More than 7 million people each year came to the Boston.gov site to tap into all sorts of city services: reporting a pothole, learning the assessed value of their property, paying a parking ticket, checking recycling schedules.

Boston wanted to create a beautiful platform that would make the process of finding and navigating information easy and intuitive, one that prioritized the needs of its people.

The Boston.gov site had outgrown its existing structure and needed an overhaul. The user experience was mired by the fact that Boston City Hall has nearly 50 different departments, each with its own microsite, navigation and content standards that feed into a centralized site.

So the City of Boston hired IDEO to design its new digital home, Boston.gov. IDEO designers worked with the major stakeholders—department heads, employees, and Boston residents, with a focus on those in underserved communities and those with varying levels of technical proficiency—to gather insights into what users needed.

The objective was to design something that would simplify how people navigate the site, to make it easier for residents to find answers to common questions, and, in the process, serve as a community facilitator—an up-to-date, reliable resource that makes life in the city more manageable.

Rather than organize the site by the city’s departments, the design solution was rooted in illuminating relevant content by topics—people’s life moments—many of which overlapped through different branches of government. Owning a car in the city, for example, is closely related to preparing for winter, so bridging those common threads allowed for a more intuitive organizing principle.

In the process of the site redesign, IDEO also helped to create a visual identity system that underscores Boston’s strengths: the city’s confidence, humility, personality, and optimism.

In addition to the web architecture and redesign, IDEO also produced a comprehensive style guide to help maintain design consistency, so departments can add content without compromising the overall integrity of the site, as well as a brand look that the city has decided to adopt across nearly all of its consumer-facing media. Now you’ll see the famous underlined B on T-shirts, banners, and even snow shovels.

Holding true to its mission to include Boston residents and all site users in its design process, the new Boston.gov site was piloted for six months, and the process document on the city’s blog (including the IDEO designed brand guide), before a full launch was rolled out in July 2016.

“The website should act like a helpful human. This is one of the big differences between the old site and the new site,” said Jascha Franklin-Hodge, the city’s chief of information technology in a Boston Globe article. “Oftentimes, when you looked at something on the old site, it would feel like you were interacting with some sort of lawyer-robot that was speaking to you in government-speak, using very formal language. We are trying to move away from that so your experience is akin to a person.”

The City of Boston was in need of a new digital home—one that emphasized a shift to a more welcoming tone and commitment to its citizens.

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In the Western Hemisphere, The North Face brand has long represented an active, sporty lifestyle that’s filled with challenges and adventures. But appreciating “the great outdoors” in China is less about extreme sports and more about connecting with nature in a communal, spiritual way. This research-based insight led the team to identify new opportunities for The North Face to better target its messaging.

Designers found a key opportunity: Encourage Chinese consumers to escape the pressures of hectic city life by enjoying the freedom and renewal that comes with spending time outdoors.

Today, as people find less time to enjoy the benefits that lie just beyond China’s large cities, there’s a tangible desire to return to the outdoors to refresh, reassess, and renew oneself. The North Face aims to help consumers do exactly that.

To create a compelling new brand vision for The North Face in China, the team’s design research tapped into Chinese ways of spending time outdoors. IDEO’s insights and creative brief provided the essential brand story for The North Face in China and informed the tagline of the company’s current marketing campaign, “Go Wild” (去野). The North Face brand’s new messaging links “old nature” and “new outdoors” through a combination of digital, retail, and interactive community channels.

IDEO also collaborated with the company on designs and prototypes for a new digital platform and an updated store-within-a-store merchandising display. The digital community aims to attract newcomers and connect them with more experienced outdoors enthusiasts and clubs. As the platform evolves, it will help aspiring adventurers plan trips, learn skills, and share their experiences through photos.

The retail community space aims to integrate this digital community with in-store shoppers and an effort to turn the “buy-a-product moment” into a “join-the-outdoors moment.” Both will be integrated to provide a holistic brand experience in China centered on nature and community.

In the West, The North Face, with its decades-long history, has long symbolized an adventurous, active lifestyle. In China, however, the outdoor market only began accelerating in the early 21st century.

