An IDEO designer talks with residents in Kumasi, Ghana, about sanitation.

For the past 20 years, the design firm IDEO has helped companies like Apple, Ford, and Bank of America develop new products and services. Now the Palo Alto, Calif., company has started a nonprofit arm to take its approach to innovation to the charitable world.

IDEO.org, the new charitable effort, officially started last week and grew out of the company’s work with nonprofits in recent years.

IDEO’s approach to design starts with learning as much as possible about the people who will eventually use the product–their lives, their needs, their aspirations–rather than starting with a hypothesis about what they need, says Patrice Martin, creative director of IDEO.org. Too often, companies and organizations start the process…

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