It’s challenging to design living spaces with existing IKEA products.
Both in-store and online shoppers are increasingly seeking whole-house decoration solutions to enhance their living spaces. Nonetheless, their choices for creating the perfect design are somewhat restricted, ranging from scheduling design consultations at IKEA to utilizing specialized room decorating apps, rather than having access to a comprehensive planning tool. (Source: the Ikea India website.)
As for coworkers serving for design service at IKEA, they strive to provide optimal room-decorating plans towards clients but achieve limited CRR (Customer Retention Rate) due to the objective constraints of design tools.
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Developing a design tool that streamlines the furniture buying process.
Understand and identify participants’ journey and pain points in the shopping process.
Visualize an integrated, omni-channel experience using the IKEA AI engine, that creates an impact for our business and customers that goes beyond just adding “another planner tool” to the experience.
User Group
A digital tool designed for in-store and online customers who want to decorate their spaces.
A professional design tool developed for colleagues engaged in consumer design service.
The product provides users with personalized room-decoration plans powered by IKEA's AI design engine.
Success
Metrics
Help customers imagine furniture and access IKEA services
The tool can make the most impact helping customers imagining overall effects of the selected furniture products. Customers may also utilize this tool for accessing professional services provided by IKEA.
Effective for brand awareness and customer loyalty
While likely to not be high converting on the tool it would build brand awareness. In this way, prospective customers are more likely to associate IKEA with whole room design - but such effects may not be directly measurable.
How
Prioritizing a Customer-Facing Tool with integrated design services.
Our design team invited 12 colleagues engaged in design services for customers as well as UX/UI designers, and a product manager to brainstorm the possible frustrations of consumers and designers before, during, and after consulting services at IKEA.
- Customers may experience frustration due to the absence of professional guidance on room decoration and a lack of knowledge about design services.
- After delivering design services, it is crucial to monitor and analyze consumers' subsequent behaviors.
- As for our colleagues who use professional design tools, they require a user-friendly solution for space measurement and a straightforward method for collecting materials. This tool should seamlessly integrate with the following design software, ensuring a smooth transition and user experience.
Identifying benchmarks and essential product requirements.
Through analyzing various room-planner tools, we had a clear understanding of the general workflow of customers when using the app or website to start interior design. In addition, we got some inspirations for the primary features of our product to build a basic functional framework from gathering all the customer feedback about the competitors.
Understanding the factors that drive users purchasing decisions.
We distributed surveys to understand customer expectations for the planning tool. The survey sample consisted of 140 IKEA customers from the IKEA member database and 80 non-IKEA customers.
In big cities, consumers prioritize furniture purchases based on brand and design, while those in smaller cities prioritize affordability and quality.
Most participants hope to view the furniture arrangement from diverse perspectives.
Customers need other people’s help during evaluation.
Desktop applications are preferred by most participants.
Half of customers accept virtual presentations to help with furniture purchases.
Customers are not very willing to provide personal information for personalized recommendation of furniture.
Many customers do not have a good understanding of style. Meanwhile, it’s also common to browse furniture products by style.
Visualizing the end-to-end experience to identify pain points & opportunities.
What paths did diverse user segments take?
What challenges did they face?
According to the marketing statistics, the users purchasing large furniture have the highest conversion rate of orders. In that case, we conducted an in-depth analysis targeting this type of user through observance of their consumption behaviors on the web, especially the official websites of IKEA.
As a way to fully understand this type of user, we categorized them into four personas with varying personalities and consumption habits. We can identify pain points and brainstorm solutions that contribute to potential features.
In-Scope
Functionality
Gaining deeper insights into the adoption of the Design Tool.
8 interviews
45-60 min
each time
45 min each time
We implemented four face-to-face interviews with Chinese customers at IKEA's local stores. Each interview took approximately 45 minutes to an hour, touching upon past shopping decisions and experiences. Questions include purchasing habits, recent home furnishing experiences, IKEA design services, prototype feedback, and comparisons with competitive products.
Interactive Prototype
The following are the main findings and suggestions contributing to the design iteration.
1
Hard to imagine the coordination of different furniture & furnishing /overall effects of different furniture& furnishing together.
Allow users to indicate multiple functionalities for one room.
Multiple-perspective 3D view is needed.
2
Have a few ideas of where to start and spend lots of time filtering/browsing furniture or inspiration images.
Give recommendations on furniture selection and styles filtered by diverse categories.
3
People want to feel in control of the journey and need to check the sizing of single furniture and put-together sizing.
Provide a clear view of the entire design process with each furniture item accompanied by size and description information.
4
Need help from professionals for design / spatial planning and style coordination.
The involvement of professionals is most needed when coordinating the furniture.
Information Architecture