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Success in this growing market depends on building strong and deep connections with Chinese consumers.

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20% sales growth in China

from 2012 to 2013—the year the project was completed—propelling the brand from sixth place to a market-leading position

Over the last 36 years, IDEO and Lilly, along with the pharmaceutical giant’s other design, development, and manufacturing partners, have collaborated on more than 250 projects. During this time, Lilly has not only honed its engineering-focused internal device-development team but also transformed into a human-centered organization with extensive, robust in-house innovation capabilities.

Early in the relationship, a team of IDEO designers and Eli Lilly leaders traveled the world to understand how people with diabetes live with the disease. Their findings led to the design of a series of award-winning insulin injection pens like SAVVIO. Portable, aesthetically pleasing, and discreet, the pens are suitable for use in both medical and personal settings. Combined with Lilly’s technical design prowess, this human-centered focus allows the devices to seamlessly integrate into patients’ lives and routines, making a challenging disease like diabetes feel more manageable.

Fast forward to today, Lilly’s innovative, easy-to-use auto-injectors are not only continuing to provide life-saving treatments to people with diabetes but also enabling the adoption of the popular GLP-1 weight-loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound, which together accounted for the majority of the company’s annual revenue in 2025. Perhaps most importantly, patients consistently rate the experience of using Lilly’s auto-injectors as relatively pain-free, easy to use, and preferable to competitors’ brands, improving adherence, satisfaction, and health outcomes.

This unwavering focus on driving innovation through a patient-first mindset is evident in some of the most impactful projects Lilly and IDEO collaborated on over the years:

GLP Auto-injectors
Convenient and cutting-edge, the first Trulicity injection device was originally designed to deliver the GLP-1 drug to treat type 2 diabetes. Today, it has been adapted for use with other GLP-1s, Mounjaro and Zepbound, which are increasingly popular weight-loss drugs and are also administered once weekly via fixed-dose injections. A wide base enables the pen to be held securely against the injection site, and the device automatically regulates the dose and needle depth.

Taltz Injectors
For most patients, living with severe plaque psoriasis means being your own medical technician—metering your drug dosage each time, and attaching and removing needles by hand. Taltz provides patients with clear visual and auditory feedback throughout the injection process through simple icons, bright colors, a translucent material, and clicking sounds. The devices are available in both autoinjector and prefilled-syringe formats and are adapted for Emgality, a preventive monthly migraine treatment, and Ebglyss, which helps treat eczema or atopic dermatitis.

HumaPen SAVVIO Injection Pen
Key insights informed the design of SAVVIO, including patients’ preference for insulin pens that look less like medical devices and more like everyday objects you’d find in a backpack or purse. The sleek, colorful device was created to help patients feel comfortable and confident about fitting mealtime injections into their everyday lives.

Refillable Human Growth Hormone (HGH) Injector and Reconstitution Device
Designed to be kid-friendly, the Refillable HGH Injector leverages insights into pediatric treatment adherence to create a more integrated, systematic approach to treatment, while the Reconstitution Device makes mixing Lilly’s powder-and-liquid drug easier and less intimidating for parents and healthcare professionals alike.

KwikPen Insulin Pen
KwikPen is a next-generation, prefilled insulin injection pen that builds on the success of two previous designs, reducing its size to 5.7 inches and enhancing ease of use for patients.

HumaPen(R) Luxura™ Insulin Pen
HumaPen Luxura combines several innovations into a robust yet elegant pen that can be carried and used anywhere—an insulin pen solution that improves dosing accuracy, dose setting, and injection force.

In addition to designing products to meet the needs of people with diabetes, IDEO and Lilly have developed innovations in areas of oncology, autoimmunity, and men’s health. The results of this collaboration and expansion have won numerous design awards and produced one of the longest and most fruitful innovation relationships in IDEO’s history.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Eli Lilly had a number of new, life-changing medications and two big challenges: Most of its drugs were self-injectables, not pills, so patients were hesitant to take them. And its drug-delivery device platform lagged behind its drug pipeline.

