IKEA Assemble

Aug-Dec 2022

Mobile app

Deliverables

Product management, research, UX/UI design, usability testing

Design Tool

2 engineers, 2 business professionals, and 2 designers

Team

Marketing research, UX/UI design, business plan

Responsibility

4. For the above reasons, there are concerns about the safety of self-built furniture.

3. Having trouble with some details when building furniture, but don't know where to turn for someone with experience.

2. Anxiety when facing so many similar components. Don't know where to start and can't find the corresponding parts.

1. Building furniture can be a very time-consuming task which is not only physically exhausting but mentally exhausting as well.

Customers assembling IKEA furniture easily feel overwhelmed by scattered parts and complex instructions, potentially encountering the following situations:

Problem statement

Target user

Young professionals

Pain points

Wants to save as much time to work on assignments and cannot afford IKEA Furniture Assembly service.

Goals

Do not get frustrated in the building process. Easily disassemble furniture for second-hand recycling.

Parents of Young Families

Pain points

Building products takes time away from watching the kids, and unsure if the furniture built is safe and sturdy enough for her kids.

Goals

Complete it quickly and follow the instructions correctly so they can pay attention to the kids and ensure their safety.

How can we design a product to help busy, professionally-oriented, young adults correctly build their IKEA products as efficiently and as fast as possible?

How did we approach our response?

The Influential Product Manager: How to Lead and Launch Successful Technology Products is the instruction book of this class. We practiced throughout the book to develop and iterate on the ideas.

Competitor analysis

Differentiators

Step-by-step real-time walkthrough experience

Existing large and loyal customer base

Community features

Scanning functionality

IKEA-limited furniture selection

External risks

Expert Interview

User Interview

What are the opportunities we discovered?

IKEA Place

An augmented reality (AR) application that allows people to virtually place furniture in their home

Object Detection

Using machine learning to label and classify objects. Help users quickly find out what the component does and the right direction.

IKEA Buy Back & Resell service

IKEA Video Tutorial

Some products have video tutorials on the official website, but they are hard to find.

What are the opportunities we discovered?

Initial hypothesis

Taking advantage of AR technology to empower time-efficient furniture assembly process.

Original Pitch

IKEA Assembly solves the issue of customers struggling with assembling IKEA furniture by utilizing an AR tool to help users build furniture.

The AR tool will provide clear instructions for users, unlike certain furniture from companies like Wayfair. The technology itself will also be easy to use as the established IKEA user base is very diverse when it comes to knowledge of technology.

Unlike other companies, we will focus on only furniture from IKEA, which will solve issues common among other companies, such as having furniture from numerous manufacturers, which makes it hard to find builders who are familiar with the building process.

Draft design (half-hour design challenge)

Rapid prototyping based on hypothetical AR tool and community features.

AR Assistant

Community

1st Version Design

AR Assistant

The design continued the visual language of IKEA Place.

Community

Encouraging a friendly and helpful community.

What do we learn from user testing?

Negative Feedback

Hestiancy of validation of the AR technology

Misunderstanding of components

Lack of clarity in tutorial

Positive Feedback

Virtual tutorial is easy to access and eco-friendly

Organized way to consolidate helpful information

It is valuable to hear tips and tricks from the community

Recommendations

Navigate faster to the right product tutorial

Clearer communication in the virtual guide

Give users the ability to toggle between steps/parts

How did we iterate after the user testing analysis?

Technology-assisted virtual guides

A step-by-step real-time walkthrough experience

A helpful IKEA community

Feature 1.1 Real-Time Walkthrough Experience

How might we provide a time-efficient and universal way to guide user to the right tutorial?

Scan a QR code to find the right guide for your new furniture easily

Feature 1.2 Real-Time Walkthrough Experience

How do we design a tutorial experience that is less intuitive and easier to navigate?

Follow step-by-step tutorials for efficient assembly

Feature 1.3 Real-Time Walkthrough Experience

How might we address the problem of difficult identification of key components for users?

Easily find the right components to start assembling with photo scanning

Feature 2 IKEA Community Hub

How might we address the problem for which there are no robust alternative solutions?

Leverage other IKEA users’ knowledge to supplement the building process

Key Performance Indicators

Monthly growth rate in the number of step-by-guide guides finished by users

Average monthly change in NPS

Reflection

Being attracted by fancy technology is dangerous.

It’s great to do user-centered design, but it’s also important to consider the value to the company.

Constant alignment of team goals is necessary.