IDEO

“We believe our responsibility as product designers is to provide external cues that help people have a chance to activate their internal ones—whether that’s helping someone realize they’ve been online longer than intended, or that it’s time to go to bed to be ready for school, or something more serious like showing a crisis hotline number.” –Megan Jones Bell, Director of Consumer and Mental Health at Google. IDEO Play Lab’s Michelle Lee-Schmidt sat down with Megan Jones Bell to talk about #mentalhealth as it relates to improving digital tools, access to resources, and guardrails to keep young people–and all of us–safe online. Discover more in our interview: https://lnkd.in/gPCj_2hz

Would you say you’re a patient person? Enough to play a game designed to test it? At IDEO and IDEO Play Lab, we often use play as a way to push the edges of deep #design questions. IDEO Playables are lightweight, interactive experiments that transform abstract design principles into hands-on experiences. We believe that small moments of play—surprising constraints, unexpected rituals, or shifts in perspective—can unlock new ways of engaging with the world. Rather than just reading about an idea, we invite people to play with it. “Wait. Wait. Wait.” is the first Playable in this series, investigating the question, what happens when friction is a feature, not a flaw? How does challenge shape engagement? When does it invite play, and when does it push us away? Game on at: wait.ideoplaylab.com

#HumanCenteredDesign offers organizations a creative-led way to reframe and address business challenges while encouraging innovation. IDEO Partner Lorenz Korder explores what it means to "think like a designer" in a new interview with Raconteur | B Corp™ : https://lnkd.in/gSinibbA

Consumers are tired of being fed algorithms telling them what to buy and are now looking for a very different #shopping experience than what has come before. To meet the coming generations, successful brands must serve as connectors, offering consumers an active role in co-creating content and programming. Instead of mass-market activations, they’ll invest in community-driven experiences. People care about what they’ve had a hand in co-creating, and that is the best way to create long-term #brand loyalty and advocacy.  IDEO Partner Anne Kim shares her insights about the future of #retail, the evolving customer journey, and unique brand value propositions: https://lnkd.in/gw42eSq6

Hot off the presses! 🗞️ Check out IDEO's own Savannah Kunovsky and Sergio Fregoni's perspectives on #AI for #business in Raconteur | B Corp™ and The Times at: https://lnkd.in/gjfF4GfA

Did you know? North America has lost more than three billion birds over the past 50 years, a precipitous decline that sounds an alarm about the planet’s health. The century-old Cornell Lab of Ornithology was uniquely positioned to reverse this trend of #biodiversity loss by mobilizing a movement of 100,000+ #citizenscientist members and more than 300 employees, including world-renowned #conservation scientists. To have a greater impact, however, the institution needed to unify its many research and participatory science endeavors—and the efforts of numerous internal teams and initiatives—under a single, compelling brand. Working closely with Lab leadership, IDEO created and activated a comprehensive #brandstrategy and visual and verbal identity. Like a flock of birds singing the same song, the work made the Lab's disparate efforts more understandable to the public and united its employees under “One Lab.” Learn how we did it at https://lnkd.in/gkkYPQwf