99%

of Trulicity users reported the auto-injector was “easy” to “very easy” to use in a JDST study

$36.5B

of Lilly’s $65.2B 2025 revenue came from sales of its auto-injectable GLP-1s, Mounjaro and Zepbound, a 45% increase from 2024

‍“…the Advisory Council will recommend transformational programmatic, cultural, and physical change to San Quentin that can serve as a practical model that can be replicated and scaled to other institutions.”

Source: Office of Governor Gavin Newsom: Governor Newsom Names Leading Criminal Justice and Public Safety Experts to San Quentin Transformation Advisory Council, May 05, 2023  https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/05/05/san-quentin-transformation-advisory-council/

The Advisory Council included the expertise of established criminal justice, public safety, healthcare, academic, reentry, and rehabilitation professionals, along with system-impacted/formerly incarcerated community leaders, and representatives of crime victims/survivors. The premise of IDEO’s involvement is to augment the Advisory Council Co-Chairs’ and members’ expertise in evidence-based best practices and lived experience living and working in prisons, with expertise in collaborative design, synthesis, visualization, storytelling and bringing visions to life.

Specifically, IDEO was brought in to facilitate input-gathering, and assist with incorporating the many viewpoints into a single, cohesive report of recommendations to the Governor. This included meeting the challenge of bringing together the viewpoints of 21 people on the Council (17 members, three Co-Chairs and an advisor to the Governor); incorporating the views of people who are most impacted (those incarcerated at San Quentin, San Quentin staff, community-based organizations, victim/survivor groups, among others); and formatting and designing the final report.

IDEO’s facilitation included workshops with the full Advisory Council, individual interviews and check-ins with Council members to gather their input to inform the recommendations. Each Advisory Council member was asked to speak with, and record feedback from, no fewer than five people at San Quentin or in affected communities and to share this feedback with IDEO. IDEO integrated this information and feedback into this report.

Research activities included visits to San Quentin to speak with and facilitate conversations with:

• San Quentin residents (100+) including the Citizens/Inmate Advisory Council, focus groups with Spanish-speaking residents, former gang members, ACT (LGBTQIA+), Voices Heal, People in Blue, San Quentin Citizens Advisory Council.
• San Quentin staff (100+) including interviews with numerous officers.
• San Quentin staff and residents together.
• Current participants and staff at Amistad (MCRP) and Beacon (former lifer) campuses (many who were previously incarcerated at San Quentin).
  
  

IDEO also organized listening, information sharing and feedback sessions, both at San Quentin and in the community, between Co-Chair representatives and various stakeholder groups, including victim/survivor groups, labor unions, and advocacy organizations. These perspectives were also brought into the report.  

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The team is on week five of their project. They’ve been conducting tons of human-centered interviews and broad design research, and they’re writing and re-writing what inspired and challenged them. The first few weeks were an exciting whirlwind as they generated hundreds of half-thoughts: vignettes, questions, and future possibilities to throw into what they called the “idea parking lot.”

But now, the team has tears in their eyes. They are frustrated and exhausted. Post-It notes cover the walls in disordered clusters, and many lie crumbled on the ground. A stack of flip-chart pages on the floor contain sketched Venn diagrams and pyramids, remnants of attempts to wrangle the insights into a framework. The team is on edge, pointing to the clock, aware of every minute left before the scheduled call with the client. They’re not quite sure what they have learned, and they don’t yet know what ideas they would recommend. And they’re looking to me for answers.

This is the phase of design that gets talked about least: synthesis. It is where designers shift from the openness of “beginner’s mind” to attempting to make sense of it all. Synthesis is when things feel most unclear and unsettled, where the pressure to make new meaning from our learnings feels most oppressive.

The team knows it’s not enough to categorize observations into obvious themes. To innovate, they need to put the pieces together in new and insightful ways. They need to find a fresh mental model. And they have to imagine how this model yields a product, service, experience, or system that reframes the world in a new and better reality.

As a leader, there are few things as challenging as seeing people on your team struggle. It feels easy to offer a fast answer or a framework from your previous experience, hoping to alleviate their anxiety. But, in the end, I knew that my quick conclusions were not going to get the team creating groundbreaking ideas, and it also wouldn’t help them develop their creative muscles.

