The IDEO team quickly discovered that the challenge of designing a Digital@FEMSA super app for tens of millions of customers was matched only by the operational complexity of bringing together different teams that had already created various apps with separate value propositions. Not to mention the 22,000 stores specifically tailored to local communities.

To kick off the project, the IDEO team built on FEMSA’s already deep understanding of its customers by meeting them in their homes and communities. The team discovered that users didn't care about long-term rewards; instead, they wanted everyday help to thrive long-term. Connecting omnichannel rewards to regular spending would allow them to save time and money—something they said was particularly important. Along with market research, insights like these directly informed the app's design, ensuring that it was compatible with users' everyday habits and preferences.

Meanwhile, the project team also worked to ensure the app fit the priorities of the various teams inside Digital@FEMSA, designing a comprehensive process for testing joint value propositions. Together, the team created a new design system, iconography, and set of unifying principles. IDEO also worked closely with the Digital@FEMSA teams to ensure that the app's design was in line with their strategic goals and technical capabilities, and built the app's initial information architecture. They incorporated secure transactions, effortless coupon redemption, personalized offers, and a cohesive loyalty program.

From there, the IDEO and Digital@FEMSA teams quickly transitioned into the design and development phase, producing prototypes of the new app, dubbed Spin Premia. With the help of user testing, they were able to continuously iterate to improve the app's features and functionalities, creating a user experience that was both seamless and intuitive. In just 10 months, they went from a small digital team with an ambitious idea, to a 150+ people product organization and an MVP launched in one region. And thanks to a tight partnership, the teams were able to seamlessly integrate Spin Premia into Digital@FEMSA's existing systems, resulting in a scalable implementation nationwide just a few months later.

The introduction of Spin Premia was a milestone in FEMSA's digital transformation path. Following a true ship and iterate model, just a few months into the project, the company released a smaller, focused version of the app in just one city in Mexico to quickly learn from customer experience before expanding to new regions. Since then, the Spin Premia app has quickly gained popularity, offering a safe and user-friendly platform that millions of Mexican consumers have embraced. It has also allowed FEMSA to broaden its digital portfolio and extend its customer base throughout Mexico, elevating customer satisfaction and fueling business expansion.

13 million Mexicans visit FEMSA’s OXXO convenience stores every day. But the company had ambitions to leverage digital experiences to increase customer engagement.

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To get there, Digital@FEMSA needed to deliver exceptional digital products with the agility to serve an entire population.

4.7 stars

Spin Premia’s app store rating

22.8 million

active Spin Premia program users

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Midscale hotel brands are the fastest-growing hotel segment in the US, attractive to both travelers and hotel owners. But often, their messaging feels repetitive, and travelers have a tough time differentiating between them. With a warm, thoughtfully designed midscale brand, IHG had an enormous opportunity to distinguish itself in a crowded market. 

IHG’s goal was to deliver a guest experience that felt genuinely unique and resonant—and quickly. With costs on the rise, many owners were motivated to turn toward conversion brands, which allow them to refurbish hotels under a new brand rather than invest in construction, a way to grow their portfolio in a tight financing market. Meanwhile, IHG’s competitors were set to introduce new conversion brands of their own. The company was looking for a partner that could work swiftly and iteratively to deliver a distinct brand.

For the IDEO team, the answer lay in communicating the brand’s value, starting with a custom logo rendered by hand. Inspired by vintage sign painting and modernist typography, the team sketched different versions of the letterforms, reviewing them with IHG until they had a set that brought to life the generosity and sense of invitation associated with the hotel’s spaces. They also worked to ensure the wordmark was visually balanced and would translate well across a variety range of scales. From there, they built an expansive brand world, including bespoke navigation icons, a full interior and exterior signage system, and a video to support the Garner launch.

The result is a hotel brand that stands apart in its category for both travelers and owners: thoughtful and well-designed yet affordable. As competition in the midscale segment continues to increase, Garner has been central to IHG’s growth strategy. Launched in the fall of 2023, Garner opened 100 hotels worldwide in just 16 months, making it the fastest-ever IHG brand to scale globally. The brand’s increasing popularity among owners and developers is driven by the growing demand for conversion properties, which accounted for 52% of IHG’s room openings in 2025. Garner plans to continue its rapid expansion with nearly 80 additional hotels in 12 key markets, including the US, Mexico, Italy, and Japan.

Conversions account for 12% of the global hotel pipeline, enabling hotels to switch brands and refurbish, boosting revenue without expensive construction.
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The US midscale hotel segment, valued at $14B, is expected to reach $18B by 2030.

