How to Sustain Users’ Experience: A Learn from IKEA
A pop-up QR Code that links to menu is a small but effective strategy to keep users entertained while waiting in a long line (taken at IKEA Kohoku, Yokohama).
Have you ever wondered why everybody choose IKEA over other home furnishing stores? Instead of its “affordable” price and a touch of Swedish design of their products, IKEA has a lot to offer, especially when we talk about User Experience (UX). Let’s talk about IKEA’s UX strategy that we, as designers, can learn and adopt into our designs!
Understand The Opportunities
Every corner of IKEA is well-designed, that is because they understand so much that every single corner is an advertisement opportunity for their brand. It is important that to wherever direction a customer sees, it speaks “IKEA”: a family brand, a brand that cares about the environment, design for everyone, etc.
A hanging bar seen nearby toilet is a well-thought craft that is not only functional but also leaves a strong impression of IKEA as an environmental-friendly brand.
Understand The Psychological Effect
It is actually very interesting how I am (and other customers as well!) willing to spend time walking inside a maze full of products for more than one hour. Why did not I realize that one hour just passed by? Why did not I feel tired? That is because, I kept being entertained. I kept looking over something (which I don’t know what), trying to see what is behind the next wall. This is similar gesture when we scroll the feed on Instagram: we keep searching for something that we don’t know but we keep scrolling anyways. Understanding the psychological effect is important to keep users engaged. Users are hungry for more. Provide them with the things that they may want to see and don’t forget to “surprise” them sometimes.
Understand The Target User
I believe IKEA understand so much about the target customer of their products. For instance, when I arrived at the lamp corners, I saw a different cubicles with different themes which I assumed that it is intentionally designed to represent various type of target customer. A customer who loves watching classical music concert vs a customer who loves going to the night club will have a different taste when it comes to design their homes. When designing a service or a digital product, we need to understand the “taste” of our target users so that they will voluntarily “connect” themselves to us.
This is how you should display your sale items. It can trigger customers to “dig for dime”.
Finally,
As designer, it is important to have an ability to notice the design phenomena around us. Not only it can be a source for inspiration, it is also show a proof of design that works / does not work. IKEA store is a good example of how we should utilize users’ psychology to build a product that is enjoyable and engaging.
