Insights for Innovation
Insights for Innovation
Go Deeper with Certificate Programs
Insights for Innovation is part of three certificate programs:
What You'll Get
Introduction
Introduction
Watch a sneak peek
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Insights for Innovation—A taste of the learning experience
4 Video Lessons
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Insights Fuel Innovation—Why seeing with new eyes matters
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Introducing the Project Challenge —Learning by doing through a project
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Assessing Your Progress—How creatively confident are you?
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About Your Instructors: Coe Leta Stafford & Jane Fulton Suri
1 Assignment
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Choose Your Challenge: We’ve crafted a series of project challenges for you to choose from, all designed to be the right size and scope for this course. You'll practice your selected challenge during the course and later you can bring your learning into your own work.
2 Discussions
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How might seeing with fresh eyes help shape the way you, your team, and organization works?
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Everyone’s creative journey is different. How do you rate your own creative confidence?
Week 1: Observe
Week 1: Observe
6 Video Lessons
- Practice Observing
- Getting Curious—What’s in your bag?
- Practice Interpreting—Part 1: Whose life?
- See what an Expert Sees—Part 2: Whose life?
- Compare an Observation to an Interview—Part 3: Whose life?
- 6 Tips for Observing—What to look for in the real world
1 Assignment
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Practice Observing: Get out in the world and start observing your target audience and their behaviors.
6 Discussions
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What helps you get into a curious and non-judgmental mindset?
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Share what’s in your bag, and see what you can observe about a fellow learner’s bag.
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How might the observation exercise impact the way you approach insight gathering in your work?
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As you practiced observing, what were you curious about and how did these moments help you get to deeper places?
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What tips do you have for observing others?
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Did you have any "a-ha moments"? What do you personally find most challenging about listening with your eyes?
Week 2: Interviewing
Week 2: Interviewing
2 Video Lessons
- An Interview Gone Wrong—And how to make it right
- 5 Tips for Interviewing—Conducting an awesome conversation
1 Assignment
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Conduct an Interview: As you plan and conduct an interview, think back to our tips for interviewing and how you might use these to get to deeper, more honest answers.
2 Discussions
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How do you know when an interview is going poorly? How might you turn it into an insightful and meaningful conversation?
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Why is it important to be in tune with your presence when interviewing? How might you enhance your own self-awareness as an interviewer?
Week 3: Empathy
Week 3: Empathy
3 Video Lessons
- Why Empathy Matters—A visceral way to inspire action
- An Exercise in Empathy—Cycling commutes around the world
- 4 Tips for Empathy Immersion—Ways to experience new perspectives
1 Assignment
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Conduct an Empathy Experience: Design and conduct an empathy experience to better understand a different perspective.
4 Discussions
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What does empathy mean to you? Can you think back to a time in your personal or professional life when you developed empathy for someone else's experience?
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How did you feel when watching three individuals on their daily bicycle commutes? What differences or similarities did you notice?
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How might you use or adapt one of the techniques for empathy immersion to gain insight for your project challenge?
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What's challenging about walking in someone else's shoes? What ways might you practice empathy in your daily life?
Week 4: Insights
Week 4: Insights
2 Video Lessons
- The Anatomy of an Insight—Leveraging what you’ve learned
- 4 Steps for Summarizing Insights—Narrow down and make sense of it all
1 Assignment
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Final Project: Move through the ‘Steps for Summarizing Insights’ to narrow down and create 1-3 insights for your final project.
3 Discussions
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Did you use visuals to bring your story to life? Consider how you might amplify your audience's connection with the people and the problem through thoughtful visual storytelling.
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What was challenging about capturing insights?
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In your own words, what makes for a compelling insight?
Week 5: Conclusion
Week 5: Conclusion
1 Video Lesson
- Course Conclusion—But insights are just the beginning!
1 Discussion
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What was the biggest challenge you faced in gathering insights? How will you apply what you've learned to a current challenge in your life or work?
Meet Your Instructors
Jane Fulton Suri
Partner Emeritus & Executive Design Director at IDEO
Jane founded IDEO’s practice of human-centered insights in 1987, pioneering approaches that spread throughout organizations across the globe. To increase access to this approach, Jane published IDEO’s Method Cards and Thoughtless Acts. Jane holds a B.A. (Hons) in Psychology at the University of Manchester and an M.Sc. in Architecture at the University of Strathclyde.
Jane Fulton Suri
Partner Emeritus & Executive Design Director at IDEO
Jane founded IDEO’s practice of human-centered insights, pioneering approaches that spread throughout organizations across the globe. To increase access to this approach, Jane published IDEO’s Method Cards and Thoughtless Acts? Observations on Intuitive Design, a collection of snapshots that depict the subtle and creative ways in which people interact with the world.
As a popular public speaker, she regularly addresses design and business audiences, and lectures at Stanford, Harvard and other universities internationally. Jane holds a B.A. (Hons) in Psychology at the University of Manchester and an M.Sc. in Architecture at the University of Strathclyde.