100 new Garner Hotels

in less than 3 years—the fastest-scaling brand in IHG's history

500 Garner Hotels

planned in the next 10 years; 1,000 over the next 20

Alzheimer’s and dementia are notoriously difficult to treat—and scientists estimate that some 50 percent of people who have dementia are undiagnosed. Recognition of symptoms and early intervention are key. Together and IDEO set out to conduct user research to inspire new products that would help patients with cognitive decline take charge of their brain health.

The first priority was to expand the reach of the Moving Together program, which combines group movement exercises with mindfulness techniques, led by a trained group instructor. The IDEO team conducted remote and in-person interviews in Florida, where one in five residents is age 65 and older, and rates of Alzheimer’s and dementia are among the highest in the country. One of the key insights the team discovered was that many older adults didn’t understand how behaviors like smoking, exercise, and diet can be risk factors for cognitive decline. Their input inspired a new design principle for the program: “No naked feedback.” Any time participants received health coaching advice about modifying their lifestyle, they would also be given resources on why and how to do it, so they would have a pathway to boosting their brain health. 

The IDEO team folded insights like this one into the design for four new product offerings, including personalized brain health education, new online community engagement tools, partnership programs, and health coaching services, as well as a new user interface to illustrate them. Along with Together they also developed an implementation roadmap of next steps to bring the new digital product offerings to market, such as hiring a brain health coach and creating a new course curriculum. Now, Together has enrolled 165 people in the Boost Your Brain Health Clinical Trial, which is looking at outcomes such as reduced risk of Alzheimer's and maintenance of cognitive function for the Brain Health Together program. With trial completion in Q3 2024 and product launch in early 2025, growing numbers of people with MCI will have access to this exciting program. Together incorporated almost all of the elements from the IDEO roadmap into the final curriculum, and the team often refers back to insights the team gathered as guiding design principles.

Fighting barriers to diagnosis

With its online program growing, Together wanted to take on an even bigger problem: dementia underdiagnosis. Co-founder Dr. Deborah Barnes had recently developed an algorithm that uses patients’ health records to calculate their risk of undiagnosed dementia, called the electronic health record Risk of Alzheimer's and Dementia Assessment Rule (eRADAR). Together was looking to find creative ways to equip and empower providers to use risk scores like eRADAR in primary care settings.

One piece of the puzzle? Many primary care doctors are unaware that better management of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia can have a positive impact on other chronic health issues—like diabetes, hypertension, and depression. So by encouraging providers to prioritize dementia care, they can help support the overall health of older adults with cognitive decline. The IDEO team recommended a curriculum for continuing education courses for doctors that make that link clear—another step toward increasing dementia diagnosis and improving overall health.

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Better help, sooner

To understand the patient experience, Together and IDEO decided to work directly with patients and caregivers to uncover what was stopping them from asking for dementia screening. The IDEO team quickly learned many patients were afraid of facing a diagnosis that signified a loss of agency and control, especially when they didn’t believe there were good treatment options. Often, they were unaware that there were things they could do to improve their brain health. They needed to know what steps to take after a diagnosis, and who could provide actionable advice. In response, the IDEO team designed a digital activity toolkit and physical booklet to guide patient families through the early stages of a dementia diagnosis, including recognizing the signs and symptoms, having better conversations with their doctor, and getting connected to support groups and programs like Moving Together.

Solving the problem of dementia underdiagnosis involves complex systems-level thinking and designing for the entire health ecosystem of patients, providers, and insurance payers, and solutions for Alzheimer’s and dementia care are still in their infancy. But already, this work is empowering patients and doctors to prioritize brain health and get screened sooner, and Together, which has since been acquired by Linus Health, is still working to move dementia care forward.

Approximately 12-18% of people aged 60 or older live with mild cognitive impairment, while memory loss, Alzheimer's and dementia affect more than 50 million people around the world.

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An estimated 50% of people living with dementia are undiagnosed.

165 enrolled

in the Boost Your Brain Health Clinical Trial

Many companies view culture-building initiatives as nice-to-haves. At Moderna, Mindsets are a business imperative, crucial to its plans to develop breakthrough products quickly.

For companies working on solutions as vital as a COVID-19 vaccine, delays and mistakes don’t just mean missing a product launch date—they’re life-or-death, and on a large scale. Moderna had to ensure that its employees knew how to make the right decisions, evaluate risk, and move quickly—even if they came from organizations with more bureaucracy and less risk tolerance. In 2021, IDEO sat down with longtime Moderna veterans to hear stories about moments that exemplify the company's culture, like the day a critical piece of equipment arrived but was too big to fit through the door. Taking it apart would have added days to their timeline. So employees took sledgehammers to a wall instead. Stories like this one fed into the crafting of the list of Mindsets, such as “Act with urgency: Action today compounds the lives saved tomorrow” and “We behave like owners: The solutions we’re building go beyond any job description.”

