Questions are the lifeblood of our work: they unsettle us, ignite curiosity, and expand our imaginations. They mark the first step toward new possibilities and new ways of being. The questions we ask—and those asked of us—propel us forward, and without them, we couldn’t stretch beyond the familiar to design solutions that transform lives and shape futures.

At IDEO.org, each year is defined by a constellation of questions—some profound, others playful—all driven by a desire to better meet the needs of the human experience.

This year, the world asked more questions than we often felt ready to answer. Many centered on loneliness and the yearning for connection, affirmation, and empathy, unsurprising given the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2023 declaration of loneliness as a public health crisis. These questions took us from Dallas, Texas, to Zimbabwe, prompting us to turn both inward and outward as we further explored how design could as a tool for compassion, justice, and equity.

As the year draws to a close, we reflect on some of the questions that defined our year—the ones that shaped our path toward designing worlds worth building.

How might we create cultures of care and repair?

By Diane D'Costa, Belinda Jivapong, Harmonie Coleman

When we entered the halls of a Texas middle school, one thing was clear: everyone was exhausted. Between a tornado and the pandemic, students, teachers, and families were grappling with layers of grief, still recovering physically, emotionally, and economically. Yet schools operated as if it were business as usual—or worse, in overdrive—under immense pressure to close gaps and boost academic performance. It was immediately clear: the kids weren’t okay, and neither were the adults.

At their best, schools are meant to be spaces of nurturing and growth, yet there are a number of factors that keep schools from being their best. With external pressures to meet an ever-expanding list of needs, close growing gaps, and make every minute count, students, teachers, and administrators can feel like they’re in a pressure cooker that prioritizes compliance over care. Stakes are high, needs are immense, and folks working everyday to make things work feel like they’re constantly in a state of crisis on the brink of burnout.

Alongside the Commit Partnership and the Garland Independent School District in Texas, we wanted to explore a different possibility: How might we cultivate cultures of care and repair, especially in environments with limited capacity? How could we go from crisis to connection—prioritizing empathy, growth, and accountability over punishment and exclusion?

While competing priorities and pressures created an "every person for themselves" environment, conversations with everyone in the ecosystem revealed a shared longing: empathy and understanding. Students, teachers, and administrators alike wanted to be seen as their whole, human selves, carrying the weight of responsibilities both inside and outside the classroom.

With this in mind, we began working with eight teachers to identify opportunities to weave moments of connection into the school day: pauses to check in and space to process challenges. Together, we co-designed and tested six low-lift interventions to foster cultural shifts in the classroom, culminating in School Culture Champions, a suite of tools that create spaces for everyone to show up—and be seen—as their whole selves.

One of the tools was the Mood Meter, a simple system that allowed teachers and students to share their emotional state at the start of class, fostering a culture of support and openness. Another was a deck of Culture Cards, designed to spark meaningful conversations and help classrooms reset and reconnect after high-stress moments. Since kicking off in March, this effort has expanded to four schools and over 50 teachers consistently testing these prototypes each week with their students. By inviting teachers to co-design and collaborate across campuses, they were able to learn from one another, build together, and feel respected as professionals, reinforcing their expertise in a system that often limits their autonomy.

Questions of care and repair have emerged as central themes across many of our projects lately, a reflection of where we find ourselves as a society right now. While the cultural conversation fixates on our divisions and the daunting challenge of overcoming them, this project has given us a different perspective. From the eyes of teachers, and students navigating the constraints of a school system with limited resources and rigid rules, there were still endless creative ways of bringing people together. If a school can do it, maybe the rest of us can as well.

How might we provide affirming care that protects as much as it uplifts?

By Edwin Mwai, Ankita Roy, Nakhanu Wafula

In 2019, we partnered with PSI Zimbabwe to create ColourZ, a discreet HIV testing service for men who have sex with men (MSM). In a country where the LGBTQIA+ community faces serious legal and social challenges, seeking HIV care can feel like stepping into a dangerous spotlight. ColourZ shifted this dynamic by prioritizing privacy and affirmation, offering a safe space where MSM could access care on their terms and be celebrated for who they are. Since its launch in 2020, ColourZ has become a trusted brand for men under 30, driving a 154% increase in HIV testing and doubling PrEP uptake.

However, it didn’t resonate as strongly with older MSM. While both groups needed the same healthcare service ,the way it was delivered and experienced had to be different in order to be effective.This summer, we returned to Zimbabwe to understand how affirmation, care, and safety could better meet the needs of older MSM.

While ColourZ’s bold and unapologetic branding celebrated LGBTQIA+ identity, it didn’t resonate with older MSM who found such visibility too exposing. Many carried generational trauma from persecution, preferring healthcare at general clinics where they could maintain privacy and address other health concerns discreetly, rather than in NGO spaces tied to the LGBTQIA+ community. They needed care that fit seamlessly into their routines without drawing attention—something ColourZ’s vibrant, outward-facing identity couldn’t provide. They also needed a service willing to build trust and prioritize their safety long before they even stepped into a clinic.

But how do you uplift and honor someone’s identity while respecting their need for privacy and safety? We realized that the language for affirmation didn’t necessarily need to be outwardly visible to be impactful. Instead, it could take on a quieter form: subtle moments, intentionally woven into every step a user's journey—before, during, and after a clinic visit.

