Obesity exists at the complex intersection of a clinical condition and a cultural force. Clinically, it comes with a diagnosis and treatment plan. Culturally, it is influenced by beliefs, identity, and self-worth, making it deeply personal and often taboo. Families, healthcare providers, and experts tend to avoid the fraught “o-word,” opting for euphemisms instead. For families on Medicaid, these challenges are even more pronounced. Award-winning health-tech startup Clarity Pediatrics, together with designers from IDEO, IDEO.org, and with support from Rise Together Ventures, sought to uncover the obstacles to healthier lifestyles and create a free report for US pediatricians who want to bend the curve on the childhood obesity epidemic.

Research with kids and parents on Medicaid in Dallas, Texas, and California’s Bay Area, along with interviews with healthcare providers and experts across the country, uncovered stories of stigma and frustration. Parents spoke of the daily challenges of balancing multiple jobs, sourcing affordable healthy food, and finding time to make necessary lifestyle changes. They described rushed pediatric visits that left them with unclear next steps and feelings of blame. Provider conversations echoed these struggles, noting time constraints and limited follow-up options.  

Ultimately, food had become a daily torment for these families. Eating was unavoidable and also one of the few affordable indulgences low-income parents were able to provide. Once kids left their own homes, they were surrounded by unhealthy temptations, making it feel impossible for parents to maintain control. The popularity of costly new weight-loss medications and surgical procedures added another layer of complexity for families who had been underserved by—and therefore distrustful of—America’s healthcare system. With so much of the responsibility placed on parents to self-direct care, inequities deepened, adding to the burden of families already at a breaking point.

To design a path forward, IDEO and IDEO.org mapped a family’s needs before, during, and after pediatric visits. This work revealed critical parts of the journey where families needed more support: recognizing early signs of obesity, navigating provider conversations, and sustaining healthier habits at home.

These insights informed a theory of change framework that provides actionable guidance for stakeholders involved in obesity care. Grounded in three opportunity areas along the patient journey—building awareness, confidence, and capacity—the framework highlights how trust, dignity, and systemic support can lead to lasting outcomes.

IDEO and IDEO.org also developed 10 user-centered concepts spanning digital, physical, and service offerings to reduce stigma and empower families to sustain healthier lives. These ideas address dignified diagnoses and structural inequities, among other pressing issues. Complementing these concepts, IDEO created a short documentary of a mother discussing her family’s experience navigating childhood obesity to help pediatric providers—many of whom have had very different lived experiences from the families and patients they serve—better understand the realities of the daily struggles of many families on Medicaid.

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Designed for the public good, the interactive website and free downloadable report, Reimagining Childhood Obesity, contain research findings, design recommendations, and a theory of change framework. The goal: provide practical, actionable guidelines for pediatricians, educators, healthcare organizations, and innovators to meet families and kids where they are and support them as they move toward a healthier future.

21% of US children are obese. 40% of Latino youth are either overweight or obese.

26% of kids on Medicaid experience childhood obesity, compared with 11% on private insurance.

525,600 minutes: Total time per year parents spend caring for their children. 17 minutes: Average time a pediatrician spends with a child during their annual exam, a small window to address a complex chronic condition such as obesity.

10

user-centered ideas to help pediatricians reduce the stigma of childhood obesity in an accessible report

3

opportunity areas for building trust with young patients and providing family support

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With its reach, Acer saw an opportunity to power positive choices in the billions. ‍

But new products and services won’t succeed if consumers don’t want them, no matter how sustainable they are. A few years go, the Harvard Business Review’s report, "The Elusive Green Consumer," found that about two-thirds of those surveyed said they wanted to buy brands that advocated sustainability. But only a quarter actually did.

Meanwhile, the market for climate era products is only growing: In 2022, Forbes found that nearly 90 percent of the Gen X consumers they surveyed said they’d be willing to spend more on sustainable products, compared to just over a third two years before. The desire was only higher among Millennials and Gen Z; they just didn’t like what was on offer.