To gather feedback, the team shared the draft Mindsets with a diverse set of employees—new hires, veterans, folks already closely aligned with the culture, folks for whom it wasn’t the most natural fit, and a plethora of employee resource groups. CEO Stéphane Bancel and the leadership team took crafting and iterating on the Mindsets very seriously, wordsmithing and tweaking them with the team until they were ready to share them officially. Now, new hires learn about the company’s Mindsets in Moderna ONE, an onboarding process that IDEO helped revamp, while existing employees attend a workshop to ensure everyone at the company knows not only what to do but also how to do it effectively. In a matter of weeks, IDEO helped Moderna codify its culture for employees and set the company up for continued success. Moderna continues to embed these Mindsets across the entire employee lifecycle to systematically scale its culture.

For employees new and old, the clarity of the Mindsets has made it easier to understand expectations and to understand the company itself. Long-term veterans responded with comments like, "These really help explain why we're working this way,” while one newbie said, "It feels like a homecoming to hear the culture that we’re trying to bring through.” But more than just solving a cultural issue, the new Mindsets have fulfilled a business imperative: Holding on to the secret sauce that made Moderna successful to begin with, setting the stage for its next five years of breakthroughs.

When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 health crisis a pandemic in March of 2020, Moderna had fewer than 1,000 employees. Four years later, it’s more than five times the size.

Ranked #1

BioSpace Best Place to Work, large company in 2024

Ranked #6

Boston Consulting Group’s 50 Most Innovative Report in 2023

Ranked #4

Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 List in 2023

Recently, IDEO founder David Kelley and CEO Derek Robson sat down to chat about the importance of human-centered design in creating impactful, useful AI products, the flaws of vending machines, how to bring naysayers along on the innovation process, and much more.

For the last 40 years, you've championed the use of human-centered design, helping clients weather seismic technological shifts. As AI stands to bring massive change, are there any examples of other technological shifts that could help provide a roadmap for what’s coming?

David Kelley: The world has been through all kinds of shifts. The personal computer. iPhones. The internet. AI. And in each one, the technology was the shiny, exciting thing, but it took some insight, some creative leap to figure out how people would actually interact with it to make it successful. The one that was most impactful in my life was the move toward personal computing. When I was young, computers were these big machines in the basement. But as they became more accessible and more human-centered, they made explosive inroads into people's lives.

The most famous piece that IDEO worked on was the Apple mouse. The concept of pulldown menus and mice were developed at SRI and Xerox Parc. IDEO invented the technology and did the human factors and industrial design. The fun part was figuring out how people would use it. On the engineering side, we were trying to make it very accurate. If you moved the mouse one inch on the table, it would move an inch on the screen. But as we did more and more user testing with different kinds of people, it became clear that that was a complete waste of time. The human brain understood what was happening—you didn't have to make it the same distance. And because of that insight, we were able to make the mouse very cheap. Which has a lot to do with why it's successful—the cost is inconsequential.

Do you see parallels between that moment in time and today, when so many technologists are trying to deliver on the promise of AI?

David Kelley: Yes. We're just at the beginning. It’s going to be wildly useful, but at the present time, AI products are going to be hit or miss. It feels like a lot of other technologies we witnessed that didn’t find widespread adoption until someone discovered the right use cases.

Derek Robson: At the same time, AI is with us already, in products we use every day, like Netflix. Right now, AI is very prominent without necessarily having the use cases that you can point to and say, “everyone is using this” or “this is changing the world.” To David's point, we're at the start of a journey.

How crucial is it to implement human-centered design in the creation of AI products?

Derek Robson: It’s fundamental. How many things were meant to be great big breakthroughs, but they just don't work because they don’t take into account what humans want from the technology? In our own AI projects, we co-design with users early in the process, testing concepts to see what they want and need long before a product hits the market.

David Kelley: It reminds me of when Bill Moggridge, one of IDEO’s leaders for many years and a champion of interaction design, was working on the first laptop computer, called Grid Systems. He took it home one night after it was functional, and he came back and he said to me, “This software stuff is way too important to leave it to the software people.” At the time, it had that feeling that you had to be an insider to know how to use it—it wasn’t for the general public. Similarly, AI is far too important to leave just to the technologists—human-centered design is a crucial part of it.

Is part of that the engineering mentality—that the question is often, “can we do that,” rather than, “should we?”

David Kelley: We do see that in a lot of companies, especially when they’re designing for people like themselves. But 99 percent are designing for customers who are not like them.

Over the years, IDEO has worked with thousands of clients. What have you learned from them?

Derek Robson: If you go back through the history of the company, there's a type of leader that has a clear vision of what they want—a sense of bravery, a purpose. They have a dream of how they see the product and their brands evolving. Often, they’re on a path at odds with the rest of the culture. It started with Steve Jobs, and we’ve now had many wonderful clients over the years.

