General 6 — Swikriti Mishra

Friends App

Enhancing and redesigning the various digital touch points of IKEA, KSA to facilitate a better shopping experience for their online and in-store customers.

Client

IKEA, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Project Duration

20 weeks

Responsibilities

SME interviews, Trend Analysis, Wireframes, Visual Designs

Process

We started with conducting contextual interview, where we spoke to 6 stakeholders. The goal of this research exercise was to understand the objective and vision of the IKEA users, along with their key tasks. The intent was to identify customer touchpoints during their journey, identify gaps , pain points and opportunity areas and then come up with design insight /solutions that meets their needs.

Post interviews, we did a very thorough trend analysis to understand what the market is doing in the retail section. We also explored other mobile applications for different types to study trends for different features like search, sort, filters etc.

Challenge

We faced major pushbacks from clients in terms of redefining the vision of their shopping experience, as they expected the changes to be absolutely minimal in order to save their development efforts. We also faced a major cultural challenge, as the main two interaction designers were females.

Approach

Following the completion of the original study, we began synthesizing it and developing personas. We proceeded by developing user journey maps, which we subsequently validated with clients after the personas were completed. Following feedback, we started building the IAs, followed by trend analysis and wireframe brainstorming.

Immersion

Archetypes

Focusing on key customer archetypes

Every IKEA product has a story to tell. And like every good story, it starts with a great idea. The brand strive to create products and solutions that meet all dimensions of design, and was thus named as the Democratic Design – because everyone has the right to a better, and brighter, everyday life.

Keeping the brand’s identity in mind, we came up with the design principles in the exploration phase:

Recognized and Inspirational

Aiming towards an intuitive design and creating elements that convey beauty and are inspirational.

Should give users inspirations / recommendation / more personalized / easy ways to redeems offers, coupons and points / digital receipts.

Ikea friends is a complete solution and not just a product

1

Clean, inspiring and seamless user experience for both online and in-store customer journey’s

Bridge the gap between online and in-store shopping experience

2

Want to rename Ikea friends as it is usually associated with the rewards program and not as an e-commerce platform

It is not only about rewards, it is a complete shopping experience

Smooth journey’s for both loyal and guest users, with less app crashes and an efficient customer support

A seamless experience

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Discovery

Insights

Gathered insights on the basis of stakeholder interviews

Personas & User Journeys

Based on our archetypes, we started drafting the personas and their respective journeys

Information Architecture

Once we had a fair understanding of the users and their goals, we started working on the information architecture.

Task Flows

Task flows were created to define what path the user will take through the app to achieve their goals.

Task Flow: Login / Sign Up

Task Flow: Wishlist

Experience Principles

Meaningful and Contextual

Creating meaningful visual experiences that solve people’s everyday problems, by focusing on what they need.

Reliable and Durable

Crafting digital solutions that are trustworthy, authentic, responsive and providing solutions that are durable and flexible enough to change over time.

Focused and Re-usable

Providing design solutions that feel fit and efficient.

Accessible and Responsible

It’s all about respecting people and the planet. Developing digital solutions that are responsible: low in energy, safe and inclusive.

Design Trends

As part of our discovery phase, we did a very extensive trend analysis exercise to understand how the competitors as well as other applications are placed in the market.

Outcome

Based on stakeholder interviews and key insights, we brainstormed on wireframes, we created detailed high-fidelity mockups, and with a few minor client feedbacks, we refined it further to encapsulate the complete journey. The visual designer then picked it as the basis for the final designs.

Design Concepts

Due to time and budget constraints, we focused primarily on the checkout flow for both mobile and responsive web. The entire checkout flow was designed for both delivery and pickup options.