To drive sales and growth, and meet its sustainability commitments, Acer needed to capitalize on desirability, deepening the connection between Acer’s sustainable options and consumer needs, lowering the barrier to purchase. To that end, Acer and IDEO created the Acer Climate Lab, a cross-organizational team and initiative, to launch the company on a transformative journey to deepen the connection between Acer's conscious technology and the realities of people's lives and needs across four strategic areas.

Together, the combined team conducted extensive research to better understand consumer attitudes and behaviors toward sustainable products, and identified everyday areas where Acer’s conscious technology might be able to have the most significant impact: living, working, moving, and learning.

• Living: Envisions homes as hubs of energy efficiency and climate resilience, leveraging technology to optimize energy use, enhance air quality, and enable proactive climate management. These concepts include technologies like smart energy systems, adaptive air solutions, and integrated home management platforms explore how technology can support sustainable daily living.
  
  
• Working: Reimagines the workplace with flexible, sustainable technology solutions that prioritize resource optimization and circular practices. Concepts such as Acer Loop could provide a subscription-based model that ensures access to the latest technology, supports remote work, and reduces electronic waste through effective recycling and rehoming practices.
  
  
• Moving: Focuses on the transformation of urban mobility by integrating technology into systems that promote sustainable transportation. Concepts could include e-mobility hubs that highlight how urban spaces could offer seamless access to shared, low-emission travel options, reducing reliance on traditional carbon-heavy methods.
  
  
• Learning: Explores pathways to sustainable education by imagining environments where technology supports circularity and accessibility. This includes ideas like refurbished devices for students, repair and reuse programs, and educational spaces designed with climate-positive principles, nurturing eco-conscious habits in future generations.

Together with Red Peak and Sid Lee, the team launched the culmination of the work at COP28, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai, positioning Acer as a pioneer in climate positive technology. The exhibit included immersive experiences and interactive displays demonstrating how Acer's sustainable solutions seamlessly integrate into everyday life. Visitors could engage with scenarios depicting sustainable living, working, moving, and learning, emphasizing the practical benefits of Acer’s innovations.

Acer's journey through the Climate Lab project underscores a commitment to sustainability that goes beyond mere compliance. With this new cross-business team tackling the real-world barriers faced by consumers, Acer is paving the way for a more inclusive, sustainable future. This initiative not only aligns with global climate goals, but also sets a precedent for the tech industry, demonstrating that with the right approach, sustainability and innovation can go hand in hand.

In a survey, 65% of respondents said they want to buy brands that advocate sustainability, yet only about 26% actually do. 

Nearly one in two consumers say they either don’t know what information to trust, or that nothing can influence how much they trust a business’s commitment to sustainability.

1 cohesive strategy

for climate era products across 6 different fields

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With the introduction of generative AI, Ethiqly and IDEO saw a unique opportunity to help teachers, by cutting down the time it takes to provide each student with feedback on their writing assignments. But to get there, they had to learn from the experts themselves. To kick off the project, the team headed into the classroom to co-design with students and teachers.

One of the first problems they discovered? Traditional methods of grading essays are laborious and inefficient for high school teachers, who are already notoriously busy and overworked. What teachers really wanted was to spend time giving each student the personalized feedback that helps them grow. Meanwhile, students really struggled to get started on their writing assignments, overwhelmed by looking at a blank page.

Together, the team started to think about how it could harness AI to make personalized instruction more accessible for all students, helping teachers provide better feedback at scale, and giving students the support they need to not only get started on their writing assignments, but improve their work. 

With insights directly from students and teachers, the IDEO team built working prototypes, allowing them to beta test the product in schools, and demonstrate value to investors. They also developed a brand identity and style guide for launch, which came to life in a pitch deck, landing page, and other brand expressions.

The resulting product is a sophisticated blend of AI technology and user-friendly interfaces that empower teachers and inspire students. The goal isn’t just to get to a finished essay, but to assist students in developing critical thinking skills. Ethiqly's tools help students organize their thoughts and get writing by providing contextual prompts and suggestions—without doing the work for them. And the AI assistant supports teachers by suggesting comments based on evaluation criteria they have set, and teachers choose which feedback is relevant for their individual students. Students never see it without teacher approval.

