Systemic transformation is not new to Cottage Health. Founded in 1888 by 50 forward-thinking women in Santa Barbara who wanted a hospital for their growing community, Cottage Health has since expanded to 3 hospitals and is quickly growing its outpatient services as well.

To understand the current Cottage Health experience, IDEO conducted dozens of in-depth interviews with patients, providers, caregivers, and staff. They also ran multi-week diary studies, engaged in inspirational research activities, and held events to hear from local women.

The qualitative research surfaced that women often carry the mental burden of repeatedly remembering, explaining, and advocating for themselves. Women’s pain is often minimized, which causes new providers to inherit mistrust from previous experiences, without having the tools to rebuild it. During significant life transitions, such as pregnancy or menopause, women may receive conflicting advice from health providers and seek additional outside support from informal networks. Access to quality care can sometimes depend on insider knowledge, private resources, or providers willing to go far beyond their job descriptions. And while providers make referrals, women must handle the time-consuming coordination required to make everything work, instead of focusing on healing. The bottom line: what women wanted most was to be seen, heard, believed, and supported in knowing what to do next.

In order to address these challenges, IDEO proposed a new vision for women’s health, alongside design principles and concrete service shifts to guide future decision-making. Every interaction with Cottage Health should build on the information patients have already shared, demonstrating the system is listening. They should also guide women through life transitions by anticipating needs in future life phases, not just what’s happening now. Much like a community gathering, the Cottage Health experience should feel like a village, fostering belonging and shared care through warm, connected, human touchpoints.

Building on these design principles, IDEO developed three exploratory service concepts that represented potential pathways for future development, rather than finalized offerings: True North, Wellness Commons, and Care Circle.

True North is a patient-facing tool that helps women see the long view of their health journey by integrating personal data, health goals, and reflections into a dynamic timeline they can share with their healthcare providers.

‍

Wellness Commons serves as a digital front door, offering curated resources, including community events, discounted wellness programs, fitness classes, and trusted referrals, that help women navigate their well-being with clarity and agency.

‍

Care Circle connects women to an extended support network inside and outside Cottage’s walls, including a hotline, health coaches, peer group support, and nurse navigators who can help patients manage complex care needs.

IDEO also provided Cottage Health with a multi-year roadmap building out the women’s health experience alongside continued pilot and implementation advisory. The roadmap included a comprehensive series of launch-to-learn pilots designed to test assumptions, reduce risks, and learn quickly, with IDEO stewarding the process. These pilots ranged from digital mockups and a curated community referral directory to a support line, a new nurse navigator role, and peer coaching services, among other experiments.

In July 2026, Cottage Health announced it was expanding its focus through a new Cottage Women’s Health Campus in Santa Barbara. Led by Dr. Jane Varner, Cottage Women's Health is projected to open in early 2028. It will encompass women’s health services across the lifespan, from puberty to menopause and beyond, including OB-GYN, pelvic floor health, women’s heart health, a menopause clinic, and a breast care center of excellence. It will also include supportive services, including trained nurse navigators to coordinate patients’ care journeys, giving women a single, trusted entry point for integrated care at every life stage. Cottage Women's Health is also exploring a new digital support system inspired by IDEO’s Wellness Commons concept.

Cottage Health had ambitious goals to expand its women’s health services and needed a partner to help it understand what women truly wanted from their healthcare and bring it to life.

7 months

from end of project to the announced launch of Cottage Women’s Health

Looking to understand the role of instant noodles in middle-class Chinese life, the IDEO team conducted in-home research with consumers across a range of life stages and levels of attachment to noodle culture and convenience foods. The first finding was reassuring: Everyone kept instant noodles at home. The category still had a place in middle-class kitchens. But beneath that was a more complicated, emotional story—and an unmet need for convenience and quality to coexist in a single product.

The team discovered that instant noodles are more than just a quick, on-the-go meal; they are a nostalgic comfort food that evokes fond memories. But since their heyday, their role in daily life has evolved. Once a complete meal in itself, instant noodles now often function as a versatile flavor base or culinary accent in other dishes. Because they don’t align with the healthier, higher-quality, and more novel food choices that middle-class consumers aspire to, noodle shops, delivery noodles, or fresh-cooked instant options often win out. Yet, even these alternatives come with trade-offs. Delivered noodles lose texture during transport. Sit-down noodle shops preserve quality but offer limited flavors.  Cooking from scratch meets the bar for both texture and flavor, but requires a significant time investment. As one young mother said, “If I could get the texture of fresh-cooked noodles without turning on the stove, I’d buy that instant noodle for sure.”

