module 3b - when harry met salen; furnishings that socialise

8/14/2019 Module 3b - When Harry Met Salen; Furnishings That Socialise

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Design for the masses

IKEA has democratised design in the same way that technology hasdemocratised some of our other creative urges, such as creating music,movies, photo albums etc.

By providing us with low-cost tools of creation, IKEA offers everybody theopportunity to channel their creativity and express their personality.Nowadays if someone wants to express themselves they needn’t spend£20,000 on a designer kitchen, just as they needn’t spend £20,000 onrecording music. Essentially…



In-store vision with no ‘vision’

IKEA’s current use of in-store digital screens falls a long way short of stimulating creativity in its customers.

If you wander around IKEA4, you’ll notice that the in-store screens are rather underwhelming.

The screens show are constant loop of reminders of the functionality of theIKEA offering; it’s as if someone was briefed to simply make the store displayposters animated to attract more attention.

IKEA should use two things to improve their screens; the data they collectfrom the tills, and the personality they imbue their products with.

The power of data

Just a glance at the checkout queue on a Saturday afternoon gives you someidea of the number of items being bought, and the variety of people buyingthem.



treat their products as people by naming them, we ourselves projectpersonalities onto them.

How can IKEA use the individual personalitiesof products, combined with the data describing

their behaviour, to help consumers identifythings they’ll like?

It sounds an awful lot like Social Networking…

Furnishings that socialise

Imagine walking through an IKEA store, andyou see some shelves you like, or evenshelves you already own.

Beside the shelves is a screen which can tellyou which other products these shelves aremost often seen with; the shelves’ ‘friends’, asit were.

In a world of seemingly infinite choice, thescreen can help you find items that other people think go with those shelves. It can helpyou make more informed decisions.



Think about the social networking facilities of Last.fm7 , or Amazon; they feedpeople new products based on what other people have listened to or bought.They cross-pollinate consumption behaviours for the consumers benefit,acting as an ‘editor’.

IKEA could power something similar through their own tills, benefiting bothconsumers and store managers who could then act upon dynamic informationto manage the store inventory (Hammond 8 ).

Why stop there?

With this data infrastructure inplace, IKEA could continuallyaugment the digital screens astechnology develops.

For instance, making the screensinteractive would allow customersto touch any of the item’s ‘friends’,and tell you the quickest way tothat item in the store.

In addition, any routes plottedelectronically would of course takecustomers past numerouspromotional hotpots sited alonghigh dependency routes throughthe store (Hammond 9).

The information could also be displayed to customers waiting at the checkoutqueues, a notorious low for shoppers (IGD10 ).

Perhaps the greatest advancement will come when people can carry the

screens with them as they shop, be it on their own personal devices (the wi-fi



enabled iPhone would be perfect) or devices similar to the handheld scannerscommon in supermarkets today.

Using technology like RFID, IKEA could map how every shopper moves roundthe store, and where and when they commit to buying items by scanning them

or picking them up.

The future of retail

As new technology emerges, and becomes cheaper, scenarios like thoseoutlined cannot be far away from creating a revolution in the retail industry,and we can well expect IKEA to be leading the way. Until then, the Sundayworshippers will just have to make do with watching a continual loop of flashanimations. I’d almost rather be in church.

module 3b - when harry met salen; furnishings that socialise

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