We focused on embedding “quiet” affirmation throughout the healthcare experience, especially in the pre-clinic journey. With tools like the Virtual Health Assistant and a digital Screening Tool, users could evaluate their sexual health in their own time and space without the pressure of meeting someone in person or committing to a clinic visit. By supporting these longer journeys and building trust over time, ThriveHealth—the adapted brand and service—is designed to increase the likelihood that users will make it to a clinic to receive care.

Everyone deserves healthcare services that make them feel safe, comfortable, and valued; and the details that create this sense of trust and belonging can vary greatly from one group to another. By making it the norm to design for these diverse experiences, we help ensure that no one is left on the fringes of society, creating a world that is healthier, more inclusive, and deeply connected.

How might we make the future palpable?

By Aya Jaffar, Chi Offomah

When we launched the Reimagine Childcare program in 2022, we worked with movement leaders, organizers and collectives, and early childhood educators across the country to craft a bold vision for the future of childcare rooted in dignity and wholeness. Together, we envisioned an irresistible future where parents, providers, and children all felt supported and valued, creating a foundation for stronger care networks and thriving communities.

As we socialized the vision within the care ecosystem—childcare providers, advocates, legislators, and grassroot activists— we sat with a tension that felt palpable in every interaction: It’s beautiful, even necessary, to dream up visions of the future we all deserve, but our reality is scarcity and depletion. For people to step into the vision, for it to resonate beyond words, they needed ways to touch the future, today.

How do you touch the future? How do you get close enough, so it begins to shift from a vision into something tangible? This question has become a central focus as we approach 2025, guiding us to turn ideals into lived experiences that people could experience now.

To bring this future to life, we’re working closely with our beacons and thought partners to identify value-aligned individuals and collectives in fields like journalism, business strategy, faith, and parent influencers—who have the expertise and reach to help make our vision feel real. We needed to start cultivating the roots in the present so they would grow toward the future we envisioned.

Using the design process, we’re playing the future backwards into today so that we may then launch forward into the future again. It sounds abstract, but the idea is pretty smple: if we can imagine the distant future as a vision of childcare, we can then map out “middle futures” for key actors along the way. These “middle futures” aren’t distant dreams but concrete, achievable steps that people can engage with now.

What shifts could these actors make in their programs, strategies, and communications so that, in ten years, they’re moving purposefully toward the visionary future? By connecting experts in fields like design and futuring with these key actors, we’re laying the groundwork for an infrastructure of care that doesn’t just inspire, but acts.

How do we honor our work in social impact while navigating the weight of the world?

By Claudia Sosa Lazo

My world crumbled on July 29th this year.

As my neighbors in the Bay Area began their Monday routines, I woke up with a heavy heart to the news of Venezuela’s elections. The night before, I clung to a fragile hope that the results might bring change to my home country. Instead, I was met with the stark reality that hope for a better future—for my family, friends, and community—had unraveled overnight. Alone, I grappled with the divide between my personal heartbreak and the professional world I needed to step into just hours later.

I logged onto my first Zoom meeting, then the second, and the third. I wasn’t at my best. My team offered support, but as the news cycle moved on, the situation only grew more dire: over 1,850 protesters—including 69 teenagers—remained imprisoned. I was inconsolable, yet still staring at my calendar and its looming deadlines.

For myself and so many others, 2024 has been defined by profound grief. Along with my own, I carried the responsibility of leading teammates grappling with deep pain. Together we moved through countless impossible days.

In the social impact sector, our work is urgent and deeply personal. We’re designing transformative solutions that empower communities to thrive and live in dignity. It’s both a privilege and a responsibility to earn and hold the trust of communities and organizational partners, who invest their limited resources in us to help realize a better future. I don’t get to half-ass this work.

But what happens when the world around us is falling apart? When our own lives and communities are in crisis, how do we show up for work that demands our all? How do we honor the work we believe in while also honoring the full weight and complexity of our personal lives?

There are no quick fixes, no antidotes to restore us to full capacity when we feel hollowed out by loss or overwhelmed by the state of the world. And while stepping away to rest is essential, we know the work doesn’t stop. In these times, I often wish I could move mountains, hold others’ burdens for them, or make deadlines disappear.

But the most generous thing I can do for myself and my team in these times is to simplify work and remove as much noise as possible: unnecessary meetings, extra deliverables, and redundant check-ins, and to be extra transparent about what deadlines can shift and what cannot. By making work as simple and efficient as possible, we can create space to prioritize what truly matters. This isn’t about lowering standards but about protecting the energy and space needed to step away when we must—and return when we can.

And then there’s the matter of joy.

Designing for joy in the midst of grief can feel almost absurd—but it is, perhaps, one of the most radical acts of defiance against despair. To design for joy is to embody a fierce, unrelenting hope. Hope, I’ve come to understand, isn’t loud or flashy; it’s quiet and stubborn. It doesn’t erase pain or rage, but it allows us to put one foot ahead of the other into a more liberated future.

As I look to 2025, I hold onto the hope that we can move closer to a better world rather than slip further into dystopia. That the deliberate acts of care we show ourselves and each other, especially in moments of despair, are morsels of light—and that we can navigate forward with hope as our compass.