The research inspired the creation of a new category, which the team termed “fresh-brewed noodles.” More than just a noodle or broth upgrade, Master Kong’s fresh-brewed noodles would offer the speed of instant noodles with the quality of freshly cooked options, plus flavors not found in traditional noodle shops. The strategic positioning was clear. Executing it by making fresh-brewed noodles mass-producible, affordable, and eventually profitable presented a category-innovation challenge. To get there, IDEO designed a series of dual-track co-creation workshops with the Master Kong team and consumers.

One track focused on prototyping the core product experience: noodles, broth, and toppings. IDEO and Master Kong’s R&D team began by studying the traditional craft of Chinese noodle-making, starting in Shanxi, a region renowned for its noodles. Through successive rounds of prototyping and consumer tasting, the team identified a critical insight: for “fresh-brewed noodles” to be convincing, the innovation had to be centered on the noodles themselves.

Texture alone was not enough. Consumers needed to see a meaningful difference before they tasted the product. IDEO translated this insight into a distinctive noodle profile: irregular, dimensional shapes designed to remain springy, hold sauce and broth, and mimic the resilience of freshly cooked noodles using only hot water. Because this visible shape represented the product’s core value proposition, it became a hero feature on the packaging. The graphic design made a bold visual statement about the noodle form, turning a technical R&D breakthrough into an immediately legible consumer promise: these are not ordinary instant noodles.

A parallel track explored the broader commercial experience: trend-forward and reimagined classic flavor profiles, light yet deeply satisfying broths, carefully selected toppings, and packaging that signals a new level of quality on store shelves. One key insight was that utensils carry meaning. Conventional instant noodles are often associated with disposable plastic forks, while higher-quality noodles are eaten with chopsticks. IDEO translated this cultural cue into the design of the bowl’s lid.

Instead of treating utensils as an afterthought, the team designed a solid, rounded, heat-retaining lid that embeds a pair of small wooden chopsticks. The gesture creates a small ritual of anticipation and reframes the product—not just a convenient instant meal, but a more considered noodle experience. Once opened, the product fulfills that promise with satisfyingly bouncy noodles, a rich liquid broth pouch that replaces the traditional oil-and-powder packet, and a vegetable packet reformulated with more premium whole ingredients.

The first batch of “Te Bie Te” Fresh-Brewed Noodles—Chinese wordplay that emphasizes “special”—launched in August 2025 with three trendy and tried-and-true flavors. Within just three days, sales exceeded 100,000 bowls. Within a week, “Te Bie Te” topped the instant noodle category sales ranking on Douyin, China’s domestic counterpart to TikTok. The outcome was bigger than a product launch—it served as proof that a mature, declining category could be fundamentally reinvented to meet consumers’ real needs. For Master Kong, the project became a North Star and a model for internal category innovation in beverages, ready-to-eat foods, and beyond.

Once a popular, affordable staple, the instant noodle category in China has been declining rapidly due to shifting demographics, rising food delivery options, and increasing customer demand for healthier, more nutritious meals.

‍

According to the World Instant Noodles Association, between 2020 and 2023, China’s instant noodle consumption fell by 4 billion packs.

100,000+

“Te Bie Te” bowls sold in the first 3 days on the market

#1

on Douyin’s instant noodle category ranking within one week of launch

Taylor’s legacy began in 1969 with the founding of Taylor’s College and soon expanded to include Taylor’s University, one of Southeast Asia’s top private universities, as well as many other institutions that serve 35,000 students per year. The family-owned group also operates Taylor’s International Schools, Garden International School, and Nexus International School for students ages 4 to 18. In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital city, annual tuition at premium private schools like these ranges from about $10,000 to $25,000 USD. Taylor’s wanted to do something different: provide the same level of academic rigor and immersive learning experiences at one-third the cost.

IDEO began by speaking with over three dozen students, parents, teachers, and experts across the capital to understand what was working, what wasn’t, and what was missing from such moderately priced international schools.

A few themes quickly emerged. Families, students, and teachers were worried about the stability of these new private schools, which tended to have higher-than-normal teacher turnover rates and were plagued by financial instability, negatively impacting talent attraction and retention, as well as student learning. Parents appreciated that the schools offered holistic learning experiences, such as field trips to rural areas, including jungles, but wished they were more consistently part of the curriculum. And now, the looming challenge of AI—how to use it, how to teach it, and how to teach with it—was in the background, a persistent cause for concern. The big unmet need? Reassurance that Taylor’s was thinking long-term and systematically about developing the skills, knowledge, and mindsets that would prepare students for an ever-changing world. Parents wanted a school that measured growth in academic, social, and character terms over generations, not just school semesters.

