IKEA WEBSITE REDESIGN
— Project Overview —
Summary: Identified current pain points on the IKEA website within two weeks and proposed solutions to improve the user experience and validate the issues
My Role & Deliverables: I worked closely with my teammates Crystal and Hannah. I conducted 10+ usability testing, delivered a customer journey video, and designed UI
Background
IKEA is an online platform that focuses on quality products at low prices, emphasizing simple design. IKEA is known for its brick-and-mortar experience. However, in 2020, COVID-19 called for store closures, which brought about a massive shift in online sales. “By Aug. 31, 2020, IKEA’s website had seen 4 billion visits, and online sales had grown 45 percent. Online sales remained strong even as stores reopened.” How will this e-commerce redesign make a difference for IKEA? The changes I plan to make will convert even more online sales due to the usability improvements.
Design Process
For the initial user study, I conducted 15 interviews and used affinity mapping to understand the problem. In the definition phase, I summarized the problem statement and hmw to highlight where the problem was. Then, I generated task flows to understand the problems users encountered during the process. A Lo-Fi prototype and a Hi-Fi clickable prototype were created. As improvements were made to both designs, I showed a comparison between the initial design and the redesigned design. Finally, I talked with the user to confirm that these pain points were addressed with the redesign. The timeline for this project was two weeks. Now let’s dive into each of the steps.
— EMPATHIZE —
USER RESEARCH
I first researched to understand the business goal and target customers of IKEA. During the testing phase, I spoke with six users to uncover pain points when using the IKEA website and mobile app. The selected users are all located in Canada. The affinity diagram below shows the user’s pain points, arranged along the axis.
The vertical height indicates the pain points that have a greater impact on the business, while the horizontal length indicates a greater impact on the user.
Based on the study, here are the three problems of IKEA’s current e-commerce experience that I decided to focus on:
1
Misleading
Customers are unaware of in-store stock until after checkout
2
Doubtful
Unreliable stock information can steer customers away from the e-commerce site
3
Unintuitive
Complex and time-consuming for users to navigate the website
Persona: Meet Ari
I created a proto-persona to help communicate information about users that I collected during research.
Ari's Journey
Ari enjoys browsing through furniture websites during her free time. When she intends to buy anything, she takes time to read over the reviews and compare them with each other.
Scenario: Ari has a goal to browse and purchase affordable furniture online.
Market Research
After conducting a competitive and comparative analysis, we found IKEA’s direct competitors to be: Bed Bath & Beyond, Wayfair and MUJI because of the affordability and functionality of these brands. And the corresponding brands: EQ3, Pottery Barn, and West Elm, offer minimalistic, well-designed pieces at a higher price, similar to the concept that IKEA is targeting.well-designed
Findings from the screens:
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Home Page: IKEA's landing page is campaign and promotion-focused, making it difficult for our users to find products quickly. Other brands EQ3 and Wayfair's landing page showcased categories and made products easier to find.
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Navigation: Compared to other websites, IKEA's heading text doesn't look obvious to users where to click and is uncategorized. In comparison, other brands have this arrow icon, which indicates clickable.
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Continue to Cart: IKEA's call to action button was easily ignored by users. 87% didn't notice the continue to cart link through user interviewees. Meanwhile, other websites show clear call-to-action buttons.
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Stock Information: IKEA users need to take multiple steps to find stock information. However, if you look at other brands, users can easily find stock information on the product list page.
— DEFINE —
— IDEATE —
Redesign 1
- Home Page: By adding the top categories section on the mobile page, Ari can quickly select the category she wants.
Redesign 2
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Navigation: 63% of users did not recognize that the Product, Rooms and Offers headings were clickable in the hamburger menu.
To redesign this ineffective navigation, I divided the menu into subheadings and blocks to indicate to users that it is clickable. All users interviewed were able to recognize that the section was clickable.
Redesign 3
- Continue to Cart: The first iteration was a white background. However, it wasn't a success because our users mentioned that there were more attracted by the large space of blue. So in the latest design, the light button stands out and separates the Related Products underneath.
Redesign 4
- Stock Information: For Stock information, the pick-up location was ordered alphabetically. I added a sort button to allow users to sort by distance, price and in-stock information. After card sorting, I added more detail to show how far each store location is from their postal code and added the sort status of the selection on top, so the user knows how it is sorted.
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Lastly, for stock, IKEA requires the user to go through multiple screens just for them to find out that some or all items are unavailable. Instead of that, I brought the Remove unavailable article screen forward, and now it alerts the users that products in their cart are out of stock earlier in their purchase journey.
— PROTOTYPE —
Before vs After
Drag To Compare Before & After In A Slide
VIdeo Prototype
Interactive Prototype
— VALIDATE —
Validating from Users
After two weeks of user research, analysis and redesign, I was able to validate the assumptions and changes I had made. I did this by testing my clickable prototype on seven new users. I observed that the new design was much less confusing and that users were able to navigate the site with ease. The results are broken down as follows:
Validating from Ikea's Changes
One month after the project completion, I revisited the IKEA website and realized that some of our identified issues in the past no longer appeared.
The stock information on the product page becomes visible prior to checking out. The new design shares the same concept as mine but with a different approach that helps in preventing users from receiving last-minute out-of-stock messages.
Also, for the navigation header, the product option is underlined when the cursor hovers on the top, indicating a button that users had always overlooked. My version even has sub-sections for each headline to categorize information more clearly.
Takeaways
This was my first UX case study, and it was a challenging and rewarding experience for me. Although I only had two weeks timeframe for this project, it turned out to be a rewarding experience to understand the connection between user frustration and its potential impact on the business.
I am glad to learn that even making a minor tweak can optimize the current user experience that brings value to the company. It is so important always to validate our assumptions through testing.
Also, it is always an iterative loop when it comes to digital products. There is no official end, and I always learn from the iteration. Learning with an open mind based on user feedback, I always ask myself what I can continue to improve to make the user experience better.
