Team - Creative Hub, Inter IKEA, Frog, Apple
Role - As UX & creative lead I was responsible for brand direction, concept creation and prototype development
Objective - Create an IKEA branded augmented reality experience with Apple AR Kit
When defining most briefs, I try to clarify three main points :
- A problem
- A human connection
- A dirty truth
The IKEA PLACE Augmented Reality experience was no different
So what's the f*%#ing problem?
Finding a business focused, user centric, fun problem is often the hardest part of the process. With multiple stakeholders, we had no shortage of problems and underlying agendas. The first step was to identify and simplify a human problem. After an initial workshop, we agreed that people feel insecure about making interior design decisions and equally insecure about technology. This helped us move quickly into identifying smaller problems, evaluating the full customer journey and sketching solution based user interfaces i.e. simple and easy product navigation.
Focus is important
Due to time and backend constraints, we made the decision to focus on the inspirational and planning phases of the journey. This allowed to us to go deeper into a playful and useful experience rather than focusing on conversion and e-commerce based solutions.
UX is not UI
But it can be. It's also a critical part of the user experience. Once we decided on focusing on the inspirational and planning part of the journey, the next step was to sketch out the high level and user interface components of IKEA Place.
This part was critical to work directly with the front and backend development team. Frog has a talented and agile team and understood our strong brand value for simplicity - see IKEA instructions. Sticking to the original insight - people are still skeptical of technology - we tried to eliminate any techy approaches and stay close to what was familiar to people.
It was important to make sure we simplified the process of calibrating the app to ensure a high quality and trusted user experience. It was also important to make sure people felt like they had access to more IKEA inspiration while feeling safe in their own space.
The critical part of this process was not giving people things they didn't need. Even the for the introduction screen we started in people's space not in an IKEA show room. We also wanted to let people feel like IKEA was going to be with them along the way. Since the mediocre release of the original AR app, we also needed to communicate the utilitarian aspect of this tool as it is not a gimmick, since the furniture is actually scaled to size.
In the end, the PR communication influenced the release, but several of the key insights and early prototyping remained as core components of the final product.