With these insights in hand, IDEO began developing a design Playbook for Taylor’s new brand—Lexel International Schools. A combination of “lexicon” and “excellence,” Lexel’s mission is “building what lasts, learning for life.”

The schools are centered around three key differentiators: 

• Always Ahead: Lexel schools commit to staying current with the topics and subject matter they teach, as well as the tools they provide to students, parents, and teachers.s.  
  ‍
• Learning That Builds for Life: The schools ensure programmatic, systemic, and consistent learning experiences from Pre-K to Year 11. Interested students can even continue their post-secondary journey in partnership with Taylor’s University and other higher education institutions within the Taylor’s ecosystem.
  
  
• Educators for the Long Run: These schools commit to ongoing investments in professional growth opportunities for teachers and stable learning environments for students.

Four Lexel Literacies—AI, Digital, Financial, and Nutrition—integrated into the Cambridge Curriculum bring the school’s vision and mission to life.

By systematically integrating AI literacy into its spiral education framework, in particular, an approach where major topics are revisited multiple times through a curriculum to build fluency over time, Lexel ensures parents that the school is thinking a decade ahead from Day One, setting the school apart. In addition to enhancing AI fluency, Lexel offers unique end-of-term experiences called Jungles & Junctions.

Combining three important strands of learning—community engagement, nature-based personal and interpersonal development, and career and university exploration—Jungles & Junctions leverages Taylor’s extended educational network and Lexel’s strategic founding campus within the Gamuda Gardens development in Selangor. Surrounded by tropical rainforests, the township’s residential neighborhoods, theme park, and various sports facilities, including an Olympic-length swimming pool, are transformed into an extended Lexel campus, with a GenAI-driven planner to help teachers streamline the organization of class outings. “The Township is Your Campus” became the tagline for this approach.

In September 2025, just months after IDEO’s collaboration ended, Taylor’s began classes at its first Lexel International School. By mid-year, the new school had achieved 115% of its year-one student enrollment target, with significant inbound demand for Year 2 already demonstrating the school’s market resonance.

The modern campus features spacious classrooms, science and technology labs, a library, a multipurpose hall, and a canteen. Annual tuition ranges from about $2,800 USD for pre-K students to about $6,100 USD for secondary students.

Most importantly, by combining Taylor’s deep academic expertise, Gamuda Land’s development prowess, and IDEO’s innovative design Playbook, Lexel brings quality, affordable international education closer to home for Malaysian families. According to one parent, “My daughter looks forward to going to school every day … and has a lot of opportunities to express herself. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give [Lexel] an 11.” Based on the IDEO Playbook, a second flagship campus in the Southern Klang Valley, which is scheduled to open in September 2026, has already exceeded its year-one target enrollment expectations, with plans to continue extending the Lexel network to other parts of Malaysia and the wider Southeast Asian region in the near future.

Malaysia’s private international school sector has grown significantly as parents seek quality English-language education. However, high tuition fees and limited access to reputable schools are continual challenges for those in the emerging middle class.

115%

of Lexel’s student enrollment target reached during the launch year of its first campus
‍

Year 1 enrollment target exceeded

at Lexel's second campus several months ahead of classes commencing

‍

The American news industry has long been a competitive and saturated market. This has only intensified with the emergence of social media outlets and AI-generated news. Even so, SAN’s rigorously unbiased, fact-based reporting style and rich video storytelling had enabled the ambitious startup to rise above the media fray in just three short years.

With a strong foundation to build on, IDEO sought to further differentiate SAN’s cutting-edge news product and build deeper engagement with a wider audience through a new user experience.

‍Collaborating closely, IDEO and SAN began by delving deeply into media consumption habits. They met with early SAN superfans, news consumers who spent hours a day absorbing content from traditional outlets like Fox and USA Today, and those who looked to their Ring doorbell app or Reddit for news. The takeaways? People were tired of clickbait and clunky interfaces. They sought clear, factual news that was easily accessible, with additional context to help them interpret events and understand their significance. They craved more than one perspective on important topics, so stories felt balanced rather than polarized. They also valued having control over how they consumed news, so making it easy to switch between text, video, and audio formats was crucial.

