Named after Ernest O. Lawrence, UC Berkeley’s first Nobel Laureate, The Lawrence Hall of Science’s wide-ranging products, services, and tools developed organically over half a century. To begin to make sense of the breadth and depth of its offerings, IDEO asked leadership and staff to surface the myriad activities, audiences, and relationships with external partners, enabling the group to visualize—and make sense of—the totality of The Lawrence brand.

During in-depth research with parents and kids, educators, and experts, IDEO discovered that each of these audiences had distinct mindsets. Parents and kids engaged with The Lawrence to explore, have fun, and dive deeper into a specific topic. Educators utilized it for professional learning opportunities and to discover new, exciting classroom tools. While experts, including UC Berkeley faculty, STEM educators across the US, and funders, viewed the center as a resource for best-in-class STEM education research. The mindsets highlighted The Lawrence’s unique capabilities, but the complexity also created some opportunity areas, including ways to use storytelling to create emotional resonance around The Lawrence’s core values and how to design a unified narrative to connect the dots across audiences and offers.

Building on its strengths as an institution and the identified opportunity areas, IDEO created a modern, vibrant, and flexible brand that strategically and visually unites all of The Lawrence’s offerings, working across digital and physical media. Grounded by a grid system, the updated brand identity is simultaneously rigorous and fun, featuring a bright color palette and signature retro-cool super-nova mark. Different offerings are bundled together based on different audience needs, preventing confusion and easing navigation. Even the name of the science museum, The Lawrence Hall of Science, was updated to a more contemporary and approachable, The Lawrence, inspired by The Met.

The Lawrence unveiled its new brand with much fanfare in late 2018 as part of its year-long 50th anniversary celebrations. Visitors can see the updated identity across all public-facing elements, including The Lawrence’s website, curriculum and educator materials, letterhead, collateral, and exhibition and wayfinding signage. The redesigned brand has been credited with bolstering the popularity of the science center among families and schools and causing ticket sales to return to—and exceed—pre-pandemic levels. Internally, the rebranding effort has helped generate excitement and energy across departments, helping solidify a collective future strategy and vision for its next 50 years.

The Lawrence Hall of Science’s diverse offerings had grown extensively over the decades, creating a confusing and disjointed experience for its various audiences. On the eve of its 50th anniversary, Lawrence leadership sought a brand refresh to better connect with its target audiences and differentiate itself in the STEM education ecosystem.

Over $6M in new funding

raised to transform and modernize The Lawrence, thanks to IDEO's rebranding effort

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When Greene King approached IDEO in early 2022, it was (and still is) one of the UK’s leading hospitality brands, with over 2,600 pubs, restaurants, and hotels. At that time, consumers in the UK and other parts of the world were beginning to rediscover the joys of travel after years of pandemic lockdowns. Greene King’s newly formed Venture Hotels Team wanted to understand how guest expectations had shifted during Covid-19 and how a new customer-centric hotel brand and signature service experience might meet—or exceed—their expectations.

To get inspired, the IDEO team interviewed a range of travelers of different ages and backgrounds, met with hospitality and luxury experts, and conducted immersion visits, including visiting high-end hotels. The research revealed modern travelers want unique hotel experiences that cater to their curiosity, support local communities, and are environmentally sustainable. Luxury, which once meant “exclusive,” was now about enabling one-of-a-kind cultural experiences. Today’s travelers value inclusivity, accessibility, and well-being; they want to feel welcome, do things at their own pace and have thoughtfully curated options to choose from. They also expect hospitality practices to be ethical and sustainable, contributing to the welfare of local communities and the planet.  

Building off this research, IDEO crafted a new entry proposition for Greene King’s new Everly Hotels Collection called “The Discover Collection,” which leverages the best parts of a classic British pub and inn—bespoke historic locations full of character, culture, and stories—while offering guests a modern experience from pre-arrival to departure, all grounded in supporting the communities they are in.

Signature moments include a warm welcome during check-in, as well as staff recommendations and local maps highlighting neighborhood gems. During their stay, guests enjoy expansive seasonal food menus, as well as a beverage menu that includes a wide variety of locally brewed, distilled, and crafted drinks by local suppliers. Rooms feature a smuggler's treasure chest with a surprise treat. Art and books from local talent are on display throughout the hotel, and local experts lead activities and events. Guests tangibly experience Greene King’s commitment to sustainability through its use of local materials, produce, talent, and partnerships, all designed to support the surrounding community. Upon departure, guests receive a personalized postcard.

