New York

ON a brisk October day in Chicago, a few employees from the design firm Ideo left their office and headed to Knife & Tine, a restaurant about 6km away. The goal, besides lunch, was to complete the journey within 45 minutes, on a budget of US$10 for the whole group, all while carrying bulky shopping bags.

This was not a party game, but the kind of immersive research that defines the work of Ideo, a global design firm whose clients have included Samsung, 3M, Anheuser-Busch and, on this day, Ford.