Together, IDEO and SAN created features across SAN’s website and app that put facts, trust, and transparency at the core of the product experience. Fact Cards distill key data points into clear, shareable units, while the Sources feature allows readers to trace information directly back to its original source. To make complex stories easier to grasp, Big Picture insights drill down into why events matter, surfacing underlying themes, historical parallels, differences in reporting, and common ground. The Why This Story Matters section provides readers with clear framing and sets the story within a broader context, while the Timeline illustrates how events unfold over days, months, or even years. An antidote to news polarization, See All Sides presents left, right, and center narratives for key topics side-by-side, and Media Landscape visualizations reveal how coverage varies across outlets. Finally, to ensure SAN fits seamlessly into readers’ daily lives, the redesigned Today Page is organized into three highly scannable sections: Latest News, Top Stories, and SAN Originals. The combined features create a balanced, clear, and non-polarizing news experience, making it easy for readers to delve deeper into the sources of their news.

SAN now delivers a news experience as modern, dynamic, and trustworthy as its journalism. A month after its debut, the SAN app’s page views increased 1,170 percent year over year compared to June 2024, while active users rose 700 percent. Readers also give the updated mobile experience a 4.8 rating on the Apple App Store. “Our team is delivering reporting that’s both deeply factual and accessible,” said Derek Mead, SAN’s Chief Content Officer. “This redesign is pivotal to the direction journalism needs to take and the leadership role Straight Arrow News is taking on as we help guide the news industry into a brighter future.”

SAN built a loyal readership and gained recognition for its unbiased reporting. To expand and stand out from legacy media, SAN  wanted a redesigned user experience that reflected its commitment to fact-based journalism.

1,170%

increase in app page views YoY 

700%

increase in active users

4.8 rating

on the Apple App Store

1. Ditch the Plan

Don't try to build a 20-year plan—or even a two-year plan. The world is changing too fast. Figure out what you’re interested in right now and what the most interesting opportunities are in front of you and pursue those. —Aaron Ferber, Mechanical Engineer & Portfolio Director, @ IDEO since 2007

2. Just Do It

Don’t be paralyzed by making the “right choice.” Just make some decisions. While you’re working on one thing, don’t stop looking for your next thing. Don’t wait for others to offer you opportunities. Create your own stepping stones. —Erin Henkel, Service Design Portfolio Director, @ IDEO since 2006

3. I.D. Your Obi-Wan

Find someone you admire and follow his or her advice. —Andrew Burroughs, Mechanical Engineer & Partner, @ IDEO since 1992

4. Make Like Magellan

Make time to travel. It might be a cliché, but getting out of your own culture makes you more mindful and observant. You question everything you once took for granted. When my own children are trying to figure out what direction to take their lives next, I tell them, "Take out your passports. It’s time to book a trip." —Tim Brown, CEO, @ IDEO since 1987 (before it was IDEO)

So, young designer, you have your degree and now you have our advice. Time to bravely leap into your career with both feet and an open mind. Or, in the words of the ever-wise Yoda: "Do. Or do not. There is no try."

‍

When you're fresh out of school, your career possibilities can seem endless. So endless, in fact, it can be hard to know where to start. We feel you. We’ve been there. To help you enter the brave new world of design feeling a bit more surefooted, we asked a few of our most senior creatives—even our CEO (!)—what piece of advice they’d share with their younger selves. With over 75 years of professional experience between them, we think they know a thing or two.

I went back and stared: Inside what had been a pothole the size of a dinner plate, someone had constructed a beautiful mosaic of an iris.

The symbolism hit me hard: Here was an example of how someone could take a bad thing and turn it into something of transcendent beauty. Instead of complaining about my bad day, I should be looking for an opportunity to make something great. Or as the slogan goes, “When things fall apart, make art.” Once I’d spotted this one transformed pothole, I noticed more of them around Chicago, and resolved to track down the mysterious mosaic artist who was seeding the city’s broken streets with beauty. I’d like to tell you that my quest was long and heroic, but, in reality, all I did was type “Chicago pothole art” into Google.

The name it threw back at me was Jim Bachor. I emailed him, and soon we were chatting.

How did you get into mosaics?

I went to Europe in the late '90s, and saw Paris, London, and Rome. That trip changed my life: It gave me a passion for ancient history. I started traveling in Greece and Turkey, checking out ancient sites, and saw that the art that survives is the sculpture and the mosaics. The mosaics got me going, particularly in Pompeii. I saw that glass and marble do not fade. That thought has driven my work ever since. I took a course in Ravenna, near Venice, and learned how to make mosaics in the ancient, tedious, and expensive way. Back in Chicago, I started making them on the side as a hobby, while working as a designer at an ad agency. Then, in August 2011, I was laid off and I decided to pursue art full-time.