In addition to the hotel experience moments, IDEO delivered branding recommendations for The Everly Hotels Collection, including visual identity and tone of voice that provide a cohesive look and feel for the collection of hotels while simultaneously showcasing each property's unique character. This was all packaged as an experience playbook, with design principles and briefs to help guide implementation decision-making across Greene King’s marketing, digital, interior design, and food and beverage teams.

A few months after the project ended, Greene King launched The Everly Hotels Collection. Its pilot hotel, The White Horses in Rottingdean, East Sussex, opened within the year. The new brand and guest experience strengthened bonds with Greene King’s loyal customers and first-time guests, ensuring the brand's relevance and appeal in a competitive market. More hotels are planned in the future in other scenic UK locations.  

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Greene King wanted guests to have a consistent brand experience while maintaining the storied charm that makes each property unique.

2 years

from concept to the launch of Greene King’s boutique Everly Hotels Collection

1 pilot hotel

The White Horses opened in Rottingdean in 2024

The hard drive space is full of companies competing over technology and performance. But iodyne wanted to add another layer, focusing on user needs and product aesthetics to better position the company to meet the values of a broader audience and create compelling new entrants into this crowded market.

Together, IDEO and iodyne jumped into in-depth discovery research to learn more about the needs of their end users. The team sat down with photographers, videographers, and digital imaging technicians, asking questions about their file management systems, how they used hard drives in the field, and how they stored them for transport and at home. They also headed to the source, visiting studios and home office set-ups to understand the full range of potential use cases.

A few big discoveries leaped out. No one had a single storage solution to rely on. Users constantly transferred data from different hard drives designed for different purposes (in the field versus at home), accumulating hundreds of old hard drives over time. Traditional hard drives also don’t allow multiple users to work off them simultaneously or come with software systems that help keep projects and tasks organized, protected, and sharable. Meanwhile, the ever-shrinking size and weight of laptops—and people’s willingness to take them everywhere—set a new benchmark for portability, one that iodyne could lean into.

With these and other insights in hand, the team brought unrivaled performance and aesthetics together to create a far superior user experience. IDEO and iodyne developed Pro Data’s engineering architecture, collaborating on thermal performance analysis, material choice, inspection of sample parts, and even packaging design. By combining integrated venting, multiple laptop-quality fans, smart power management, and 20 thermal sensors, the team was able to minimize cooling fan loads and reduce noise and power consumption. A single, centralized, and consolidated storage space makes sharing data among teammates easy, too—up to four computers can connect to the Pro Data at the same time and access the same files. The redesigned Pro Data creates new value for consumers in a highly mobile, secure package that can go from desktop to backpack and back again.

The iodyne Pro Data hard drive launched in 2021 to overwhelmingly positive reviews. Storage Review wrote “Nothing else comes close to this level of performance in a package this size,” while Jemery Boros of StarGate Studios said “I don’t think I could have done the shoot without Pro Data. It was easy to use, fast, and kept all of our data safe on the other side of the world.” The drives have since been used in the making of major motion pictures from F1 to A Complete Unknown.

Spurred by Pro Data’s success, iodyne decided to create a second product with IDEO, a Pro Mini that could provide the same cutting-edge performance and sleek design but scaled down to fit the needs of customers who required less storage capacity in an even more portable package. Pairing Pro phone-quality industrial design with a unique internal solid-state cooling architecture that imposed key constraints on airflow was critical.

IDEO worked with iodyne to create the Pro Mini’s internal layout and collaborated with an emerging engineering company to incorporate novel solid-state cooling technology, positioning the vents to maximize airflow and optimizing how users physically interact with the device. The team also addressed users’ durability concerns, advising iodyne on part selection as samples came in from vendors. The new Pro Mini is set to ship in the second half of 2025.

Hard drives are essential tools of the trade for people with large troves of media to store and transfer, like photographers and videographers. But beyond rolls of masking tape and label makers, there isn’t an easy way to see what’s on each drive without literally going through them one by one.  

Traditional hard drives generate a lot of heat and need fans to cool them, making them bulky, loud, and slowing transfer speeds.  

Many external hard drives are treated like commodities. They’re designed for mass production rather than for durability and aesthetics.