The best ones really get involved with us and embrace the process. And when they do, you find at the end that they've changed too. As much as we are a design and innovation company, we are also an experience company. We take you on a journey of looking at something in a new way and helping you to see the potential of things that aren’t there yet.

‍David Kelley: In the early days of IDEO, we'd send a proposal that included phase one, the human-centered design part, and the client would come back and say, “Could we just skip that first phase and get going?” But that is where our big ideas came from—from understanding what's meaningful to people. Eventually I had the guts to say, “Nope, we can't cut phase one.” That's what we're good at, taking all that information, all those interviews, all those observations, and making a creative leap to a new place.

Where did your confidence in this approach come from? Are there moments that solidified just how important it is?

David Kelley: Early on, we were working for Pepsi, and Jane Fulton Suri, who really pioneered empathy in design research, went to a place with vending machines. After watching people use them, she said, “Do you think it's right that the soda comes out at your ankles?” And that's so obvious, right? But the people who built the machine didn't see it. The rest of the team didn't see it. That wasn't how product companies were thinking back then.

Derek Robson: When you work on something for a very long time, you can start to believe that you know how your product works, and how people use it. And that's not necessarily the case. There are so many things that I've worked on in my life where people use products in a different way than they were intended to be used. And if you don't look at it anew, then you will never be able to move something forward.

Long ago, I worked for a company that was responsible for the Got Milk? ads. And the insight behind them was that people don’t think about milk until they don’t have it—they realize its value in its absence. It’s an insight that can only really come from being deeply connected to what humans want.

Aside from AI, what factors do you see influencing design in the foreseeable future?

Derek Robson: Climate. Human-centered design doesn't mean the human at the expense of everything else. We need to design things so that we’re not destroying the planet. We have to think about not just the composition of materials, but actually how people use those materials. What is going to happen to those materials over time? There's a never-ending list of things we are considering as we design.

David Kelley: As pedestrian as it seems, it all boils down to humans. Even with these big systems problems, you have to ask, what could we design to help people do their part? Think about recycling. It was a systems problem, but also a human problem. Once you had curbside and they came and picked it up, people got behind it.

Derek Robson: We also have to keep in mind that different people have different requirements from the things that we design. Not just from a climate perspective, but also from an ethical perspective. My two daughters think very differently about which companies they engage with than I did at their age. I didn't think about where products were sourced from, or the labor policies for the company. And while that's not for everybody, it is for many young people, and companies need to consider those factors. If they don't, they might not be able to generate the kind of demand they are looking for.

Four decades in, what are you most excited about for IDEO’s future?

Derek Robson: The best work for IDEO is still ahead of us. The mindset of this place is that the next project is the most important project. We're about solving problems, but we're also about asking bigger questions. And we're at a moment where there are so many questions that I think we are perfectly placed to help people answer.

David Kelley: I'm really looking forward to the variety. We're being trusted to do more interesting, diverse things than we ever have before. The mashup of what we learn in all those diverse places and putting that together gives IDEO a kind of database of insights that’s extremely valuable.

Derek Robson: When I joined, we had one team working on the collection of poop for a medical company and another redesigning a government system. The compounding effect of working on different things is what makes us unique. And the kinds of people that work on those problems are probably the most interesting and diverse set of creative people you are ever going to meet. We often say that the team of an IDEO design project sounds like the start of a joke. A mechanical engineer, an ethnography PhD, a physicist, and a doctor walk into a room to solve a problem. I don't think there's any organization on Earth with the diversity of creative talent and working on the variety of work that we have. And I’m excited for what we’ll do next.

Need help with a design challenge of your own? Get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.

Earlier technological shifts have a lot to teach us about the futures we're designing for.

At the time, even telehealth appointments were a rarity, until COVID-19 forced us to adapt. We brought human-centered design to the front-lines of the pandemic, helping design and launch new virtual care platforms, patient health and education platforms, and smart at-home diagnostics. Since then, digital tools have become a normal piece of the toolbox for providers and patients.

Now, digital health is shifting into another new era. M&A is accelerating, AI is shifting from back-office automation to real patient care. And a new administration is actively reshaping the regulatory landscape at a moment where patients are craving choice and transparency.

We’ve been designing for healthier human futures for over 45 years, shaping everything from patient therapeutics like digital diabetes programs to connected medical devices like smarter drug injectors, and clinical software like drug discovery tools. As part of that work, we’re always tracking the signals for what’s coming. Here’s what we see on the horizon in 2025.

1. Co-design is the key to M&A survival‍

Many digital health ventures that raised post-pandemic bridge rounds or early AI funding are running out of capital, which will trigger a new wave of mergers and acquisitions. The companies that survive won’t be the ones with the best tech or the most funding. They’ll be the ones that have built deep, system-wide relationships with health systems and payers.

