Sorting Out IKEA Online — A UX Design Challenge & Reflection
Given the opportunity to look back on the projects we’ve accomplished throughout the UX immersive program, I want to share with you a two-week sprint I ran through with two other designers and my personal reflections on it — a month later. This challenge was provided to us on our 2nd week of the 10-week immersive course.
Our brief in a nutshell
Our brief was to produce an interactive prototype that matches the customer experience of an in-store purchase.
Preliminary Research
Brand Research
As of November 2017, IKEA owns and operates 411 stores in 49 countries. The IKEA website contains about 12,000 products and is the closest representation of the entire IKEA range. There were over 2.1 billion visitors to IKEA’s websites in the year from September 2015 to August 2016. (Wikipedia)
We are in the age of information and technology being at its strongest point — where convenience and ease of use is an expectation, not a pleasant surprise. It is important to catch up with growing competitors so therefore incorporating an online presence is the next best logical move to keep the company at the forefront of the retail industry.
Competitor Analysis
The scope of our competitor research was broadened to encompass different brands, not just product specific, but those with different product and in-store experiences. Brands we took into consideration include Freedom furniture, Bunnings and Muji, to name a few.
Early recommendations from analysis include:
- Interactive support
- Local context
- Visual harmony
- Loyalty members
- Adapt to different needs
Research Synthesis
As a team, we went to IKEA Richmond for a site visit and observations of people’s interactions within the store, the store layout and visual and written language used throughout the experience.
We then conducted 6 user interviews and contextual inquiries. From all findings, accumulated them into an affinity map to identify trends and insights.
Findings
- Website visually did not meet the vibrance in the story
- Confusing navigation, search and filter. Confusing product categorisation
- Inconsistent language
- Inability to complete a task online (vs in-store)
- Lack of online support. Lack of community online
Defining Problem
- No clear purpose of what website does.
- Misalignment between inshore and online experience.
High level goals
The team believed that:
- Website should strongly engage with customers, especially the digitally savvy generation
- It should become a platform for people to share ideas
- Should enhance the in-store experience, rather than support it.
- Over time, become the primary IKEA experience, together with the other range of digital products.
Based on timeframe and highest impact, we narrowed down our focus to 3 main goals, which can be achieved in the present time.
Immediate Goals
- Clarifying Product Categorisation
- Simplify navigation, search and filter
- Engage the online community
Further Research
Card Sorting & Sitemap
Invited 3 people to do open card sorting, which entails grouping labels according to their own logic and talking to us throughout this activity. This process helped us remove repeating labels, confusing words and take insights to further explore ease of navigation and categorisations.
Application to wireframes
From ideal user flow and card sorting navigation, we began ideating with quick paper drawings, blackboard sketching then wireframes.
Prototype
Brainstorming > Sketching > Iteration on wireframes
Tested on 6 people and 4 iterations and this involved:
- Rearranging filter, sort and secondary navigation position
- Removing unnecessary information and images
- Layout arrangement
- Test and Repeat
Interactive Prototype
Future Features & Plans
- 360 Interactive View of Products on Website
- Live Augmented Reality linked to IKEA app featuring products and set-up
- Live Chat — Call Centres and/or Chat Bot
- Local designer collaboration
- Step by Step with Thor actor, Chris Hemsworth
- Sustainability Impact Business Model, such as Tesla model to reach more local and smaller communities
Reflection & Hindsight
In hindsight, our solution wasn’t as strong as our research. Through practice and different sets of challenge, I can now identify this along with other wishful things. But this is hindsight.
This challenge was given to us to primarily to get our hands dirty with information architecture while problem solving through the design process. Card sorting as a tool to gain insight and potentially start conversations was great to carry out in this exercise. Through later projects, I gained an understanding that not all things from the toolkit have to be used but are dependant on context and timeframe too.
It is amazing what can be learned and honed on in a span of few weeks. Many more learnings and challenges to come. Bring it on. :)
Personal Contributions
Research & Analysis: Breakdown of timeline. On-site observations. User interviews and contextual inquiry (3). Affinity mapping. Competition analysis (2). Prompting for card sorting. Key insights.
Prototyping & Testing: Lo-Fi wireframes on paper and Sketch. Invision prototyping. Usability testing (3). Presentation deck.
A Little Bit about Me
I am a Melbourne-based User Experience Designer. Nurse and start-up founder in a parallel life. Naturally curious, inquisitive and empathetic towards things old and new. Learn more about me here.