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2 cutting-edge hard drives

to market in 3 years

LACDMH is the nation’s largest public mental health department, serving over 10 million people. The agency provides critical support for the most vulnerable, including staffing a toll-free, 24/7 Help Line. Since late 2024, more than 70 Field Intervention Teams—comprised of mental health clinicians (social workers, psychologists, licensed psychiatric technicians, and registered nurses) and community health workers (trained peers or community members with lived experience)—have been dispatched around the county to help de-escalate mental health crises quickly, compassionately, and without force.

Because those experiencing a crisis are often too disoriented, confused, or otherwise unable to seek help for themselves, IDEO’s communication strategy targeted reaching “trusted messengers”—parents, spouses, siblings, and friends of people who have a mood or personality disorder like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The campaign aimed to define mental health crises, help people understand what to expect when they call, build trust in FITs, and divert mental health crisis calls away from 911.

To understand what drives these specially trained mental health professionals to do this type of work—and what sparks trusted messengers to call for help—IDEO met and interviewed former clients and loved ones who had reached out to the county for support during a mental health crisis. The team also interviewed multiple FIT staff to learn more about how they approach clients and families.

The research inspired the communication strategy’s central idea: position FIT members as real-life superheroes and first responders. By associating FITs with that term, the campaign changes the narrative and communicates their compassion and expertise to those in crisis. Custom illustrated portraits feature actual FIT staff in strong, action-figure-style poses, while a bright, eye-catching color palette and clear, direct language convey confidence and inspire trust.

The team explored their initial design directions in a series of focus groups with LA residents, trusted messengers, and county and mental health workers to better understand the impact of the potential messaging and visuals. The research uncovered the importance of clarity, even in an inherently emotional situation. The  IDEO team discovered that transparency—and real personal stories—would be the key to building public trust in ACR.

Between March and June of 2025, the robust awareness campaign will run across LA County in a number of languages on city buses, in Metro stations, on social media, streaming TV,  radio, and more. An updated landing page on LACDMH’s website includes in-depth information and educational videos about mental health crises, as well as heartfelt testimonials from staff and former clients who have been helped by the service.

LA County Department of Mental Health created an innovative new program to provide urgent, compassionate care to Angelenos experiencing a mental health crisis but needed help driving awareness of its service across the region.

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Calling 911 is an entrenched behavior in an emergency. However, dispatching police officers who are not trained in mental health can make a bad situation worse. In 2022, 39 percent of people shot by LA police officers were in the midst of a mental health crisis.

172 million impressions

delivered via digital and physical ads across LA

50% increase

in calls to the ACR helpline, year-over-year, attributed to IDEO’s awareness messaging

24%

of Angelenos now name LACDMH as the first to call in a mental health crisis, leapfrogging 911 or the police, which slipped 14.3 points

If you missed the first installment of our Gen Z + Gen AI prototyping series, you can catch up here.

“I could see myself starting up a business someday,” one high-school senior told us. “So say I wanted to make visuals, or ads for that—I'll want to have an AI guide me through the creative process.”

To find out what that really means in practice, we prototyped a set of creative AI tools and asked a cohort of young people between 13 and 24 to test them in their own work and lives. 

AI Creator vs. AI Collaborator

We built two contrasting prototype experiences to test the breadth of roles, capabilities, and personalities that a creative AI might have. On one end of this spectrum, we have an AI that is designed around speed and efficiency. Its interface is meant to feel highly-optimized to get you the best, most suitable output possible in minimal time.

On the other end, we created a hyper-collaborative creative partner more focused on helping you express your own unique style. This AI can not only create content, but share inspiration—helping Gen Zs discover new styles, see what’s trending, narrow down likes and dislikes, and gain insight into their own personal tastes.

We then customized our prototypes to fit each participant’s life context.

Exploring the values behind our designs 

In testing our range of prototypes, we found that no AI creative tool will work for everyone in every moment. Gen Zs have a wide spectrum of values when it comes to what they want from creative tools—some value speed and efficiency, while others value deeper collaboration and personal expression, and their values may fluctuate as they go from one context to another.

For quick, everyday creative needs—efficiency is key.

We heard from Gen Zs whose lives are extremely busy—from managing social media for multiple school groups to starting and running their own businesses, and keeping up with school, family, and social circles. There isn’t always a lot of time or energy left over for lengthy creative processes. "Social media doesn't feel meaningful to me, only the end goal,” a college freshman told us. “So I love that this AI can help me reach that end goal faster.”