I remembered what my best teachers have done to help me through this onerous step: acknowledge how hard this particular part of the work really is, ask them great questions, and show them my confidence that they will find their way through.

In other words, I had to lead like a Constructivist.

Constructivism teaches us how we learn

One of the most difficult courses I took in graduate school focused on theories of learning. My classmates and I struggled to understand heavy academic texts, but every week we were asked to create learning experiences for each other based on these theories. Despite complaining throughout the quarter, I now realize how much graduate school taught me.

In particular, I find myself constantly referencing the Constructivist theory of learning. Constructivism, it turns out, has a surprising relationship to the design process.

Back in the 1950s, the psychologist Jean Piaget observed children to understand how people learn. He concluded that, counter to popular belief, knowledge doesn’t exist in the world, and you don’t acquire it: Knowledge exists in our own minds, through our own active construction. No one really teaches you anything, Piaget claimed. Instead, he believed that we are natural learners, constantly processing the world in order to create our own understanding.

It’s easiest to think about this theory by considering how young children learn language. Let’s say you are driving through the countryside and see a cow. You point to it and say “cow.” As the child looks, she forms a picture in her head, something like, “Ok, a ‘cow’ is big animal with four legs, and is black and white.” Later, you point to another cow, this time one that is brown and small. What’s happening in the child’s mind? Her thought process might sound like, “Wait! That doesn’t match what I understand about a cow. I thought a cow was bigger. This has four legs, but it’s not black and white.”

In that moment, the child has a choice. She can ignore you, and her mental model will stay fixed. Or, she can reconsider her understanding of a cow. Maybe cows are also brown. Maybe cows can be big and small. Piaget chose the perfect word to describe this state of misalignment: Disequilibrium.

Disequilibrium happens when you begin to see things in the world that don’t make sense to you. The things you thought you knew—the things that helped you feel stable and clear—are now in question. And, woof. This state is hard. We crave equilibrium.

To understand more, I spoke with Beth Hennessey, professor of psychology at Wellesley College. Beth is a former elementary-school teacher and now studies motivation and creativity across cultures. “Whether someone is sitting down to write a scholarly paper or trying to solve a problem in the workplace, Piaget would tell us that the state of disequilibrium is a really uncomfortable place to be,” she says. “But we don’t give up, because we don’t like being in that stage of confusion. It’s hardwired in us to create new frameworks to accommodate the information we get about the world.”

In order to bring yourself back to a calm state of knowing, you have to generate a new “a-ha” inside your mind that reframes your old information with the new information. A mental model that, through the force of your imagination and intelligence, connects those dissonant dots into new meaning.

Learning isn’t about the consumption of new information. Learning is the process of using our innate abilities to construct—or create—new understandings of the world. Learning, by its very nature, is a creative act.

Our natural process of learning is well aligned with the creative process. Design research methods—finding inspiration from diverse sources, meeting people at the extremes, finding empathy for others’ experiences—provide structured activities to purposefully shake up your understanding of a problem and put you straight into that state of disequilibrium. The approach helps you seek information that surprises you, rather than reaffirming what you already know.

We crave equilibrium. So when all this input shakes up our understanding of the world, the only way through it is to create new meaning. Synthesis is our natural creative process, and once you start to put those pieces back together into new frameworks of understanding, that’s when the new ideas start to flow.

Learning to love disequilibrium

While it is obvious that a child naturally refines and recreates their mental models of the world, we often ignore the fact that we go through this same process as adults. It is even more challenging for us, however, as our mental models have become entrenched and intertwined with our identity. It’s no longer just about understanding the word “cow”: Now it’s about designing whole new offerings, experiences, and organizations that go against the convictions that have solidified in our minds. Putting ourselves into that vulnerable state of disequilibrium becomes riskier over time, especially if we are high-status leaders.

As I’ve dug back into the Constructivist learning research, I’ve been thinking about what I am taking away from this investigation.