As one teacher told the team, “With leveraging AI more in education, there’s this fear that it’s deprofessionalizing the field or it’s a direct replacement of a teacher in a classroom. I think it gives us meaningful data, so that we can actually teach the way that we want to in order to support our students.” Now, Ethiqly is in use in classrooms in 25 countries, positively impacting students across the globe.

Teachers know 1:1 interaction is key to student success, but an EdWeek survey found only 46% of teachers’ time is spent teaching, while 25 hours/week goes to other tasks like grading and making lesson plans.

25 countries…and growing

Ethiqly’s reach in classrooms around the world

Designing a piece of a city, like a park, doesn’t start with a blank slate. There are always traces of the past and the present, and the lived history of its residents.

To create a full picture of that story, the IDEO team built workshops for the community centered around questions about the unique experiences of living in Frisco. They invited them to reflect on the communities they grew up in, the city of today, and the public spaces that have played formative roles for them. 

From their answers, a common value emerged: heritage. Frisco is a rapidly growing city, with residents whose families have lived there for centuries living side-by-side with more recent neighbors from diverse cultures and ethnic groups. Participants shared a vision of Grand Park as a unifying, shared space, a backdrop where many families can form foundational memories in Frisco.

Next, IDEO brought in multisensory design prompts to help participants further conceptualize the park. How did they want it to feel, sound, and smell? In the built-up, suburban city of Frisco, residents imagined a space that was less planned, enabling guided wandering and exploration. They also hoped that the park would inspire loved ones and descendants to feel a sense of curiosity and wonder.

At the end of workshops and sessions with community groups, the IDEO team took Polaroids of participants, asking, “What’s one word you want to describe Grand Park in the future?” Those words informed the collective vision that IDEO delivered to the city of Frisco, which included spatial concepts, user journeys, and branding for the park, all designed to showcase its unique landscapes. In January 2024, Frisco City Council approved the vision statement, and officials expect to break ground in the second half of 2025.

The population of Frisco is growing rapidly; its population is up 516% since the year 2000.

At more than 1,000 acres, Grand Park in Frisco is even larger than Central Park in New York City.

Less than 1% of Blackland Prairie soil remains in the region, and some of it is in Grand Park.

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Frisco residents were engaged in the process, from City Council members to high school students

200+

respondents shared anonymous feedback on what they imagined the park should be

A few years ago, we started a project to figure out how we might address these challenges. To start, we spoke to dozens of executives, design leads, product developers, and engineers around the globe—people who work at small startups and large conglomerates in a number of different industries and countries. We were particularly interested in learning more about the ways organizations come up with ideas, how those ideas are evaluated, and how they collaborate within teams and across departments to bring those ideas to market.

Today we’re sharing the results of our research. Here are the highlights of what we discovered, plus some practical tips for creating an environment and culture that can foster innovation over and over again.

1. Leaders are attracted to a new scientific and objective approach to evaluating ideas, but very few organizations actually practice it

Most of the organizations we talked to struggled to decide which ideas they should invest in. It’s not because they didn’t have top talent or novel ideas, but because they didn’t have a consistent rubric to help them evaluate and prioritize. That’s a problem that not only slows things down, but can also lead to good ideas never getting the support they need.

On the flip side, we found a very small proportion of cutting-edge internal labs provided a consistent set of metrics for making meritocratic, data-informed choices about which ideas to invest in. Having a clear and fair set of metrics means that employees are better engaged, ideas get a fair shot, and employees can’t blame the organization when ideas are cut.

So how can you set that tone at your organization?

• Choose your most important metrics and be consistent. This ensures stakeholders on your team can make evidence-based decisions, giving every idea a chance based on merit.
• Empower decision-makers to say no. Once they have the data in front of them, they need frameworks to make decisions based on customer feedback—not internal bias.
• Make sure you have a diverse crowd evaluating your ideas. Bring together people from inside and outside your organization’s walls to help you see your blind spots.