Too many startups fail because they design for only one stakeholder—patients, providers, or payers. But viability only happens when all three are aligned. And the only way to achieve that is by designing at the intersection of desirability (what people want and need), feasibility (what is technically and operationally possible), and viability (what is financially and systemically sustainable). The solutions that last won’t just check one of these boxes—they’ll be deeply integrated into the way healthcare actually works. And to do that, the companies behind them will need to co-design with all three categories of stakeholders.

That’s what we did in 2024, when we partnered with the California Department of Mental Health and Kooth to create and launch Soluna, a free mental health and coaching platform for youth across California. To create a resource young people would actually use, we worked with more than 150 youth between 13 and 25 across the state to understand their needs, habits, and wants, shaping a platform that felt accessible, engaging, and supportive. To ensure Soluna could scale and actually work within the behavioral health system, we also navigated the constraints of government needs and co-designed with mental health practitioners to create back-office tools adapted to existing workflows. This is what co-design looks like—not just designing what’s desirable for users, but making sure it actually fits into existing systems.

2. Trust is crucial for high-stakes AI products

Some 70 percent of payers and providers have invested in AI to help with documentation, scribing, and automatable admin work. But the true potential lies in patient-facing care, like diagnostics, care delivery, and even clinical trials—but only if we design AI tools that providers and patients actually trust. This year, AI will  increasingly move into at-home care, especially in metabolic health and mental health. With GLP-1 drugs and metabolic surgeries on the rise, patients are going to need long-term personalized behavioral support. AI is perfect for that. In mental health, AI could help close the massive access gap by offering real-time support where no providers are available.

But none of this will happen unless AI is designed with patient trust in mind. We’ve seen firsthand how hesitant health plans are to extend AI beyond internal operations. But AI in healthcare isn’t just a data problem—it’s a human problem. The companies that figure out how to make AI feel safe, clear, and integrated into care delivery will define the next era of digital health.

3. Point solutions are great—but human-centered integration will make them more effective

Digital health is full of point solutions—condition-specific digital therapeutics like in diabetes, sleep issues, and brain health. These solutions have been critical in proving that traditional models of care can be improved with technology. But now, patients are juggling a phone-full of apps; a patient who downloads an app for meditation might need another for virtual primary care, another for weight management, and still another for chronic stress, each siloed in care team, data, and clinical recommendations.

The real opportunity lies in figuring out how to integrate these point solutions into conservative care models, trusted patient-facing brand names, and existing technology/EHR workflows. That means linking them to primary care, specialty care, and the broader health system—not expecting people to manage their own fragmented ecosystem of tools.

‍Maven Clinic does this well. Its mental health offering isn’t just a standalone app; it’s a wraparound service that connects to broader care. That’s the kind of design work we are hoping to see across digital health. As funding tightens and patient adoption slows, the future of digital health will be defined by integration.

4. AI-driven tools will soon replace entire departments

Digital health companies aren’t just pitching software anymore; they’re pitching end-to-end replacements for what were once human-run functions. Startups like InpharmD are using AI to deliver pharmaceutical recommendations at the clinic level, while Hippocratic AI is exploring drop-in AI nursing roles. These aren’t just AI-powered tools—they’re AI-powered workforces.

This isn’t just a shift in technology; it’s a shift in how healthcare organizations operate. If AI agents are going to supplant entire human functions, we need to think beyond just efficiency and automation. What happens to oversight? To decision-making? To the patient experience? The challenge is no longer just about designing better workflows. It’s about reimagining the future of work in healthcare.

5. New consumer choice offers a design opportunity

As people lose trust in the system, they’re looking for ways to take control of their healthcare choices. The question is: How will they actually make them?

With pricing transparency, new payment models where employees buy their own insurance and get reimbursed, potential regulation of pharmacy benefit managers, and a growing dissatisfaction with employer-based insurance, consumers are increasingly getting to choose which provider to see, what treatment to try, and how much they are willing to spend. But the interaction for how that all happens is still up for grabs. Will it happen through provider-led conversations? Employer benefits and brokers? Text-based interfaces like ChatGPT? Or will a new wave of agentic AI help people weigh cost, risk, and treatment options in real time?

So far, no one has cracked the interaction model for healthcare choice. IDEO and Newton-Wellesley Hospital pioneered one method with a concept called “Care Modes,” that allowed patients to decide the approach for how they receive care. The chosen mode flowed into every interaction at the hospital, even adjusting how health information gets logged in the EHR. But options like this are just the beginning.  The future of how people interact with complex healthcare decisions is still wide open. The challenge ahead isn’t just about giving people more data—it’s about designing how they engage with it, trust it, and act on it.

