A feature added to the Ikea app to help shoppers determine if their cart will be able to fit inside their vehicle.
The average dimension of a car (14'x5.8') is considered when Ikea designs its packaging. Otherwise, they would lose too much business if customers couldn't easily take their purchases home with them.
Ikea also packages its furniture to make the boxes as flat as possible. This process is called flat-packing. It makes transporting and storing these packages more accessible and easier. To make a package flat, width and length must often be increased, which may make fitting items into the customer's car more difficult.
Help customers determine if their purchases will fit inside their vehicle
Despite Ikea’s efforts to ensure their products can be taken home by their customers, the type of item purchased or the vehicle used may impact whether or not the merchandise can fit inside the customer's vehicle. Further, and in most cases, people don’t just purchase a single item from Ikea. Considering these variables, how might we provide a solution that helps shoppers better prepare for lugging home large purchases?
A feature that takes the guesswork out of loading your vehicle
Customers can easily input information about their vehicle and determine if their purchase will fit inside their vehicle. In the success state, the app will also provide basic loading instructions tailored to the configuration entered.
To pinpoint an appropriate solution addressing customer needs & frustrations relating to transporting large purchases, I conducted user interviews and an ethnographic study. The aim is to determine how we can incorporate the feature into the customer's routine (before, during, or after shopping), and discover ways to help shoppers load their vehicles.
Conversations with Ikea shoppers helped us understand customer processes, motivations, and pain points. Among the many suggestions, the most noteworthy points were:
Taking dimensions for multiple items against the interior measurements of a vehicle is way too much work. Customers end up eyeballing the fit.
Few mentioned they would bring larger vehicles to accommodate larger purchases. Many would simply bring the vehicle they had.
After large purchases, shoppers felt like loading their vehicles was like a game of Tetris. Customers sometimes had to resort to securing items to their roof or calling in a second vehicle.
When shopping in-store, customers will almost always purchase more than originally intended. However, these were mostly smaller items. Larger merchandise was always planned ahead.
Observing customers in person helps us pick up on consumer patterns and vehicle loading processes. The ethnography research was conducted on a Thursday afternoon, overlooking the store parking lot and pickup/loading zone.
I found that shoppers:
Using fit check while shopping or after check out
Mapping out the user flow helped us discover design opportunities. For example, since larger items were often planned ahead, there can be an opportunity to provide a fit check before adding merchandise to the customer's cart. There can also be another opportunity to provide a fit check, with loading instructions, after the customer checks out, right before they load their vehicle.
With the compiled findings, I laid out the ideal task flow and sketched different lo-fi solutions that were then polished to the following.
Diagramming the task flow provides a clear idea of the architecture behind the Fit Check feature. The task flow includes the actions or steps required to achieve the goal and identifies any potential points of confusion or frustration.
Take out the guesswork by simply entering your vehicle information
From a series of lo-fi sketches, I narrowed it down to one set of wireframes that could satisfy user needs in a salient way. This design engages shoppers to use this feature while browsing individual items or checking their entire cart.
Shoppers can verify a specific product's fit by finding the feature on the product information page. Or they can check the fit of their entire cart by using the feature located under the Cart's "Available for Click & Collect" section.
Shoppers enter the information of the make, model, year, and passengers of the vehicle they are bringing. This vehicle information, like the store availability feature, can be stored in the shopper's account.
Once the items are confirmed to fit, users have the option to view tailored instructions on how to load their vehicle.
When the cart is determined to not fit inside the proposed vehicle, users are presented with helpful tips to help them transport their purchases home.
Using this set of wireframes, I built a hi-fi prototype to test with users to see their responses to the visuals, flow, and copy of the feature.
During the initial round of testing, users did not notice the "Show me how" button that directs them to vehicle loading instructions. In response, the "Show me how" button is made into a primary button to catch more attention.
A few users suggested incorporating external services such as ordering a Taskrabbit/Uber/Lugg when users find out their cart failed the fit check. Since this was beyond the scope of Ikea as a business, I decided to omit this feature from the redesign.
Following validation testing, I polished the feature's final version based on user feedback.
Help customers determine if their purchases will fit inside their vehicle
Despite Ikea’s efforts to ensure their products can be taken home by their customers, the type of item purchased or the vehicle used may impact whether or not the merchandise can fit inside the customer's vehicle. Further, and in most cases, people don’t just purchase a single item from Ikea. Considering these variables, how might we provide a solution that helps shoppers better prepare for lugging home large purchases?
A feature that takes the guesswork out of loading your vehicle
Customers can easily input information about their vehicle and determine if their purchase will fit inside their vehicle. In the success state, the app will also provide basic loading instructions tailored to the configuration entered.
The feature was useful, straightforward, and easy to use
Users claimed the feature was practical and would use it when shopping in person and online at Ikea. Users also felt the design was straightforward and easy to use.
Claimed the icons drew their attention and the flow was straightforward
Enjoyed having the option of viewing loading instructions as a secondary step
Would have liked a way to access this feature after in-store checkout
In the next iteration, I would love to prioritize some of the other concerns that presented themselves during the user and validation testing. These were excluded mainly due to time constraints.