Coe Leta Stafford
Partner at IDEO & Executive Design Director of IDEO U
Since joining IDEO in 2006, Coe Leta has led numerous creative teams across diverse organizations including Microsoft, Target, Intel, Wells Fargo, Ford, Sesame Street, and Government and Healthcare groups. Coe Leta has a Ph.D. in Education from UC Berkeley and guest lectures at Stanford University’s d.School.
Coe Leta Stafford
Partner at IDEO & Executive Design Director of IDEO U
Coe Leta teaches global audiences the skills of design thinking, human-centered research, rapid prototyping, and storytelling. Since joining IDEO in 2006, she's led numerous creative teams across diverse organizations including Microsoft, Target, Intel, Wells Fargo, Ford, eBay, Hasbro, Sesame Street, and Government and Healthcare groups. Known for expertise in digital design, play, and data, her work has won international awards, patents for clients, and been featured in the New York Times and Wired. Coe Leta has a Ph.D. in Education from UC Berkeley and guest lectures at Stanford University's d.School.
FAQs
We offer three types of courses: self-paced courses, cohort courses, and certificate programs. Cohort courses run on a set calendar, with fixed start and end dates. Course learning is self-paced within those dates and requires approximately 4-5 hours per week over 5 weeks. Courses consist of videos, activities, assignments, access to course teaching teams, and feedback from a global community of learners. There are also optional 1-hour video Community Conversations, held weekly by the teaching team.
All of our cohort courses are fully online, so you can take them from any time zone, anywhere in the world. With our cohort course experience, while you'll be learning alongside other learners, you'll still have the flexibility to work at the pace that fits your own schedule. There aren't mandatory live components, so you don't have to worry about having to log in at a specific time. At the same time, you'll have access to a teaching team who will answer your questions and give feedback on your assignments throughout the course.
Cohort courses run on a set calendar with fixed start and end dates. You will be learning alongside other learners, but still have the flexibility to work at a pace that fits your own schedule—there aren't mandatory live components. In cohort courses, you'll have access to a teaching team who will answer your questions and give feedback on your assignments throughout the course. Self-paced courses allow you to start, learn, and finish a course completely on your own schedule. Since courses are on-demand, there's no community experience of going through the material with other learners. In on-demand courses, there is no teaching team providing feedback on your submissions.
Upon completing a course, the certificate and digital badge for the course will automatically become available to you on your profile page within 24 hours. There, you can view your certificate, download it, and access your Credly badge. We've partnered with Credly, a leading digital credentialing platform, to provide learners with a digital badge that they can share on social media, email signatures, or add to their LinkedIn profiles or resumes.
IDEO U courses are not currently eligible for university credit.
You'll need a stable internet connection and a device (computer, tablet, or phone) with a modern web browser such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge. Some course activities may work better on a computer than a mobile device. You'll also need to be able to view videos, which requires a browser that supports HTML5 video.
Once you enroll in a course, you can access it by logging into your IDEO U account at ideou.com and clicking on your profile icon in the upper right corner. Then click on "My Courses" to see all of your enrolled courses. Click on the course you want to access to go to the course page. Your courses are always available in your account, even after the course end date.
We offer a 10-day satisfaction guarantee for our cohort courses (starting from the course start date). If you're unhappy with the course for any reason, reach out to us within 10 days of the course start date and we'll give you a full refund. To process a refund, contact us.
Yes, we do! We offer group pricing when you purchase 5 or more seats for the same course. Contact us at learner-success@ideou.com to get a quote.
Collaborate with a Global Community
Work with Expert Coaches
Our teaching team has extensive applied industry knowledge. They'll help deepen your understanding and application of the course content by facilitating written discussions, live video moments, and assignment feedback.
Expand Your Network
Join virtual live discussion groups for deeper conversation, reflection, and connection led by teaching team members and available multiple times a week across time zones.
Receive Feedback
Gain tips, techniques, and a downloadable feedback guide; and share and receive feedback on assignments from peers.
Loved by Learners Across the Globe
Insights for Innovation
“The IDEO U course I took on insights has helped improve the way I approach brainstorming and analyzing the consumer journey. This has allowed me to reach conclusions and propose ideas I might not previously have thought of. I feel the course has helped me approach my work through a more human lens.”
Insights for Innovation
“The topics and tools covered go much more in depth than anything I learned ‘trial by fire.’ Each module left me buzzing with ideas of how I could instantly apply this to my role and share with my team. I've already put some of these ideas in motion to innovate my team's educational offerings.”
Insights for Innovation
“The course material and assignments coupled with a collaboration space made it easy to fit the experience into my work schedule. The course material was logically thought out and presented, giving the student the power to delve as deeply into the subject matter as allowed by personal and professional constraints.”
Insights for Innovation
“I really found the techniques suggested helpful, and very clearly explained. It provides you with a practical introduction to gathering insights. All the suggested techniques are quite achievable, so you feel empowered to actually go and do it!”
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Enroll As a Team
The practice and application of design thinking, innovation, and creativity is highly collaborative and team based—which is why we believe that learning is better together. Take a course as a team and develop new skills and mindsets, have deeper discussion during course kickoff and debrief sessions, and build a shared understanding.