✨Your Design Recruiter’s Top 5 Takeaways from SXSW 2025✨ Your girl survived her first South By! Here's what has my brain in overdrive after a week of chance encounters, Benson Boone sightings, and creative fodder of all kinds. 1️⃣ Teal Health is redefining women’s healthcare. Finally—a pap smear built for the 2020s. FDA approval is on the horizon for Teal Health, a company tackling the global OB-GYN shortage with at-home cervical screening. CEO Kara Egan joined IDEO’s own Jennifer Lo on stage this year, and let’s just say, we’ll humblebrag about our industrial design excellence on this project any day of the week. 2️⃣ Chicago startups showed up in force.  This year’s pitch featured two standout companies from my beautiful Windy City (but I’m biased). Kudos to… 3️⃣ Tactile user interfaces having their moment!  High-resolution haptics startup Fluid Reality made waves at SXSW and this year’s mHUB Hard Tech Summit. Design for accessibility is reaching new heights, and this is just one success story of many. Non sequitur, but I cried real tears when Mark Schaefer shared the story of a close friend’s MS diagnosis—and how it led to the creation of said friend’s AI-engineered voice. Waterworks. 4️⃣ AI-driven interviews—for good!?  Yes, it’s happening. Meet The Dev Difference, a student-led startup revolutionizing technical hiring. Their AI-driven mock interview platform, built by a Polsky Center at the University of Chicago team, helps students prep for jobs while giving companies a standardized way to assess skills. Well done, Jovanay Carter!! 5️⃣ The Future of Work is Fluid. I know, I know—everyone’s saying it. But this year’s SXSW panels dug deep into how organizations are scaling both contingent and skill-based hiring models. Human Cloud’s Matthew Mottola and Opportunity@Work’s Byron Auguste had fascinating insights, and we here at IDEO are experimenting with new models of work ourselves… Bonus Takeaways💡 🤖 Startups are outpacing large enterprises in AI adoption. Meanwhile, enterprise designers are (understandably) guarding their gains in anticipation of performance review season. Stripe’s Katie Dill and ex-IDEOer-turned-VC Steve Vassallo shared insights from Designer Fund's new study of 400 design leaders across industries —TL;DR: the best way to AI-ify a workforce is to give people licenses, budget, and true incentive to teach others. ⚡️John Maeda does it again: The best way to structure a keynote? Just walk us through your 15,000 bookmarked tabs from the past year. Maeda’s Design in Tech report remains liquid gold —watch it as soon as it drops. Oh, and the Dubai chocolate? Not overhyped. See below: a delighted Molly enjoying the Museum of the Future activation, pre-crispy Kataifi. 🚀 Peace out ‘til next year, creatives, technologists & changemakers. I’m off to keep pondering Savannah Kunovsky & Alex Gallafent’s mutualism thought experiment—custom GPT in hand. #SXSW #Design #Innovation #FutureOfWork #IDEO

Successful #AI adoption requires strategic experimentation. While many leaders are hesitant to embrace this approach, the key lies in fostering a culture of safe, continuous learning and measured risk-taking. IDEO emerging technology leaders Savannah Kunovsky and Sergio Fregoni spoke to Raconteur | B Corp™ about how organizations can unlock the potential of AI. Full interview: https://lnkd.in/gyY2MUz9

At Brooklyn, New York’s high-performing Ascend Schools, #educator #burnout and exhaustion were compounded by a leadership transition. The pivotal moment inspired Ascend’s incoming CEO, Recy Benjamin Dunn, to ask for IDEO’s help in “figuring out who we want to be when we grow up.” Together, IDEO, Ascend leadership, and the larger Ascend community co-designed a new purpose, mission, cultural values, and vibrant visual language, empowering the network to chart a joyful, energetic, and unified new course for itself. Shortly after the collaboration with IDEO, Ascend received an unsolicited $11 million donation from MacKenzie Scott's foundation, Yield Giving. The pivotal funding will allow Ascend, with its bold new “grown-up” vision, to focus on becoming the school of choice in Brooklyn by 2027. Discover more in our latest case study: https://lnkd.in/gxmu-VqK

NEW from IDEO U: Our 8-week AI x Design Thinking Certificate Program. Learn foundational design thinking skills and mindsets, paired with AI tools to enhance them, in an engaging cohort experience. ✅ Get certified in AI-powered Design Thinking ✅ Build in-depth skills and mindsets of the design thinking process ✅ Confidently use AI to push your thinking and unlock efficiencies Today’s complex challenges require a reliable, adaptable process for coming up with effective, human-centered solutions. Build your toolkit for innovation with the AI x Design Thinking Certificate Program. Limited-time offer: Save $300 when you enroll by April 9th. Enroll now to save your spot! https://ideo.in/3Flc8Jg