As many as one-third of the 300,000 annual cardiac arrest fatalities in the US could be avoided if defibrillation was applied within minutes of the cardiac event.

Working with Heartstream, IDEO tested the effectiveness of alternative defibrillator configurations with different users to help develop a highly mobile and easy-to-operate product. Heartstream systematically refined the concept with the goal of making its defibrillators affordable, transportable, and as ubiquitous as fire extinguishers.

(This device is now manufactured by Philips.)

Julep, a fast-growing beauty brand, noticed a problem that has vexed generations of nail polish users: The wand on the bottle is awkward and clumsy to use.

After rounds of user research, IDEO and Julep came up with the solution: the Plié Wand. The elegantly tapered handle sits easily in the hand and connects magnetically with a wand finely calibrated for precision. And for maximum flexibility, it bends to rest gently in the hand, making it an ambidextrous instrument.

Injured US servicemen and servicewomen returning from war must adapt to a home, finding workarounds to cope with their surroundings based on individual capabilities and preferences. Clark Realty Capital, a Virginia-based real estate firm that has partnered with the Department of Defense on more than $4.7 billion in privatized housing, collaborated with IDEO on a new model for building accessible homes on military installations.

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Facing the challenge of visualizing and designing the ideal home for soldiers injured in the field, Clark Realty Capital and IDEO designed floor plans and amenities that would meet or exceed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards and be versatile enough to accommodate varied physical and psychological needs. The IDEO design team took an in-depth look at accessibility issues, interviewing and observing civilians and injured soldiers, and asked questions that shed light on how active-duty service members resume civilian life after debilitating injuries. What could make their experience more dignified and healthy, and what might reconnect them with family, close friends, and the world? The team uncovered seven contrasts that defined the complex needs of disabled soldiers and their families, and used these as direction and inspiration for adaptable homes for specific physical, mental, and emotional needs that also fit into the context of everyday life.

The final deliverable consisted of the home design but also included a book and poster that featured floor plans, elevations, and interior renderings. A compelling video montage depicting three real-life military families in the context and challenges of their current homes further reinforced the goals of this worthwhile endeavor.

US Army Fort Belvoir and Clark Realty Capital unveiled the homes on November 30, 2011, in Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

With nearly 5 million registered voters, Los Angeles County represents the largest voting jurisdiction in the United States. Guaranteeing every citizen the right to an accessible and intuitive voting experience has been the highest priority for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office, which oversees the election process.

To revamp its antiquated voting system that dates back to the 1960s, LA County hired IDEO to design the concept, look, and feel of its next-generation replacement, a modular system that could adapt over time. And just as important, one that would be designed, developed, and owned by the county.

Working closely with LA County staff, IDEO designers created a voting system that addresses the complexities unique to that voter base, including its vastly diverse population and its myriad election laws and policies. It was imperative for designers to build a system that would be useful and accessible to all types of voters: those who are vision and hearing impaired, in wheelchairs, have learning disabilities, are unfamiliar with technology, speak languages other than English—voters of all ages and backgrounds.

Their goals: to create one device for equal access, to define a voting process that feels familiar to voters, balancing both emotional and functional needs, and to build a system that’s adaptable over time.

The resulting prototype, designed in collaboration with Digital Foundry and Cambridge Consultants, is a voting device that’s customizable for different user experiences. A touch screen allows any voter to easily navigate the ballot by advancing through different screens showing lists of candidates and ballot measures. For those with vision impairment or reading disabilities, an audio and controller experience guides voters through their options with a push of a few simple buttons. And voters who prefer to read the ballot in a different language—Spanish, Chinese, Korean, or any one of the 11 languages supported by the county—can choose their preference on the same machine. Once they’ve tapped in their selections on the device, they receive a printed paper ballot that goes into an integrated ballot box (the use of a traceable paper ballot is still mandated by law).

Just as we’re able to use our mobile devices to simplify our lives for everything from shopping online to fetching a taxi, the new prototype also allows voters to participate in the ultimate act of democracy with the same ease and accessibility. Voters can mark their votes on their cell phones when it’s convenient, then go to a polling station to transfer their selections from their phones to paper ballots, and cast their ballots in a ballot box.