To begin, it takes a lot of effort to create new mental models, but we leave little room for the cognitive load of innovation, what with our endless news feeds and unrelenting inboxes. For example, while I constantly think about the time required to tick off my to-do list, I rarely evaluate how much emotional energy is required to take my work to new creative heights. I realized that I am misspending my energy. How might I more clearly recognize the areas where I’m committed to developing new solutions? How might I make space for myself to be in the challenging state of disequilibrium? How might I pace ambitions so that I’m not disrupted by too many things at once?

Hennessey doesn’t offer much comfort here. “Being in that state of disequilibrium is hard work,” she says. “If a lot of different aspects of your life are in a messy place, you’re going to struggle, because so much energy is going to need to be expended. Getting out of this state is not just cognitive demand, it’s also affective: It’s emotional.”

Recently, I found myself sitting in an important meeting, feeling frustrated and wanting to point out what was wrong. I was starting to make fast decisions and putting pressure on my team to do the same.

Then I realized that I was in disequilibrium. I was feeling stretched, insecure, and like my mental models were insufficient. I was pushing for things to make sense. So instead of getting angry, I admitted my feelings of discomfort, and asked my colleagues to help me find my way through the ambiguity. And we did.

Somehow, just knowing that you’re in that state of disequilibrium makes it feel less stressful. We can become conscious of the signals of our mental states, and we can turn them into positive feedback. For me, the signs seem to be frustration and impatience. Now, when I feel those bubbling up, I smile and realize I’m just in that pesky state of disequilibrium, and that I can be patient with myself and realize that a new state of knowing is on the other side.

Permission to struggle

It’s no wonder that my design team was in tears as they worked through the synthesis stage of their project. Their minds, hearts, and emotions were all engaged in the difficult question they were answering, and they were a vulnerable mess. They felt the pressure of time, the pressure of the cause, and the pressure of not knowing the answers yet.

As a leader, I was challenged, too. I wanted to find quick answers, be ready for the client, cut through the confusion, and get on with it. But if I had filled in the blanks for the team or pushed them to get it done fast, we wouldn’t have gotten to the depth of the design solutions that the team found over the following days and weeks. In fact, toward the end of this effort, our client who had been working in the field for 25 years said, “I’ve been working with these guys for my entire career, and I want to thank you for helping me understand them better.”

So how does this Constructivist learning theory help us support creative teams? What if, as creative leaders, we saw ourselves as great Constructivist teachers instead of orienting around our knowledge and expertise? How would Piaget’s theories change our behavior?

As good Constructivist teachers, we need to give people the permission to struggle. As Hennessy says, “Whether you’re a teacher or a manager, you need to make it explicit that you understand that innovation and creativity is hard work, that people will hit that state of disequilibrium, that people will hit dead ends, and that that is valued. The best thing a teacher can do is model their own struggles.”

Just like classroom teachers, leaders face pressure to accomplish a set of outcomes within a particular timeframe and often, unintentionally, send signals to their teams that their time messing about in search of a new mental model isn’t valid. This urgency may trigger teams to cut short those deeper, more difficult stages of creative work, leading to shallow solutions.

IDEO's “mood meter.”

Years ago, IDEO developed a tool called the “Mood Meter” to help prepare newcomers for design projects. It’s a graphic that shows the journey of the design process with various levels of joy and anxiety charted on it. The idea was to provide reassurance that, although there would be some struggles, the project would end happily.

I was personally not a fan of this tool because I found it unfair to tell people how they would feel before they actually felt it. And yet, it was always right. During the research phase, people were elated, and during prototyping, too. Making stuff was always fun. But during synthesis, the phase devoted to making meaning, that line on the graph would drop to its lowest point. And that’s when you need time to sit in the struggle.

There is a belief out there that designers are constantly optimistic and confident, but that hasn’t been my experience. Creativity isn’t all about fun. Acknowledging that allows us to design better environments and processes that support the profound vulnerability necessary to develop creative solutions.

After more than a decade of leading creative teams, I believe that some of the best work comes from some of these hardest times. Confusion, self-doubt, existential searching, getting lost, and then finding your way out of that state of disequilibrium—these are the essential experiences for the emergence of creativity.