2. Design and innovation teams need to know when to apply the right methods—but can’t be forced into a linear process

Tools, guidance, and structure are an integral part of any good design practice, but overly prescribed processes restrict creativity. Being too rigid about the timing or order of certain phases can quickly quash team engagement—if phases have to be ultra-quick, people may contribute too superficially; too long and teams lose momentum.

As Jens Uehlecke, Managing Director at Greenhouse Innovation Labs, told us, “My team thrives with just enough structure to help them know that things are going according to plan, where they can still customize the process and get feedback along the way.”

So how do you walk that line between ultra-rigid and maniacally unstructured?

• Don’t focus on a single, linear process. Empower your team to use the right approach and tool at the right time, and document them clearly.
• Encourage teams to re-evaluate their method to stay at the cutting edge of design, research, and technology.

3. Organizations struggle to access customer feedback because it requires a lot of time, resources, and expertise

Accessing customer feedback early and often is a crucial part of making evidence-based decisions, but it can also be a major bottleneck. It rarely happens regularly or effectively enough: Survey tools often are difficult to use and have too many features, and sourcing the right audience can be expensive.

Chris Lindland, CEO of the crowd-sourced clothing company Betabrand, told us that after his company created an effective way to gather customer feedback, “It was exciting for designers to get results back and it took the guesswork out of understanding what our customers wanted.”

Here are a handful of ways for you to make feedback-gathering process easier:

• Communicate a process to conduct qualitative and quantitative research. Provide guidance for creating customer discussion guides and rubrics for selecting which customers to talk to.
• Let people across the company know how they can talk to a customer directly. Most tech companies even have the technology to make it happen in just hours—all while following privacy guidelines.

4. Ideas sourced from across the company often lose steam because there’s no pathway for them to make an impact on the business

Many leaders we spoke with rely on company-wide idea gathering—often in the form of open innovation challenges—to uncover ideas from across the organization. But the transition from idea to implementation is a fragile one. As one innovation challenge manager at a financial institution told us, “There’s often a lack of a clear process and accountability after the challenge is completed and an idea is selected.”

Innovation management tools usually start with a challenge and end once that one idea is chosen. Often, ideas with potential get cut because teams aren’t able to take ownership, or aren’t able to arrive at a version of the idea that would benefit the business.

So how can your organization turn ideas into action?

• Cluster ideas based on the problems they solve. This helps highlight business value, and from there, you can prioritize based on each idea’s potential.
• Don’t set a finite deadline on your long-term strategic goals. Leave the door open for new ideas that relate to your strategic priorities. Periodically sponsor the ideas that float to the top; avoid one-and-done competitions.
• Help ideas live beyond the scope of a challenge. Don’t expect everyone to perfect their idea during a short timeframe. Encourage teams with promising ideas to keep getting feedback. Create clear and transparent opportunities for those ideas to be re-evaluated.

5. Passionate minorities need opportunities to do work that challenges the status quo

Relying purely on the judgement of internal stakeholders, employee forums, or upvoting of ideas reinforces groupthink. As a result, a cadre of similar ideas often continue to get approval while new ideas struggle to gain momentum. As Joe Gerber, Managing Director of IDEO CoLab says, “You need to give ideas surface area so that the minority of people in an organization with a similar hunch can explore their passion.”

To protect divergent ideas, make sure to:

• Help passionate people identify each other and build off of each other’s work. Use internal channels to help people broadcast their ideas, hypotheses, and expertise across the organization.
• Bypass organizational bias with customer feedback. Don’t require ideas to be internally vetted or approved before any customer gets to see them. Include customer feedback as an early and integrated part of managing your innovation pipeline.

We hope these tips will help make the process of solving big challenges and taking on your company—or the world’s problems—just a bit smoother.

Illustrations by Cassandra Fountaine

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The toughest part about being a truly innovative company is figuring out how to let new ideas grow—then figuring out which ones are worth further investment. It’s not easy. Many high-potential ideas hit roadblocks or spur questions from leadership before there are answers. There isn’t always a straightforward formula for success.