What led you to potholes as sites for art?

The street outside my house was beat up. There was this one pothole that refused to stay fixed. I thought it might be funny to solve this problem. So I did it one night. I was very paranoid: I felt like I was too old to get arrested. And it wouldn’t be a good example for my kiddies. So I didn’t even claim ownership of it, at first. But then, a buddy of mine started spreading the word. And from there, it went viral.

Do you do it during daytime now?

Yes. I wear orange reflective gear. And have cones. I started off with my boys’ orange soccer cones. Now I have industrial, two-foot-tall cones. I look like a city worker who's spending way too much time on one pothole. I’m not trying to fool anyone: I’m just trying not to be hit.

What about passers-by?

I don’t really make eye contact with people and they mostly ignore me.

I look like a city worker who's spending way too much time on one pothole.

JIM BACHOR

What else have you done with the mosaic form?

I did a super realistic "Snack Chip" series. It’s kind of funny to see a snack chip rendered in an ancient medium. For the Cheetos one, I carbonized some Cheetos, and then mixed the black powder into the mortar. The artwork truly has essence of Cheeto in it.

See more of Jim Bachor’s mosaic art at bachor.com.

One afternoon, I got on my bike to leave our Chicago office after a really bad day. It was one of those times when it feels like everything you touch falls apart, and I was in a hurry to get home and lie down in the dark. I rode through the West Loop neighborhood and turned right to head north on Green Street. But then something passed by beneath my front wheel that caused me to stop and turn around.

Name: Loren Flaherty
Location: New York
Role at IDEO: Senior Communication Designer, which means I work collaboratively with project teams, helping them visually tell the story of the project. Through compelling visual narratives, I move from complex business challenges to strategic solutions.
Joined IDEO: 2014
Instagram: @lorenipsum
Titillating Fact: I have an obsession with finding numbers and keep a blog called A Number Of to record them. I started the blog in 2009. I find most of the numbers myself, although friends that know about it give me numbers that they find. A couple rules: Numbers must be dominant on the piece that's found, and the piece has to be smaller than 8.5 by 11. I especially like finding pieces when I travel.

1. Tortus Copenhagen

As a result of doing pottery for a couple years, I try to keep my eye out for inspiring ceramicists. I recently found the work of Eric Landon and Karin Blach Nielsen of Tortus Copenhagen on Instagram. I love the depth and gradient of the glazes on the large curved forms.

2. Numero Group

I spend a lot of time listening to music while working. I found this label when I lived in Chicago. The label finds otherwise unreleased, dusty, forgotten-about tracks and re-releases them. If you like soul music, check out their Eccentric Soul Series. They have a couple sample playlists on Spotify.

3. Photofit: Self-Portraits

This is an older project but I just re-found it. Fourteen people were asked to create self-portraits using a police Photofit kit from the 1970s, without referring to a photograph or mirror.

‍

In this series, we ask IDEO designers to share the stuff they're digging right now—tools, books, music, sites, people, places—so you, too, can drink from the fount of inspiration bubbling up here. This week's guest star: This week's guest star: Loren Flaherty.

In our first episode, Berlin-based digital design director Anne Pascual sat down with London's senior editor Ed White to talk about how technology is changing intimacy, and what that means for designers.

We set out to speak to some people designing at the edges of intimacy, to better understand both sides.

We spoke to Pia, the founder of a "paid dating" app called OhLaLa, to talk about mobile, expanding choices, and the ever more complicated boundaries of the modern mating game.

We chatted to the founder of OffTime, an app designed to help you get offline and focus on meaningful, real-world moments with your family and friends.

Technology needs to support us in our efforts to reconnect with others, to find intimacy instead of what most of the technology is doing, which is just exploiting our weaknesses.

OFFTIME, MICHAEL DETTBARN.

Lastly, we caught up with Internet activist Zara about how technology both empowers vulnerable people and minority groups. But while people can find comfort online, they’re also increasingly exposed to the dangers of sharing their data.

What will the next episode bring? The future of work, the circular economy, ageing? Let us know what you think: IDEOEurope@ideo.com.

We're always connected, but are we actually connecting? Billions of mobile phones and Tinder hookups later, many feel increasingly lonely, overloaded, and disenfranchised. IDEO Europe’s first podcast, How Might We, digs into how technology is changing intimacy.

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.

‍

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.