Header illustration by Timo Kuilder. This piece was originally published in Quartz.

It’s a Wednesday morning in the IDEO San Francisco studio. Bright sunshine reflects off the Bay and through the floor-to-ceiling windows. But in the project space, the mood is darker.

Creativity Challenge # 10: Help your group understand innovation thinking

If you attend a class or an executive program at the d.school, the first day will most likely include a fast-paced, hands-on activity we call Design Project Zero, or DP0 for short. Rather than try to explain our process for innovation, a DP0 is intended to give people an overview by experiencing it in a microcosm. Faced with a simple innovation challenge, you have a chance to start with empathy, create new ideas, and then build some rapid prototypes, all within about 90 minutes. DP0 projects focus on everything from the gift-giving experience to the ramen-eating experience. The original DP0, explained very briefly here, is called The Wallet Exercise.

The exercise uses a simple object that most people carry with them as a prop to discover needs, design and prototype solutions, and get user feedback. It gives everyone a chance to cycle quickly through the human-centered design process.

Tool: The Wallet Exercise
Participants: Pairs in groups of any size
Time: 90 minutes, plus preparation
Supplies: The facilitator’s guide (available on the d.school website) includes a complete list of instructions, worksheets, and prototyping materials. The instructions and worksheets can be printed out for each participant or projected on a screen. Provide prototyping materials (essentially basic craft supplies, which may include markers, colored paper, aluminum foil, tape, pipe cleaners, etc.).

Instructions

Step 1: Participants pair off, with one starting as the interviewer/anthropologist, while the other plays the part of the prospective customer. The interviewer spends a few minutes understanding and empathizing with the other person. The interviewee/customer takes out his or her wallet or billfold, and they have a discussion about the items inside and the meaning attached to them. The interviewer asks questions to see how the wallet fits into the customer’s life, looking especially for problems or friction points associated with the wallet. For example: "Have you ever lost your wallet?" "Do you use it differently when traveling internationally?" "Which items do you take out most often?"

After just a few minutes, the facilitator calls time, and the team members reverse roles, with the interviewer in round one becoming the customer in round two.

Step 2: After the participants have had a chance to understand the customers and their wallets, the next step is to develop a point of view about their latent needs and missed opportunities with regard to their wallets. Those need-based points of view can take the form of a sentence like, “My customer needs a way to ... [user needs] ... in a way that makes them feel...[meaning/emotion] ... because ... [insight].”

For example, “My customer needs a way to keep track of the contents of their wallet in a way that makes them feel secure, because if they lose their wallet, the anxiety of not knowing what has gone missing can be worse than losing the cash inside.”

Step 3: In a form of mini-brainstorming, each participant generates a few concepts for new objects—they may not be physical wallets at all—that satisfy the needs highlighted by their point of view developed in step two.

Step 4: In the most kindergarten-like phase of the wallet exercise, participants create the roughest of prototypes to bring their ideas to life. Using an eclectic mix of materials like construction paper, duct tape, pipe cleaners, and binder clips, each person will build a prototype just good enough to make the idea tangible so that they can get feedback from their future customer.

Step 5: Using their storytelling skills, a selection of participants “pitch” their new-to-the world wallet concept to their customer and/or to the room at large.

Tips from the Field

The wallet exercise is all about the journey, not the destination. Reading about the wallet exercise doesn’t deliver experiential learning. The value is in the doing.

Much of what people take away from this experience happens when debriefing the wallet exercise with the whole group. Ask a few pairs to share their prototypes with the larger group. You might ask, “Has anyone’s partner come up with a solution that is so great that you need it right now?” or “Is there an idea so ingenious that it should be backed on Kickstarter?” or “Has someone designed something that is incredibly personal?” Have each pair come up and describe the need they discovered and the prototype they built. Use these shared stories to drive home lessons about empathy, prototyping, getting feedback early and often, and so forth.

This fast-paced format can work for many kinds of challenges. Once you have mastered The Wallet Exercise, think of other innovation challenges to tackle, like redesigning your daily commute or exercise regimen.