6. Designing for behavior change is still the foundation

Designing for behavior change is one of the most competitive and well-researched areas in healthcare, but there’s still so much room to grow. For the last decade, I’ve taught a course on Designing for Behavior Change at Stanford, where students work directly with patients to develop real lifestyle changes. Over the years, we’ve learned that the most effective interventions involve more than just habit tracking or designing nudges; they also create systems of accountability, community, and self-awareness in a way that aligns with people’s actual lives. That’s why observation and in-context research matter so much.

There’s a big opportunity to rethink how digital health supports long-term lifestyle change—whether that’s reimagining SNAP and WIC programs, integrating AI into personalized coaching, or pulling insights from the most engaging consumer and social platforms.

Prioritizing human-centered design

With so many problems to solve in our health care system (not to mention new ones popping up), there’s no limit to the possibilities for innovation in digital health. But our job as designers is bigger than just making things work; it’s to make a healthcare system that prioritizes user choice, deepens trust in the system, and uses the newest cost-saving technology, while integrating into the existing ways patients access care. That’s how we can drive radical transformation, by putting people—not just business or technology—at the center.

Thanks to Jennifer Lo, Ari Adler, Juho Parviainen, and Jesse Fourt for suggestions.

Four years ago, my colleagues and I were frantically working to bring the promise of digital health to a world in crisis.

What really brings value—and for what purpose—particularly in an era when budgets are tight? Similarly, folks focused on UX research argue that we are in the middle of a “reckoning,” questioning its ROI in certain contexts. Others disagree.

As this tension builds, the world of generative AI offers a new proposition: AI-generated—aka synthetic—users. Here’s the pitch: Are you sick and tired of going through the cost, time, and difficulty of crafting a research plan, finding participants, and creating thoughtful questions? Are moderated exploratory sessions and usability tests taking too long to conduct and synthesize into something actionable? There is a solution: generative AI tools that will simulate what real people might say and then feed it back to you instantaneously. Perhaps even synthesize it automatically!

The synthetic users proposition is meant to be a silver bullet. Already, folks are using it, skipping the time, cost, and hassle of doing research with real people. As leaders in this space, we felt obligated to take it seriously enough to try it out (with a healthy mix of skepticism and optimism).

As one of our teams kicked off a project to improve rural healthcare, they decided to enlist the help of ChatGPT to provide synthetic patient and practitioner insights, using several GenAI tools to create artificial users to interview. It turns out, after three weeks of swimming in a lukewarm sea of AI-generated information, all we needed was one hour with one real flesh-and-blood patient and a human physician who works with marginalized communities in rural areas to show us just how deep and complex real human experiences are—far more than our artificial users could convey.

What design research accomplishes vs. what LLMs can deliver

Relying on synthetic users—really just a lot of data in an LLM model—isn’t just bad for practitioners; it’s bad for business outcomes, and the people we’re designing for and with. AI is unable to provide the key ingredients of research that are critical to our work:

‍Important tangents‍

In open-ended interviews, we follow the lead of participants, inviting them to take us on their journey, even when—or especially when—it seems to deviate from what we thought we were going to talk about.

‍Unexpected insights

Looking at something from research participants’ points of view leads to things we never would have learned otherwise, and creates sparks of insight that help us shift priorities or radically reimagine the problem we’re trying to solve, as well as potential business outcomes.

‍Context clues

When you spend time in someone’s home or place of work, their artifacts, photos, prized possessions, accidental intrusions from family members—and a host of other things—can dramatically alter the course of a research experience and lead to new insights.

Contemporary generative AI products enshrine design principles and methods of working that run counter to what we know about good research practice.

‍People pleasers

They are designed and trained to please you and be helpful. Sometimes participants try too hard to be helpful as well, but researchers are trained to sense this and dig further. There’s nowhere to dig further with a synthetic user.

‍Emotionless entities

Contemporary LLMs lack authentic emotion. They don’t leave the markers and cues that participants often drop to signal there might be more to learn. And if you want a more emotional response, then it’s up to you as a researcher to prompt it—which defeats the whole purpose of doing research in the first place.

‍A shallow context pool

LLMs have to be fed the right context. They can’t say unexpected things beyond what you’re already asking about. Meanwhile, researchers are only able to define what’s relevant as the process unfolds.

‍Forced assumptions

Actually writing a prompt that gets you meaningful answers requires you to make a ton of assumptions about what you might learn.

A disembodied “person” composed entirely of data, which has been synthesized by an LLM looking at vast collections of other disembodied artifacts or words, simply cannot provide the insights and discoveries that research is designed to produce.