Creativity Challenge #9: Define a problem to work on.

Innovators often face the task of which challenge to focus on, or how to frame a challenge they are given. At IDEO, we use the term “Phase 0” to describe all the activities that take place before the problem is fully defined.

Talking about problems doesn’t necessarily inspire ideas, or energize you to act on them. Nor does wishful thinking. The Dream/Gripe Session helps you translate those discussions into creative thinking challenges you can start to tackle. This tool was adapted from an exercise in the Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit, developed by IDEO in partnership with Riverdale Country School.

Tool: The Dream/Gripe Session
Participants: Pairs in groups of any size
Time: 15-30 minutes
Supplies: Pen and paper

Instructions

Step 1: Decide on a topic for discussion. The dreams and gripes may relate to internal matters like the culture of the organization or external ones like interactions with customers.

Step 2: Pair up with another person and select one person to go first (Partner 1).

Step 3: Partner 1 airs their dreams and gripes for five to seven minutes, while Partner 2 listens and takes notes.

For example:

DREAM: “I wish we could get our customers to read the instructions.”
GRIPE: “It’s so noisy around here that I have trouble concentrating.”

Step 4: Partner 2 reframes the dreams and gripes into open-ended questions that make for good innovation challenges. We usually start with the phrase “How might we...?” A good “How Might We” question should not be so narrow that it suggests a solution (even if it’s a good idea). Initially, you're just trying to capture the problem, not jump to possible solutions. It should also not be so broad that it stymies the flow of ideas (rather than generates them). A good “How Might We” question should allow someone to easily come up with 10 different ideas.

Partner 2 should aim for three to five well-framed innovation challenges and share them with Partner 1.

For example:

GRIPE: It’s so noisy around here I have trouble concentrating.
Challenge that’s too similar: How might we reduce noise so you don’t have trouble focusing?
Challenge that’s too narrow: How might we create more private offices so employees can concentrate better?
Challenge that’s too broad: How might we help people focus?
Challenge that’s just right: How might we design the space to accommodate a range of working styles?

DREAM: I wish our staff got their expense reports in on time.
Challenge that’s too similar: How might we get people to be more timely with their expense reporting?
Challenge that’s too narrow: How might we use a smartphone app to speed expense reporting?
Challenge that’s too broad: How might we get people to have more respect for deadlines?
Challenge that's just right (with empathy for the employee): How might we simplify the expense reporting process so that people can complete it more quickly?

Step 5: Switch roles and have Partner 2 air dreams and gripes while Partner 1 listens and then offers “How Might We” innovation challenges.

Step 6 (optional): If you are doing this in a group setting, compare lists of all of the innovation challenges across the pairs. Look for patterns, themes, and common issues. This should help focus the discussion and suggest an opportunity for what innovation challenge to take on next.

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.

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.

It would be decades before design would become widely understood as a practice beyond decorative arts. In fact, the interviewer asked, “How would you define yourself with respect to a decorator?” And Eames replied succinctly: “I wouldn’t.”

It’s rare to find such a concise encapsulation of design’s power and potential, but Eames summed it up with admirable simplicity. There are no boundaries to the problems we face, of course; but there’s also no end to the ingenuity we can bring to bear in our pursuit of solutions.

Framed this way, it’s easy to see why design—as a creative approach to solving problems—is such an effective tool for business. In a highly interconnected world transforming at unparalleled speed, business leaders must attend to an ever widening set of concerns. Threats and opportunities come from unexpected places, and it can be hard to see through the fog. Design helps us navigate that ambiguity. It provides a framework for making decisions, identifying needs, devising solutions, and articulating values.

At IDEO, we know the magic that can result from combining design thinking, business acumen, and the possibilities of new technologies. We see it every day with our clients and teams, and we hear stories from our network of partners and collaborators.

Now, we have a place to share those stories: The IDEO Journal, a new digital publication featuring insights, inspiration, provocations, and lessons from the world of design-led business.