To design for users like this one, the challenge lies in getting to a satisfying creative output faster, in minimum time. The distance between prompt and output should be short, and UX should offer visual templates and clear parameters that help people to create quickly in a well-defined style.

For creators, aspiring professionals, and artists, AI should show up as a more nuanced collaborator—offering tools for inspiration, personal expression, and a greater depth of creative control.

On the flip side, we heard from Gen Zs who aspire to create original and expressive work. "I think the ability to re-edit to make it have a more human touch and connection makes it a good tool. I want a good combination of AI and human—in graphic design at least,” Cole, one of our Gen Z collaborators, told us.

For Gen Zs who value craft and personal expression, the distance between prompt and output needs to be longer. Future collaborative AI interfaces will need to allow for more rounds of feedback, create more opportunities for humans to give direction, and be capable of working with multi-modal inputs—such as reference images, sketches, font files, CAD files, and more. These more collaborative AI experiences should still offer tools for humans to create and customize by hand. The challenge here is not to replace human craft and creativity, but to design interfaces that help AI augment our creativity to deliver output nuanced enough to match the richness of personal expression that Gen Zs want, alongside tools for them to add their unique vibe by hand, too. 

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An AI-enabled creative future 

So what does all this mean for the future of AI? AI experiences themselves should continuously work to establish user intent, and to understand what good means in different moments—does a user need a quick solution, or a creative partner? As a rule, designers should offer multiple options for how their AI shows up in terms of tone, role, capabilities, and suggestions to users, and put in the work to continually listen, discover, and elevate the most relevant options for their audience. 

Creativity is just one of the many spaces where we are listening, discovering, and experimenting with how to prototype future AI experiences; we are also exploring how AI should show up in education, mental health, work, social media, and more. Stay tuned for our next piece, which dives into how Gen Z feels about AI personal assistants entering the group chat.

Parts of the images in this article were created/altered using generative AI.

When we first started exploring the possibilities of creative AI products with a group of Gen Zs, they were clear about what they want: tools that scaffold the creative process, lower the barriers to entry, and connect creative communities.

To monitor how use cases have shifted over time, we developed a social listening tool to scrape AI hashtags on TikTok, creating a visualization of conversations and communities.

In the spring of 2023, much of the positive sentiment around AI was associated with productivity-related hashtags—activities like homework and writing. By October, AI music became its own distinct community, and hashtags for AI fanfiction, AI anime, and memes grew. Our most recent scrape in early 2024 showed us that AI is shifting from a predominantly solo activity to one centered on community. Hashtags like #aiart and #aiartcommunity are growing in size and in connections, suggesting that AI-generated art isn’t created in a silo—people are sharing their experiences.

In just a matter of months, Gen Zs have evolved their use cases to align with their priorities—sharing their passions and connecting with communities in playful and imaginative ways.

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AI companies are also moving fast. The race to create the most impressive and jaw-dropping AI products is adding frenetic urgency, and companies are spending millions of dollars on development resources, then quick-launching new products with the hopes that they will be well received. Often, launch is the first time companies are able to test out their products in the real world. 

We are seeing rapid technological progress, but also backlash against irresponsible designs and technologies that have real potential to clash with human values and cause harm. We believe AI has potential for revolutionary experiences and capabilities that improve the ways we live, connect, and play. But we also believe this future requires a foundation of trust and responsible design. 

To that end, we are experimenting with a different way of developing AI products—one that doesn’t compromise speed but also aligns with human values. By designing experiential prototypes that mimic real-world scenarios, we can create tight feedback loops that get us better user feedback, sooner. These prototypes are run in contained settings where we can look for unintended consequences. (Picture two people with paper scripts, role-playing what it feels like to interact with AI in a particular scenario.) We don't need to build the technology needed for the experience to work—our first step is to test for emotional value. That way, we focus our development resources on building the most impactful and responsible products and experiences possible.

In an earlier phase of our research, we used the results of our social listening experiments to work directly with members of Gen Z between the age of 13-24,  talking through potential product concepts and gathering their reactions. This time, we’re going deeper, prototyping products that have AI taking on different personalities and roles with a group of Gen Zs who are coming of age, gaining life skills, and forming their sense of identity as AI is also taking shape in our society. With their help, we’re learning how to build future AI experiences that center their values and needs. 

