Toy inventor Inna Yankelovich discusses mashing together weird combinations – and joining IDEO

Lovely to see you, Inna! You were independent before you joined IDEO… What might we know you for?
As a freelancer, I was a toy designer for client projects and a toy inventor for my own ideas; they were my two different hats. I joined IDEO as a toy inventor just over two years ago. At IDEO, the toy design and invention teams are separate groups, but we collaborate a lot. As an independent, I had items with Fat Brain, Educational Insights, Spin Master… A lot of arts and crafts, some baby toys and games. I had Frantic Forest, Spinny Pins, Dimpi Stack, Hammy’s Hamster Party, Jelly Sand, Tidy Dye…

Tidy Dye was yours?! That was a mess-free tie-dying toy, right? Very clever.
Thank you. That was with Spin Master; it’s no longer on the market but yes – Tidy Dye let you do tie dye without water and mess.

Yes! I think it would suit Crayola if it’s now available again!
Ha! Yes!

It’s great product – you’re not plugging it; I’m plugging it. So your output is quite broad… Why make the move to IDEO?
This goes back a bit! Right after I graduated from Industrial Design School in 2014, I’d just done my final project. That was a product for kids; something in between furniture and toys. I presented it to Spin Master by mistake because I didn’t know anything about the industry and I’d just met Tal Schrieber, who you know…

Yes, she’s wonderful! People can read articles with Tal here and here.
So Spin took it in; they were very interested. There was then some connection between me and IDEO in developing the concept, all working on it together because it had some mechanical issues to solve. I really appreciated all of IDEO’s processes and the design thinking; they have a great approach. And you know, even before that, IDEO was a thing for me as an industrial design student!

So… Jumping to 2022, I saw a toy-inventor opportunity on LinkedIn from IDEO – something I’d never seen before – it’s very rare. I wasn’t planning on looking for a job, but I was so thrilled to see that opportunity and I thought: let’s just apply and see what happens.

Oh, wow! So it was an irresistible aspiration?
I just thought that, in the worst case, I would meet some incredible people, get some interviews and maybe see if I could collaborate with IDEO and work with them. I never imagined I would actually get the full-time job. But then I went through three interviews, step by step. Eventually, they said they wanted to send an offer. And something that really appeals to me at IDEO is the respect they have for research and processes, so I said yes!

How amazing that you were such a big fan from afar; I love it! And I was going to ask about research. I read a couple of things that you said on your old website. One was about learning from children…
Yes, this is natural for me; there’s something that I like about learning from kids. I do it a lot in all of my projects. I’m always looking at kids’ reactions to things, and their habits, their thinking… These things always blow my mind. And now I have my own five-year-old as well, so I get it every day! But even when I didn’t know I was doing it, I was doing kid research. With my experience at IDEO, I now have it more structured. We do it in all our products.

What would be a good example of learning from how a child thinks, Inna?
Actually, I have a story about how children think that’s stuck in my brain. It was such a specific moment… I’d been working on a role-play product for kids. You wear a set of wings and you act like a character. Well, it just so happened that my kid had a few days off so I brought him to work to help with the development. He’s very into my job and he knows what I’m doing, so I told him that I wanted him to be focused at work because he was going to help me.

Anyway, I told him: we need you to wear wings because you’re smaller than me… I showed him the mechanism, I explained everything. And he was very excited. All day, we were trying on the wings, checking, changing some dimensions, checking again. He was very into it, very well behaved and helpful. And I explained to him what we were going to do, and that we’d work on a prototype and that it would take a few days.

So he’s into it, he’s helped, and he’s waiting for an update?
Exactly! And every day, when I came home, he’d ask me: “Did you finish it?” You know? “I want to try it!” On the third day, I finished it and brought it back home to show him. He was very happy to see the mechanism working and that everything was perfect. So I said, “It’s ready. You can wear it! Try it on.” And then he wears it. It’s all tight. He sets off the mechanism… It works! And he’s waiting. And waiting… And then he goes, “Wait… I can’t fly with it?”

Noooooooo! Oh, I don’t like this story!
Deej, the disappointment! It was so deep… He was crying.

This is a horrible story! Few things upset me more than the thought of disappointing a child…
Right? And for me, and for most adults, I think, we would never suppose that a toy would make us actually fly. But this situation blew my mind because I looked back and I could see that, for those three days, he was asking for an update and waiting for it because he believed that something would actually let him fly.

This is a quiet tragedy… For three days, he thought he was going to defy gravity. Has he forgiven you?
I think so… But you know what I had to do? For ages, I had to carry him around the house with those wings on as if he was flying… You know, to deliver what he thought I’d promised.