Making New Habits

Some psychologists claim that you have to practice a new behavior for twenty-one days before it begins to become a habit. The operative word is “practice.” The weeks, months, or years spent thinking about new behaviors don’t count. So pick your favorites from this chapter or create some new experiments of your own. Start accelerating down the runway now if you want your new skills to take flight.

This post was taken from Chapter 7 of Creative Confidence. Purchase the book for more on how to use creativity to solve problems, or read more from this series of creative exercises on the IDEO blog.

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Everyone is creative. This belief runs through everything we do at IDEO, and in 2013, it led my brother David and me to write a book that would help others—even those who don’t think of themselves as “creative types”—to unleash their creative potential. Creative Confidence has inspired thousands of people to adopt a creative mindset and apply it to the diverse real-world challenges they face. In this series, we’ll share some exercises from the book that can help you approach your challenges from a new perspective.

In this post, I'll be sharing a method that I've developed to help IDEO designers prototype immersive media experiences for our clients. But first, let's think about the emerging medium we're designing for.

Tools enable, storytellers enthrall

Early filmmakers in the 20th century had a new tool in the motion picture camera, but had yet to fully explore how to use it to maximum effect. The closest frame of reference for film was theater, so in the silent era, many directors placed the camera “fifth-row center,” and filmed movie scenes as if they were sitting in a theatrical audience—no cuts, close-ups, zooms, or pans.

Over time, filmmakers experimented with and ultimately developed an established visual language for the new medium. Think of it as the film equivalent of grammar—sentences, paragraphs, and so on.

Early attempts at 360° videos were effectively in the same place as traditional film was 120 years ago. Since the camera can see in all directions—and the user can look in any direction at any time—the classical visual language of film no longer applies. Creators are having to experiment all over again to develop a new visual language that works in this medium.

360˚ video is great for first-person-like views of extreme sports, but it poses a number of challenges for producing narrative content. If the camera can see in all directions, what do we do with the background? How do we direct the viewer's attention?

In response to these challenges, the creators of some first-wave 360˚ videos have chosen to plunk the camera down and orchestrate a performance around it. In other words, if the camera can look everywhere, let’s put the action everywhere.

It’s one way to deal with the format, but I’ve been exploring other ways we might begin to tackle the storytelling challenges of 360˚ video, and also address some of the production hurdles we encounter when we shoot in 360˚.

One of the first instincts creators might have is to buy a 360˚ camera. But that’s a lot of money you really don’t need to spend, and I’d even argue that in some cases, a 360˚ camera may actually limit creative possibilities. Instead, we can repurpose our existing tools.

A partial view of the world

To address this challenge, I’ve created techniques that use traditionally-shot 2D film footage to create composite, immersive 360˚ video worlds. These GIFs showcase a quick overview of the technique, in which four traditional shots are blended into a single 360˚ scene.

So what exactly is happening here?

To start, let’s look at what a spherical 360˚ scene looks like when it’s unwrapped.

This is called an equirectangular grid, and it is one of the standards that Facebook and YouTube have aligned around. As you can see, there is significant distortion at the top and bottom of the image. These are the the poles that, when spherized, represent the top and bottom of the view. The centerline, however, remains relatively distortion-free, and luckily for us, that’s the horizon line in all directions.

When wrapped, this distorted grid becomes a clear shape.

Creating your first 360˚ scene

This workflow uses Adobe Premiere Pro, but if you prefer another video editing suite without native VR export, don’t worry, there’s a workaround at the end.

First, let’s get the tech specs out of the way. You’ll want to set up your project and sequence with these settings:

• For best results, I recommend editing in a 4K workspace (3840x2160px) at either 30p or 60p.
• When compositing 2D shots into the scene, I recommend sticking to the equator of the image as it will have the most predictable results.

Once you have that workspace, import your desired 2D footage. In my example above, I used footage composited on a black background that blends seamlessly into the (also black) background of the 360˚ world, resulting in invisible edges around each of the shots. I was also able to luma-key (effectively a form of green screening) the background so I could overlay several shots to create large scenes composed of multiple individual shots. In my real-world shoots, this technique allowed me to composite multiple individual shots, helping a tiny set to punch well above its weight.