It’s this convenience factor that officials hope will ultimately make the act of voting more meaningful. “As an election administrator, I can’t drive how exciting the candidates are or how controversial the measures are,” said Dean Logan, LA County’s Registrar-Recorder and County Clerk, whose vision has driven this project. “What I can do, though, is drive a voting experience that’s appealing and that makes you feel the actual weight of the significance of casting a ballot. To be able to go to any location that’s convenient to you, I think adds to that sense of intrinsic value to the voting process. It makes it feel like I’m participating in something that’s meaningful and important, that’s consistent with the way I do other things in my life.”

Once the bulk of the work was completed in June 2016, IDEO handed off designs to the county for execution. IDEO has continued to advise the county and its implementation partners on an as-needed basis to ensure the original intent of the designs—to create a deeply human-centered voter experience—are incorporated during the implementation phase. LA’s new voting system, which rolled out in 2020, has the potential to influence how other counties across the country update their outdated systems.

VIDEO: Democracy By Design, interviews with designers, researchers and Los Angeles County staff. Produced by the Los Angeles County Registrar/County Clerk.

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In design and innovation projects, we are always trying to understand constraints, eliminate uncertainty, and ground ourselves in the problem. But in any creative exercise, there is always a moment when the individual or the team needs to take a leap. And when that leap happens, you want it to be as dramatic, confident, and exploratory as possible. Put another way: There is a moment in any creative process when you actually want to maximize uncertainty. The Surrealist methods were aimed at achieving this, by embracing randomness and accessing the unconscious.

Here are five of of our favorite Surrealist methods:

1. Word Spinner

Make a list of 16 words that you find interesting, and number them. Cut out a circular piece of paper, write the numbers 1-16 on the circumference, and stick a pencil through the paper to create a spinner, like you'd use in a board game. Use the spinner to generate three numbers. Now write a poem or short piece of prose that uses the three words that correspond to the numbers.

2. Automatic Writing

This writing habit has been broadly adopted; it was featured, for example in The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. The method originated with the Surrealists, who believed that forcing yourself to write whatever comes into your head without self-editing will lead to surprising creative breakthroughs. The easiest way to practice this is to set a timer, and then write without pausing for that period. Though uncomfortable at first, this practice can quickly become a valuable source of ideas.

3. Surrealist Collage

Artist Max Ernst invented this technique of cutting out imagery from multiple sources and reassembling it to create something surprising and new. He chose images of similar styles (for example, all black and white etchings) so that they all worked together in the final image. With so many images available to us in the form of magazines and junk mail, we all have the chance to become surreal collagers.

4. Frottage

This is a variation on the "found image" technique of collating. Instead of cutting images out of source material, take a blank piece of paper and a crayon or charcoal and look for interestingly textured surfaces from which to take rubbings. Layer several rubbings on top of each other to create an entirely new image.

5. The Exquisite Corpse

The most famous of the Surrealist games, the Exquisite Corpse is an example of a chain game—a game in which a piece of creative work is passed from one player to another. This one began life as a writing exercise, with players taking turns writing nouns and verbs. (The game gets its name from the sentence that came from the first time it was played, "The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine.")

Over time, the game morphed into its better-known sketching form, in which players fold a piece of paper so that one person can sketch a head, the next a body, and the last one the legs.

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There is more to surrealism than Salvador Dali's mustache or people wearing lobsters on their heads. The movement, started one hundred years ago, was founded on the idea that creativity could be accessed by lessening the controls of the conscious brain, and giving free rein to the unconscious. Today's neuroscience supports their thinking: There is evidence that imagination and day-dreaming takes place when we are not focusing our conscious attention.

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Designing for Public Services is a toolkit for policymakers and those who deliver public services, developed in collaboration with Nesta, a U.K. innovation charity, and Design for Europe, a design and innovation program co-funded by the European Commission. The tools and methods included allow users to get to the heart of the needs of citizens and civil servants.

The processes and supporting tools, which have been tried and tested in government agencies from Singapore to Qatar, the U.K. to the U.S., can be applied to designing policy and citizen-centered services.

Download the toolkit here.

Spying on Harriet the Spy, Kid Design Researcher

During design projects at IDEO, we often seek inspiration by looking at the world through someone else's eyes. One of our favorite children’s book characters is Harriet the Spy, and we asked ourselves, What if you could see New York through Harriet's eyes? She’s the original design researcher—setting out with her notebook to observe the subtle ways her neighbors behave.