Today we are thrilled to launch this publication on IDEO.com and through a biweekly email newsletter. We begin with four perspectives: Lawrence Abrahamson, Senior Design Director at IDEO New York, shares an insight he had while chatting with a facilities manager for a large real estate corporation—recognizing new ways to unlock value in the work space of the future. Deborah de Vries, Senior Portfolio Director at IDEO San Francisco, shares the four key pillars to building an innovation lab that successfully shepherds its parent organization into the next era of its business. Senior Portfolio Director Hailey Brewer presents a thought exercise on the language we use when we talk about business—and how changing our words might change our outcomes. And Owen Sanderson, a business designer, alongside Maura Cass, a design research lead in our Cambridge studio, share an example of how looking outside your own industry can be the best way to inspire change within it.

Forthcoming stories will include a case for embracing friction when starting a new corporate venture; and an interview with Dawn Laguens, the former Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood who now sits with us as expert-in-residence at IDEO. We’ll have explorations of creative leadership, digital transformation, entrepreneurship, and much more.

The convergence of design and business has followed a long trajectory from the early business consulting work of Charles and Ray Eames. It would have been hard to imagine in 1969 just how widely design could be applied. Even IDEO co-founder David Kelley, looking back on our firm’s 40 years, remarked: “And to think, when we started I thought we were going to forever be designing plastic parts for Silicon Valley computers and that would be enough to be fulfilled.”

Computers themselves once seemed like one of the most complex and interesting problems design could tackle. Now, of course, the physical components are just an interface for whole realms of experience nobody foresaw. While we can never predict the future, we can equip ourselves to respond to it with creativity and intelligence. By applying design and business—together—to the problems of our time, we expand the boundaries of possible solutions.

In a 1969 interview, the legendary designer Charles Eames was asked, “What are the boundaries of design?” Without skipping a beat, he turned the question around and asked, “What are the boundaries of problems?”

They were right, of course. At IDEO, we’ve seen time and again how environments design can create a more appealing, nimble, and resilient workplace. But we’ve also learned that a more profound change—and higher returns—can come when we look beyond the “hardware” of floor plans and furniture to the “software” of human relationships, activities, and work habits.

We began a series of site visits, meeting with people across different roles and observing how they used their workspaces, from executive offices to call centers. At one location our guide was a “floor manager,” as they called him. Technically, he was responsible for the upkeep of the physical environment, but he quickly revealed himself to be far more than that. He remembered birthdays and anniversaries. He knew when teams had completed a big project and how best to celebrate it. He was also an astute observer of the quirks of human behavior in space, like the routes people paced when they needed privacy on a personal call. He was invaluable for our learning process, and we realized he was invaluable for the bank too. He bridged some of the work of a receptionist, human resources specialist, custodian, and audiovisual tech. Above all, he helped people connect personally to their environment, and in doing so he made it better and their work easier to do.

But, as in so many organizations, his job was in jeopardy. Rather than see the value of his dedicated attention and accumulated cultural knowledge, the bank had decided that it no longer needed a manager for each floor. His role was seen as expendable, and his presence a cost burden. His “hard” tasks could still get done in a more administrative capacity, but the “softer” work would disappear.

This was a moment of insight for us. Amid the inconsistency of changing workplace conditions and mobile employees, this floor manager was a constant for the community. Far from being an unnecessary expense in a lean workplace, he was what allowed a lean workplace to thrive. He embodied its culture and created returns that couldn’t be easily captured on spreadsheets. We started to think of him like the starter in a sourdough recipe—the little bit that carries the unique flavor and texture of the organization forward.

The case of the big bank floor manager is indicative of larger trends that I have seen evolve over the last decade. For many years, facilities professionals, just by doing their jobs, enabled huge returns for their companies. They brought value by modernizing space, boosting technological efficiency, and cutting square footage. But when there is little left to cut, returns must be generated in other ways. In order to unlock new value, the realm of facilities must expand to encompass not only visible details of design and culture, but also less visible organizational factors like strategy, structure, process, incentives, and talent. In turn, the role of the facilities manager evolves from someone who optimizes for today, to someone who helps cultivate tomorrow.