Growing up with social media, members of this generation have already felt the potential impact irresponsible technologies can have on their mental health and relationships, and they have a critical eye for both opportunity and responsibility. While they are strong proponents of the products and brands that they believe in, they're also not shy about making their voices heard when products clash with their values systems.  

In this series, we will put eight AI prototypes to the test. By leaning into immersive research tools like experiential testing and imaginative playtesting, we are focusing our learning objective on measuring how these young people feel when they are using AI products, and how the products would impact their perception of themselves and their relationships. For us, understanding the value of the product in the context of the user’s life, their value systems, and relationships is a crucial step that helps us identify the features and technical capabilities that are worth investing in. Join us as we dive into new prototyping methods for designing and testing the edges of what future users really want from AI.

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Parts of the images in this article were created/altered using generative AI.

The ways Gen Z is using AI are evolving almost as fast as the technology itself.

 It’s a way to optimise and improve inefficient and wasteful processes and accelerate emissions compliance—and it’s a great one. But when we leverage AI to shape demand for sustainable solutions, it's also an incredible collaborator.

After all, design is about integrating perspectives, and doing it in a systemic, inclusive way. AI can give us the ability to make our eyes and ears go further while managing exponential complexity. Paradoxically, it can even make us more human centred by making it feasible to access and include more user, employee, and community perspectives. 

At Economist Impact’s recent Sustainability Week in London, we discussed how this approach can succeed, but only when CEOs see sustainability and innovation as one interrelated competitive advantage—and bring them together with a shared remit, adequate bandwidth, and complementary skills. AI can then act as a powerful accelerator, helping to create solutions that meet climate commitments and business objectives. 

Unlocking nature’s perspective with data

This was the case in our work with H&M, which allowed us to delve into its data warehouse as part of its aggressive pursuit to be climate positive by 2030. The fashion giant was dealing with a problem that so many clothing manufacturers face: Traditional supply chain models make it very hard to predict the demand for a specific item of clothing several months in the future. Siloed teams along a supply chain made solving that problem even more complex.

By leveraging machine learning, we were able to incorporate the perspectives and needs of those teams and create an algorithm that could better predict demand and shorten the interval between sales and production. H&M didn’t just reduce excess inventory (and therefore waste), but also better anticipated which products might sell out. The result: In a pilot programme, which has since been scaled more widely, the company improved sales of specific lines by a third while reducing stock by a fifth, a change that was better for its bottom line, and the environment. 

Nature doesn’t appear on balance sheets, and yet most businesses depend on it.

With advances in AI, gains like these can come faster and be more complete—particularly if we take that kind of approach a step further and use nature metrics to train AI models. One of the best ways to approach this is to think of nature as a critical part of your infrastructure and start measuring it as you would any other element. Nature doesn’t appear on balance sheets, and yet most businesses depend on it. In most cases, that data—metrics around land use, water regeneration, forestation, net biodiversity gain, etc.—is available, but simply isn’t being collected and put to use. That means one of the chief perspectives we should consider, that of nature, isn’t being voiced. AI can provide the vocal cords.

Tequila companies, for instance, don't include information about the health of bat populations in their investor reports. But as bat conservationists will tell you, without bats to pollinate agave, there's no tequila. Imagine how bat conservation and food security would improve if tequila manufacturers started tracking bats’ habitat loss and used AI to spot trends, monitor for diseases, or determine effective and cost-efficient conservation strategies.

Solve for desirability down the chain

The data that powers AI is crucial, but it’s just part of the equation. The quality of the output depends just as much on the quality of the prompt. AI can act as a growth engine if we ask it to do so: to behave as a collaborator and surface the needs of more stakeholders in order to help designers create innovative, desirable products with better user experiences. And amid the race to net zero, desirability is key. 

Mature technologies like electric vehicles (EVs) and photovoltaics (PVs) can help us curb emissions, but their “hockey sticks” are already showing signs of fatigue very early on in the race. The European EV market was almost flat in 2023, and PVs’ growth is forecasted to slow in 2024. What is going on?

We have been pushing the supply side—tech and regulation—without paying enough attention to the desirability side. PVs are still more expensive at the moment of purchase and cumbersome to install and use. It remains much easier to just pay your monthly electric bill and let the energy company worry about powering your home.