As it turns out, a real estate site has already tracked down Harriet's address: 558 East 87th Street. If you pay a visit to her apartment, look up to the third floor, right under the eaves. According to the book, this is the perch from which she peered down at the street and recorded notes. We were curious to see if any of Harriet’s neighborhood hangouts still exist. Carl Schurz Park, where she lost her notebook, still sits on the East River at East 86th. Harriet reports that the Gregory School, where she was a student, is right nearby, so many people assume it is based on Chapin School, two blocks away. Harriet spies on delivery boy Little Joe Curry from an alley behind the Dei Santis’ grocery store on York Avenue at East 86th Street. Though that shop is now a restaurant—denying us the vicarious thrill of peeking through the window where Harriet did much of her spying—visiting her old haunts sent a spike of childlike joy through us, and transported us to a time when a book could open up an entirely new world.

Koneko Cat Cafe

Koneko Cat Cafe is a relatively new spot on the Lower East Side where customers nibble on Japanese pastries while lounging with an adoptable clowder from Anjellicle Cats Rescue. The cats roam free between rooms on two different levels, lazing on designer cat furniture or swatting at the many cat toys provided for visitors. Everyone can engage in a different way: playing directly with the cats, doing other work with the bonus of being surrounded by felines, or striking up a conversation with humans who have the same affinity for cats. Koneko’s founder toured 25 cat cafes in Japan to get inspiration for her own place. Koneko is similar to Japanese cat cafes, but has a more sophisticated interior design with curated art on the walls. As one visitor told the New York Times, “I have a cat, so I feel a little dirty coming here. It’s like going to a strip club if you’re married.”

Tiny Doll House

We know many designers who find pleasure in miniature things: miniature spoons, miniature post-its, you name it. Hidden in the middle of a long residential block on the Upper East Side is a miniature heaven: Tiny Doll House. It’s a store that sells dollhouses, as well as dollhouse furniture and supplies: miniature nightstands, candelabras, and even equipment to electrify a dollhouse. The store sources miniatures from Europe and South America. Immediately after stepping inside, your imagination is fired up. Peek inside an English Cotswold Cottage—next door to a Riverside Townhouse. The attention to detail and passion that goes into each one is simply astounding. Even if you’re not passionate about decorating dollhouses, you can use these supplies for making terrariums, architectural models, or prototyping small versions of design projects. You can buy tiny Thanksgiving dinner sets, caskets, Starbucks coffee mugs, garlic presses, bunk beds, broken eggs, beaux arts desks, and everything in between.

Header image courtesy of Koneko Cat Cafe.

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Our designers, anthropologists, and architects are professional wanderers. And we don't have to wander far in NYC to find inspiration—it's right outside our door. Here’s where we’re headed this fall.

One way to achieve this is with art. I love the phrase “design is art with rules.” If that is true, can we then assume that “art is design without rules?” If design requires restraint, art requires exploring ideas with abandon. I believe that tapping into that abandon can positively affect our design work.

Here are three ways to use art to shake up your design process.

1. Gallery Immersion

Take a break from your project and visit an art gallery. As you walk around and look at the pieces, consider the questions the artist is asking, or solutions they are proposing. What new rules of gravity or physics have they created? What rules have they broken, and what laws have they upended? Now consider how your project would exist in this world. How would things change, what would be possible? What would you create?

2. Image Provocation

Draw inspiration from art without ever leaving work. Curate a slideshow of images, then present them to your team as a prompt for idea generation. While not as experiential and serendipity-friendly as roaming a sculpture park or an art gallery, the right selection can still provide valuable fuel to a design team. Try using Visual Thinking Strategies to get coworkers to engage in a deeper way.

3. Create your own artwork.

Just as we can find inspiration by making insights tangible, making art in line with the project theme can also be valuable. Pull out the watercolors, pastels, or even the prototyping materials. Grab some old shirts from secondhand stores to use as smocks and transform the team from designers to artists. Have a team spend an hour of quiet, focused time creating a work of art that explores the project content. The goal is not to create a solution, but an expression. Then have the team share their works. Create a “gallery walk.” The resulting art may fall short of masterpiece status, but the head space that was explored will create new considerations and possibly new directions for the project.

Sometimes, the design thinking process can become a little too linear and predictable. Most great innovation involves a shift in perspective, a moment when our everyday point of view is turned upside down, and the team finds a new way to approach a challenge. Getting to that shift requires some disruption of the predictable flow of a project.

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.