In searching for more ROI, some organizations are choosing to locate their teams in white-label workspaces that offer glossy services and amenities, while alleviating some of the ambiguity inherent in preparing for the future. However, these places can be more like interchangeable hotel rooms than permanent homes. The occupants are connected by proximity, but not by a shared purpose.

At IDEO, we consider that sense of common purpose to be an essential part of the software that makes the workplace—and the organization—thrive. Our challenge is to better program that software—to think not only in one-off designs, but about the broader life and behaviors in an environment. In a project for Planned Parenthood, for example, we suggested shifting the role of receptionist from a stationary processing officer to a responsive guide—someone who could assess patients’ particular needs and help them navigate the space accordingly. The furniture and floor plan changed, too, to improve the patient experience; but it was in the use of human services that the overall design was activated. The people inside would play just as important a role as the walls and furniture. The outcome was both a strengthening of internal culture and relationships, and a more favorable outside perception of the brand as one that foregrounds human relationships. It showed what can happen when we consider people and interactions as part of the design.

In a very different type of project—the redesign of a hedge fund’s trading floor—we similarly looked at the interaction between human activity and physical environment. The client’s hunch was that more portfolio managers talking with each other and exchanging their expertise and research would produce different, better scenarios to trade on. Their teams had been siloed and hierarchical, with minimal interaction between fiefdoms. We quickly realized that while the brief asked for “the trading floor of the future,” we were undertaking a cultural change project. You can’t get people to exchange ideas if they don’t even address each other in passing.

We designed a space that had teams sharing amenities like conference rooms, call booths, and support service stations, and we also left room for spontaneous interactions and conversations away from the desk. The physical environment was enriched by the design of programmatic experiences like learning and development opportunities that brought diverse employee groups together; as well as intentional consideration of teams’ internal language and communication. At first, those at the top of the hierarchy resisted organic interaction with those lower down the ranks. But in the end, the value of cultural cohesion was clear. And data supports the experiential finding: Teams and organizations that collaborate across different functions on a daily basis are 38% more successful than organizations that do not. The best workspaces function like a sliding puzzle: there has to be a little extra to move into, otherwise everyone gets stuck in place. They consider the container as well as the contained.

The two projects were certainly different, but both were emblematic of doing more with less, by focusing on the people in the space. We helped both organizations and their real estate teams steward a shift from merely managing their workspaces to cultivating the activity that goes on inside them. We studied unique human behaviors and then, through testing and prototyping, moved forward with elements tailored to each organization’s culture and its individuals. That process differs from what environments design typically entails. But we know that the software of a workspace still has a lot to give us all, in a way that’s complementary to the pressures many organizations are feeling.

I recently got back in touch with my client at that international bank. She told me they’re now adding floor managers—renamed “experience managers”—to their sites across the globe. That’s a small thing, but it underscored a more profound change in her role developing the bank’s myriad facilities. If before she was a value saver, now she sees the possibilities in being a value creator. Rather than working behind the scenes, she is an active player in her organization’s success. “It’s not just furniture,” she said. “It’s about how employees feel about the way they are spending time. Are they in an environment that supports their flow, their work style, and their work type? What can we do to make their work easier? How can I make them more successful?”

Those are profound questions for any organization, let alone for the professional field of real estate that is shifting from simply building the walls to enabling the activities that happen inside of them. When I think about the future of facilities, I think about all the potential we can unlock by holding the cultural and emotional components of work alongside legacy approaches to productivity and architecture. Our challenge—and our interest—is weaving those parts into a greater whole.

Unless otherwise specified, all statistics came from Creative Difference, a digital tool to assess, guide, and track the development of creative and innovative teams.

Visuals by Marina Muun.

A few years ago, a major international bank approached IDEO and asked our team to rethink their workspaces. They had a new CEO, a new mission statement, and a hunch that the physical design of their facilities could foster behavior changes in the organization.

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.