Others agree.  Even ChatGPT. When we asked it, “Is it ethical to use synthetic users instead of real ones?” ChatGPT told us, “Users provide valuable qualitative feedback, emotions, and insights that synthetic users cannot replicate. Overuse of synthetic users might result in missing these important human factors in design.”

Or, as researcher Christopher Roosen puts it, “Using synthetic humans for direct research is like navel gazing, but not at our own navels, but into the great messy, cluttered, and often- disgusting navel of the Internet-with-a-capital-I. The solution isn't to make up fake people. It’s getting better access to real people.”

Scrappy ways to accomplish the same goals

Design research can feel like it takes too long or is too speculative or unrewarding. Sometimes, it can lead to a lot of swirl, creating an anxiety gap between insights and the creation of new solutions. There’s also the real problem of resources. Or maybe your stakeholders are looking for immediate results. It’s reasonable for teams to wonder how they can take a more direct path.

But that doesn’t mean you have to discard human-centered research and design altogether. We too are often working on tight timelines, and having to find scrappy ways to get real data from real people. Here are some practical strategies for even the most shoe-string budget.

Friend and family interviews

You should strive to recruit a balanced sample of research participants and work to eliminate any bias baked into the sample design. But doing design research—especially in the early stages of the process—is different. At this stage, it’s actually beneficial to embrace the bias of the sample and use it as a tool to learn. Talking to friends and family to get feedback on early concepts is a viable way to recruit research participants—so long as those people care deeply about the subject matter and you understand the limitations of their perspectives.

Diary studies

When you want to quickly get data from people’s daily lives, often over a specific period of time, diary studies—having people log daily activity or respond to specific prompts throughout their day—come in handy. The size and scope of data you can study can be tailored to meet your immediate needs: You can ask participants to log their habits and thoughts throughout the day in a text or audio journal, take photos and videos, and reflect on your product or similar ones. There are even platforms like dscout that streamline the recruitment, data collection, and analysis process. In one diary study, we asked  a couple dozen participants to show us the moments that mattered in their week—which completely changed how we design for major TV moments in the streaming era.

Intercepts

An intercept is a quick conversation with someone in a physical context. Where better to discuss a hospital’s waiting room experience than in that same waiting room? While the insights from intercepts are often targeted and specific, they’re ideal for quick, actionable feedback—and relatively inexpensive, too. On one project, we showed up at a major home appliance retailer to talk to customers and associates about the problems they were trying to solve together. We discovered that people often came in for a face-to-face interaction that would help them decide whether to repair or replace their home appliance. But while associates were eager to solve the problem, they felt incredibly ill-equipped to do so and could only offer anecdotes based on personal experience.

Expert interviews

Experts not only bring knowledge, but also intuition that can only be acquired through lived experiences, critical perspectives, and sometimes even information that may not be widely accessible. When our colleagues worked on that project to improve access to healthcare for rural populations, talking to one expert in that field gave them the broadest view of all the challenges that population is facing and helped them design for it with greater empathy. Instead of trying to create something purely digital, the team pivoted to creating solutions that foster trust and understanding between the doctor and patient.  

Expert interviews are typically more expensive (they can range from $250 to $1000/hr depending on your expert) but luckily, you don’t need too many of them. You can also think broadly about what qualifies someone as an expert. Communities tied together by a common interest (e.g. Reddit) may get you a different kind of expertise than the capital E experts available for hire.

Social signals

If all else fails, sometimes it’s more impactful to hear the opinions of people directly through the data they leave behind online in the form of posts, comments, and reviews.  Subreddits visited by particular interest demographics, trending topics on social media sites, and product reviews can uncover deeper insights around people’s true feelings and experiences, both bad and good.  When we worked with a music gear manufacturer dealing  with increased returns and customer dissatisfaction, a simple analysis of their own review data helped us identify specific problems, and customers’ suggested solutions.

Looking ahead

Generative AI and LLMs are very useful tools that we’ve embraced in many of our distinct design crafts. And we still believe that there is an opportunity to use LLMs in design research. They can help us think about problems in new ways, help shape a research plan, and guide interviews. After all, LLMs do have access to a wide variety of material that could be quite inspirational in planning phases—so long as we realize they are not providing insights from real people. At least, for now. (We remain open to what the future might bring.) Because today, unless you’re designing for LLMs, not accounting for real human input is a shortcut to nowhere.

Design research is at an inflection point. Practitioners and budget-setters are going back and forth over whether it’s worth the time and money.

Her home page had been crowded with English content and an attention-grabbing hashtag: #TikTokRefugee.

For years, Chinese and American netizens have largely lived in separate digital spheres, playing within their own ecosystems. But thanks to the change in TikTok’s legal status in the U.S., all of a sudden, we’re seeing a digital cultural exchange. On Red Note, people from the two countries are helping each other solve math problems and complete English assignments. They’re sharing photos of their pets, homes, food, and cities. They’re even fact-checking with each other about life on the “other side”—like what authentic Chinese food looks like beyond what’s offered at Panda Express.

