My role: Design Strategist and Usability Expert
Client: IKEA, global furniture developer
Problem: IKEA had started a range called IKEA Care with products for seniors and people with disabilities, a new target group for IKEA. This target group is growing rapidly worldwide due to increased living standards and better health care. The problem was that the IKEA Care products didn't get great reviews on the test markets. It turned out that the products did not solve any actual user needs, IKEA product development plan did not include any users. Myra Design was asked to help IKEA target this new user group and meet their needs.
Solution: A Strategic product development process that starts with the user, a Usability strategy for product development at IKEA.
Process:
Research: We started the project by interviewing and identified seven personas with typically reduced abilities such as diminished sight, decreased hearing, reduced flexibility, etc.
Research: We started the project by interviewing and identified seven personas with typically reduced abilities such as diminished sight, decreased hearing, reduced flexibility, etc.
Insights: By adapting to these common needs everyone benefits since we are all getting older and we all need products that are easy to use and easy to understand. We call this adaption Democratic Design - Design for all.
Based on the insights from the user interviews the users were categorized in personas. These were later implemented as an essential part of the IKEA development process and brought into the strategic plan for developing all new products to secure that all their products could be used by seniors.
We co-created the design process together with the IKEA team and included the user in the co-creation.
Testing and co-creation: We started a pilot development case together with the IKEA development team including representatives of the personas. We wanted to identify how the user best could be implemented in the IKEA development process by merely doing it. We co-created the design process together with the IKEA team and included the user in the co-creation.
Insights: This led to more innovative solutions with an explicit user focus and helped the IKEA team to understand and learn the critical steps in the process by merely trying it themselves.
The new design process emphasizes a user interaction to ensure new products are meeting the actual needs of the users.
Result: In November 2017 IKEA launched the first products in the IKEA Care range, and they will continue adding new innovative products with user focus using the new development process. The IKEA Usability product development plan was created by co-creation and user involvement during the entire process. This for IKEA, new way of working kickstarted the innovation rate, and IKEA is now implementing the Usability process in all product development in all departments world wide.
