappy set-up of the product or service you’re designing. Then, one at a time, walk each other through the prototypes you created. Forcing yourselves to use materials available in the store and using a timer helps narrow the scope of what you’re working on from a big, nebulous problem to an immediate and concrete one, often unlocking fresh thinking in the process.

Visit designkit.org to download a free PDF, or get your own hard copy.

When we launched IDEO.org six years ago, we knew we had a lot of work ahead of us. The organizations we partner with are tackling some of the world’s toughest problems, like access to clean water, reproductive health, and the global refugee crisis—big, systemic challenges that have been around for decades.

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.