We don’t know how long this migration of users will last, but it hints at what could be the beginning of a social experiment that could reshape norms, trends, and the way global internet cultures interact.

For us, two technologists, one currently living in Shanghai, working on a project on Chinese content creation and e-commerce platforms, this digital mingling kicked off a big conversation about what designers from different cultures can learn from each other. After all, firewalls have led to us building our tech ecosystems in totally different ways, with different design sensibilities and cultural use cases. And it’s really fun to see these two digital cultures coming together in one app.

Here’s what we’re learning from exploring this cultural exchange.

💫 The power of shared digital spaces to bring people together

We’re always fascinated to see what happens when two people who are siloed connect with each other as human beings. On Red Note, people are finding ways to learn from each other, sharing photos of their pets and families, and asking  authentic questions like, “May I have the pleasure of seeing the streets of America as you see them? ” Meanwhile, the folks who came from TikTok are trying to learn Chinese terms, and even taking quizzes. These spontaneous exchanges are more than casual interactions; they hold immense potential to create a powerful inspiration pool for intentionally designing spaces for connection and positive interaction. It’s an opportunity to uncover design hints and signals for commercial and social innovations, inspired by shared values, behaviors, and the nuanced differences between users.

🔮 Cultural cross-pollination

Behaviors that developed organically in one context are already getting adopted by the other. For example, the "😺 cat tax" concept from Reddit—a friendly requirement to share a photo of your cat to participate—has made its way into Chinese social platforms, blending humor and engagement strategies from Western online spaces with local norms. Slang from both sides is proliferating; American terms like LOL, AMA, JK, as well as Chinese ones: XSWL (laughing to die), NB (really really good). This cross-pollination feels like a preview of a future where internet cultures from the U.S. and China become even more intertwined.

📲Shifting data privacy norm

On a recent project on interaction design in content creation platforms, we found that some users from China, the U.S., and the EU were unfazed by the idea that the platforms are collecting and using their data. As one participant told us, “It’s okay to use my data for training if it gives me a better experience as the payoff.” Meanwhile, some American users on Red Note said they were knowingly trading data privacy for community (in slightly less polite terms).

While this sentiment doesn’t align with traditional data privacy ideals—prioritizing minimal data collection, strong user consent, and transparent usage practices—it highlights how people crave connection and great experiences, and are sometimes willing to pay for that with their data. It’s a nuanced area that presents both opportunities and challenges for designers and tech creators—and one where they need to tread carefully. Consent is extremely important, and experiences need to highlight choices to opt in, surfacing microexplanations for new users clarifying how their data will be used or implementing scenario-based toggles that help users understand data sharing.

😻Unique engagement strategies

While researching Chinese digital products, we noticed a fascinating norm: many apps cultivate unique ways for users to address each other. On Red Note, for instance, users don’t call each other "bro" or "buddy" but instead use "sister." This stems from Red Note’s design strategy, which intentionally engages female users by fostering a female-friendly community that feels safe, authentic, and supportive. It’s a small detail with a big impact, shaping how users interact and building trust through thoughtful, culturally-tailored design. It’s also a great lesson in intentionality.

👥A wider range of features and use cases

Many apps created in Western context have one function that they do really well. Think Pinterest, Uber, Zillow.  But if you spend time using various apps in the Chinese tech market, you’ll discover there’s a lot more usability and depth to the products. For example, at face value, an app like Red Note could be seen as an Instagram-style app focused on real-life story sharing. But it also has a ton of deeper features: it’s heavily social, commenting with self-moderation on things like political speech, livestream, notes, and more. China’s UX designers have figured out how to distill the purpose of a product, and create deeper dimensionality in a way that aligns with user needs, and makes it easier to express yourself and accomplish goals on the platform..

🌎Protecting culture

The influx of new users and ideas is transforming platforms like Red Note into vibrant spaces for creativity, commerce, and cultural exchange. This evolution raises questions about how global norms and trends will influence—and be influenced by—local platforms, potentially reshaping the landscape for content creators and businesses.

As delighted as we are to watch and learn from these interactions, we’re very aware of the power of globalized social media to flatten cultures. Part of the fun and learning here is that they are so different. But that offers yet another design provocation: How can we balance connection and understanding and cat memes between people without flattening culture? That’s a question we’ll continue to explore.

Last Wednesday, when Zoey opened Xiaohongshu ( aka 小红书” or Red Note), her go-to Chinese social media app, to scroll through some of her favorite local food, fashion trends, and K-Pop content, she discovered something unexpected.

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.