Ease was a major consideration in our work with Sage, a multinational accounting and business software company. Its visionary Chief Sustainability Officer and innovation team knew that the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) it serves often don’t know how they’re going to reach net zero, and lack the resources to do so. Yet, in the UK alone, they account for about 50 percent of business emissions. Together, we developed Sage Earth, an AI-powered platform that uses Sage’s deep accounting insights to calculate its customers’ emissions, both direct and indirect, easing their transition to net zero.

To achieve scale, we need people to adopt green products because they are better, easier, and more exciting, not because they are green.

To achieve scale, we need people to buy green products because they are better, easier, and more exciting, not because they are green. We need to be more demanding about the quality of the sustainable products and submit them to the same standards as any other product. AI can help us on that journey.

Recently, a fashion retailer described to us the challenges of using recycled cotton, which has a rougher texture. Trying to make T-shirts that maintain the same level of softness as those made from first-use cotton is impossible. Gen AI can use data about existing materials to formulate new ones, consider how to make them more regenerative, determine their best applications, and explore which users those products will most resonate with. 

And there are many more users to design for in a regenerative world. To make our world more circular, we must consider all the humans that follow the first user: the second user, the person who will repair the item, the person who will redistribute it, the third user. Everyone has to desire the resulting product; otherwise, it ends up in a landfill. Thankfully, AI can help us empathise more systemically, not just with the first customer of a product and the subsequent ones, but also with the communities that will be at the receiving end of those products. 

AI can help us empathise more systemically, not just with the first customer of a product and the subsequent ones, but also with the communities that will be at the receiving end of those products.

Think about the design for a new circular appliance, for instance. You aren’t always able to factor in the representation of local repair shops, local recyclers, and the whole ecosystem that will have to deal with the consequences of a new product landing in their community.

Now we can train GPTs that amplify previously-overlooked viewpoints, ask questions, and offer critique to the designers in ways that wouldn't be available otherwise. It provides us with more valuable real-world views and constraints and reduces the number of assumptions we have to make. 

AI shouldn’t substitute for human intelligence but it can do some of the heavy lifting: giving us artificial patience, artificial thoroughness, artificial persistence, and artificial long perspective.

AI can help us capture more of what it is to be human by feeding all the nuances, needs, desires, and concerns that different communities have back to us. It can help us find insights in more of the data nature holds. It can bust through our limitations and complement our shortcomings. AI shouldn’t substitute for human intelligence, but it can do some of the heavy lifting: giving us artificial patience, artificial thoroughness, artificial persistence, and artificial long perspective. It can help us ensure the best choice is the easiest one to make, helping us navigate to a crucial, often overlooked lever in the climate fight: desirability.

‍We discussed “How Organisations Can Use Artificial Intelligence to Boost Sustainability” as part of a panel at Economist Impact’s 9th annual Sustainability Week in London. This piece captures some of what was discussed and our broader thoughts on the subject.

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Parts of the images in this article were created/altered using generative AI.

Often, when we think about how AI can help us solve problems, we think of it as an efficiency driver.

Think back: Starting from the camaraderie of chat rooms in the '90s which created space for gay men to safely build community, to the social media boom of the mid-’00s that redefined global interactions, we've witnessed seismic shifts in how we connect with others and explore our identities. The proliferation of smartphones further catalyzed this transformation, embedding digital interactions into the fabric of our daily lives and birthing the attention economy that dominates today's tech landscape. Influencer culture cemented larger narratives that shape trends, fashion, and societal norms.The 2020s have centered Web3, XR, and AI in the global techno-sphere, creating new mediums for us to convene with others, rethink the design patterns of the past, and creatively express ourselves. 

As designers, we are often tasked with navigating the complex interplay between individuality and collectivity. The question becomes: How can we leverage technology to enhance personal expression while fostering a rich, diverse cultural landscape premised on care, understanding, and communal values? This challenge is not just about creating functional designs, but about understanding the broader implications of our work on the cultural ecosystem.

The good news? Technology is entirely made up, by humans, and all of it can be evolved.

When it’s done well

The positive aspects of this convergence are manifold. The spread of digital tools and platforms has led to an unprecedented explosion of creativity. Now, more than ever, global voices can find and scale messages, meshing our shared cultural fabric. 