Ha! I suppose that’s the difference between our imagining a product and our empathising with how a child might imagine it…
And what I learned from that, and from IDEO, is that it’s important to have that empathy – and more structure. Today, I go to schools and different age groups to test out actual prototypes and play toys and games with kids. When they’re older, it’s easier to ask what they like, but we also do lots of activities. And actually, I’d say there are three different types of kid research…

Oh?
So one is bringing prototypes for testing: playing, seeing reactions, showing some videos maybe… Things relating to actual concepts. Then we sometimes do activities that involve learning from the children’s imaginations. We can access that through activities like building something, or free modelling, and then telling a story about the creation. That way, we can access a kid’s world and learn how they interact between themselves and their own creations… How they show each other and what they get excited about.

So the first one sounds ‘outside in…’ You go in knowing what you think… You see them play with it and react; you see what they feel. The second sounds ‘inside out.’ It’s about them expressing what’s in their heads. And third?
Third, we sometimes do home visits. We might bring along a toy and let a kid unbox it, then just let the kid play. Ask some questions… So we’re also learning from them in their own environment. This could be something we make… It could be just a product from the shelf that we want to learn more about! Or it could even be that we want to understand their experience of unboxing. You know? What’s the experience of seeing it, opening it and playing it right away? What’s the experience of having it at home?

So lots of times, we’ll ask parents to share with us if there’re any interesting behaviours over the next few days. Are they talking about it? What are they saying? Is that something we can learn from? How does that product live in a child’s room? Or maybe it’s not in the room at all?! Those little things are very interesting. But then, the hardest thing to do is to let go because of some research… Especially when you come with a prototype and you play, already thinking it’s the best game. You already know it’s there and it’s good and you’re going to sell it. Now you just need to do one last check…

Yes! As if it’s a foregone conclusion; you just need the consumer to confirm it!
Right. Ha! And then you go and present the idea to three kids and they don’t get some of the rules… Or It’s not working at all! Or the gap between what you’re expecting to happen and what really is happening is growing and growing. That’s a challenge, because you find yourself saying, ‘Well, maybe, it’s just these specific kids; they’re just not into this specific thing…’

Ha! You try and talk yourself into thinking there’s hope!
You’re like, ‘Maybe it’s because it’s yellow or because it doesn’t have round edges. It will be okay.’ But when you’re really open to seeing what’s happening, you can actually learn and develop and maybe make some real changes according to what you see… It’s always a better product afterwards.

Or you learn it’s really not a product at all. Which I suppose an adult equivalent of not being able to actually fly! The same feeling of quiet tragedy; the death of hope. On a less maudlin note, Inna, something else you said is that, as a child, you “…loved to create nonsense.” Let’s talk about that!
Yes! When I was a child, I really liked to just create stories that didn’t make any sense. My grandma was my best partner for this… She still is; she’s my best friend. So one of us might start off talking nonsense: “A cup went to get some shopping…” and then you just say what comes to your mind, without filtering. That’s what we did when I was a kid!

So you and your grandma would just throw something out there? And build and build the nonsense? Almost like improv?
Exactly. And I was really into creating ridiculous combinations that made me laugh. Later, I used to create 2D images by cutting pictures from newspapers and combining them. Again, the humour of the weird combinations was something I was always into. That brought the joy for me… You know, I sound like a sociopath! Ha!

No, not at all! Don’t worry about that; making weird combinations is a tenet of creative thinking. Do you still do that? Does it manifest in any way?
I think we do it a lot in toy invention… Mashups of different worlds that don’t go together, but then somehow do. That’s where the magic happens! And it’s funny because I didn’t think about it until I just said “weird combinations”, but I did have a big project… Do we have time for me to find it on Instagram? I want to show you – then you say if it’s cool to share… Here we go! So I have a project of about 300 images where I was combining myself with my dog.

Of course you were…
Here, do you see that?

Yes! Oh my days! That’s brilliant. This is you spliced with your dog?
Yes. I had a lot of those. I’m also into yoga, so somehow I made some combinations in yoga poses as well – but it’s always me and my dog.

Wow! With your permission, I’ll put a couple of images in here because I don’t want it to sound like something from The Island of Dr. Moreau. These are brilliant!
Ha! Thank you.

I love it. When you take those photos, are you thinking: ‘Well, I’ve got a shot of just my head and shoulders looking at the camera. Now I need to catch the dog in a comparable pose…’ Or are you just mashing existing photos?
Both. It started with photos I already had because I was so obsessed with my dog, Jessy. I had endless photos of him from every angle. Then it evolved, and I was actually creating the vision in my mind and then taking the photos I wanted. Sadly, Jessy passed away two years ago.

Oh, I didn’t want to ask; I’m so sorry. That must have been devastating.
It was, yes. Actually, we went to a hound rescue place last weekend thinking maybe we’re ready to get a new one now. But yes, this project is obviously not going anymore. It’s called iHound. There are 309 images.

309? Could you not put those out in a little book?
I was thinking it. I had some ideas of maybe a gallery or something, and I never got to doing it, but I did have also a few illustrations that I created out of it. You made me think about it when we talked about weird combinations. And then I was like, ‘Wait! That’s exactly what I was doing!’ Ha!

Ha! Well, as I say, mashing things together is a tenant of creativity. Hey, this has been so much fun, thank you! Let’s do it again when the book’s out!

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