The secret sauce: 360˚ metadata

Now you’ve got your 360˚ scene prepared and are ready to export it for upload. Here’s where the magic happens: To get YouTube or Facebook to see your 360˚ video as such, you must include the proper metadata.

This is much easier than it sounds. If you are using Adobe Premiere Pro CC (2015 or above) this feature is built in. Find it in the export settings at the bottom of the “Video” tab here:

If you do not have native VR export in your video editing software, don’t worry, there is a workaround:

1. Export your 4K video to H.264 as you normally would.
2. Inject the required metadata using the YouTube Spatial Media Metadata Injector. This is not as scary as it sounds, and it will enable both YouTube and Facebook to detect your video as 360˚ content.
   — First, download the YouTube Injector tool for Mac or Windows.
   — Unzip the file, then use the application to open up your video export.
   — Select “My video is spherical (360)”.
   — Process your file.

That’s it. Just a simple press of a button, and your video will be recognized as 360˚ content on all the major platforms.

Happy uploading!

This story was originally published on IDEO Labs.

Thanks to native support on Facebook and YouTube, virtual reality and immersive 360˚ video have reached a tipping point in which production, distribution, and consumption are now available to almost everyone. There’s one problem, though: Many creators are still struggling to find the best way to tell stories with this medium.

As an adult, it's been important to me to use my design skills to recognize how much my father and my time in nature helped shape who I am. In college, my thesis project “FLOA” was a tribute to flowers and my father (FLOA = flower + appa—“dad” in Korean.) It was a small flower garden with different sizes of flower pots filled with lilies, dandelions, and roses. Working on the project created a special moment for me and my dad.

That was the first time I created something to honor the impact my father and our time in nature had on me. Years later, at IDEO, I started working on a project to redesign flowerpot systems and plant care instructions for consumers. Through the design research process, I got to observe how people take care of thousands of plants, how they are nurtured, and how they travel to consumers. I started to feel like a flower doctor, figuring out how to create a flowerpot that would best help them grow. I wanted to communicate that message to others, that caring for flowers isn’t entirely unlike caring for our own human bodies. To share that message, I decided to create a font system that combines the visual styles of botanicals and x-ray imaging. It would be a tribute to my dad and the connection I feel to nature, and hopefully inspire others to feel that same connection.

Instead of relying on existing x-rays of flowers, I decided to use the flowers from my memories to make the font. I went back to the journal of flowers I’d kept for 20 years and scanned them to convert them into a digital format, then applied the x-ray effect and arranged them into an alphabet. I named the font Small Forest.

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I then connected with my IDEO colleague Todd Vanderlin, who is a genius creative coder. He used the flower scans to create an interactive digital experience that allows people to draw with flowers, stems, and leaves. Lines drawn by the user turn into beautiful botanicals before their eyes.

The program does not use any fancy machine learning algorithms or computer vision techniques. Todd wanted me to choose the direction, orientation, and type of each flower, building my own library of botanicals.

The software starts by analyzing the line stroke, search for long continuous segments based on the change in angles. The segments then source flower parts based on their tags and configurations.

When Todd showed me how he created the coding system, it was mind blowing. I felt like I was on a spaceship traveling to the future. We unveiled the digital experience at an event that IDEO Cambridge and MIT Media Lab hosted earlier this year called Future Fest, an interactive art show that invited guests to explore the interactions of art, technology, and humanity. I loved watching guests interact with the botanicals and create their own nature-inspired art.

Small Forest is a project that ties me to my dad and my childhood. But thanks to Todd, it became something much bigger—something that can delight others, and inspire them to take on art projects of their own. As you think about your own journey, don't forget to recognize the people and experiences that got you here, and to use your skills to create something that just might inspire someone else.

Special thanks to Todd Vanderlin for collaborating with me on this project.

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My father always told me the most beautiful and creative art in the world can be found in nature. Growing up in Korea, visiting botanical gardens was our family ritual—I even kept a journal where I picked leaves and flowers, and dried them in its pages. These memories and the spirit of nature helped me build my creative world.

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.