Projects like Carne y Arena, a virtual reality installation that immerses participants in the harrowing journey of refugees crossing the US-Mexico border, exemplify the power of technologies like XR to foster understanding, transcending physical and cultural boundaries to tap into the human condition. In the installation, you take off your shoes, feel wind blowing against your skin, and then find yourself in the 360 sight, sound, and touch of the experience, thanks to VR and a body pack. 

As the director, Alejandro Iñárritu, explains, "My intention was to experiment with VR technology to explore the human condition in an attempt to break the dictatorship of the frame—within which things are just observed—and claim the space to allow the visitor to go through a direct experience walking in the immigrants' feet, under their skin, and into their hearts.”

4D experiences like Carne y Arena offer new, visceral ways of activating senses and emotional tones that we are far less able to access in 2D. VR is an incredible storytelling mechanism, and it can be an incredible tool anywhere we are designing for human experiences—like policy implications in government, or caregving in hospitals. Projects like this underscore the potential for design to bridge individual and collective experiences in meaningful ways.

Similarly, during Goliath: Playing With Reality, I immediately felt like every school curriculum should be filled with VR experiences. Through this VR-enabled, animated storyline, we delve into the life of Goliath, a person experiencing schizophrenia. Goliath's narrative highlights years of seclusion in psychiatric facilities and his journey toward finding community in online multiplayer games. The experience invites viewers into his mental world, showcasing the significant role digital communities play in fostering friendships and support, often beyond their initial design intent.

Project Common Voice by Mozilla stands as a beacon of how AI can be harnessed for cultural preservation. At its core, this project is a crowd-sourced database that gathers voice recordings from people around the world, aiming to share voice recognition technologies widely. By encouraging contributions in a multitude of languages, dialects, and accents, Common Voice plays a crucial role in safeguarding linguistic diversity. This effort not only supports the development of more inclusive voice recognition systems that can understand and respond to a broad spectrum of human voices, but also illustrates the capability of technology to support preservation of languages and dialects. In the broader context of design and technology's impact on culture, Project Common Voice exemplifies a commitment to using AI to respect cultural and linguistic diversity, thereby enriching the collective cultural landscape.

As a design tool, Common Voice pushed me to reconsider how AI can be used to design for inclusion at scale. The ability to plug in a service like this means that products can rapidly support more users in more contexts, removing some of the barriers and gatekeeping in many of our existing design paradigms for technology.

And as a final example: Someone close to me has long-term depression and anxiety. She found major collaborative iPhone games, like Clash of Clans, are a way to playfully connect with new people. For her, those friendships moved from online to real life, for life. She and her friends started to travel together—she even dated one for a while. Previously isolated, she ended up moving across the world, from the US to Europe, to live near her new friends. Her life has shifted for the better. She’s healthier, happier, and more connected in real life, as well as online.

As designers, we need to remember that the platforms that we design will be used in many ways outside of our intentions–for better and for worse. In my work at IDEO, I pay attention to how people make what we design their own; often, I fold those use cases in as the real value propositions, even if they are outside of the vision we start with as designers.

The flip side

The rapid integration of individual contributions into the collective domain has also caused irreparable damage. The accelerated pace at which personal expressions become part of the cultural lexicon compromises the depth and authenticity of cultural evolution. The risk of a homogenized, polarized, and defaulted monoculture, shaped by trends, algorithms, and the endless dopamine loops they feed, rather than organic self-understanding and cultural diversity, means that design needs to take on new values. The potential of powerful technologies to be used as surveillance arms means we need to put extra care and intention in how and what we build. The spectrum of ethical issues and social needs invite us to consider how we might use the mediums that come next–AI, XR, robotics, etc.–to preserve the richness of our personal, cultural, and social perspectives in a fast-paced digital world. That’s an opportunity for design.

As designers, we have a broader responsibility to the cultural zeitgeist. We need to advocate for designs that not only resonate on a personal level, but also contribute positively to the collective narrative. We are shaping the levers that culture will build and flow upon, and that’s a major responsibility. This dual focus on the individual and the collective calls for a nuanced approach to design, one that balances innovation with care, and personal expression with cultural nuance.

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Parts of the images in this article were created/altered using generative AI.

Over the past 30 years, technology has converged individual creativity with our collective cultural experience, reshaping our personal realms and redefining the broader cultural tapestry in which we all participate.

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.