Role
Time
Team
A shopping experience for expectant parents amongst the pandemic.
The Challenge
Expectant parents often feel overwhelmed when shopping for baby furniture. In addition to shopping norms modified by the pandemic, they’re navigating major life changes, space constraints, and uncertainty about how pieces will fit into their homes.
They are also a largely overlooked audience by IKEA. When I walked through an IKEA, there were showrooms of children's rooms and a singular baby section, but nothing catered to expectant parents to inform their purchases. As a result, IKEA’s current shopping experience doesn’t fully support expectant parents’ needs.
User Research
My team and I interviewed a handful of families to understand the following:
different parenting styles,
how they prepare for the baby’s arrival,
how they interact with their support systems.
We found that most families prefer an independent parenting style and avoids familial help. To achieve an independent parenting style, these families heavily rely on online resources (blogs, product reviews, social media, etc.) to guide their buying decisions. Instead of turning to familiar help, they prefer to listen to external validation, and utilize primarily digital platforms to purchase items.
Data Analysis
We found this reliance on online sources surprising and, initially, counterintuitive. So many parents had listed their friends and families in their support system, so why didn’t they seem to turn to them for pregnancy-related decision making?
A hierarchical task analysis revealed the different steps of pregnancy furniture shopping, including furniture measurements, design inspiration, and even finding a babysitter for their existing children when parents go shopping.
Relating these tasks to the resources available to families revealed that expectant parents mainly ask their parents, other relatives, and friends for help when they need more mechanical tasks done, such as babysitting their children while they go shopping, helping them look for old furniture, and helping them build new furniture.
Further Understanding
To better understand the families, we translated our task analysis to a hierarchy of expectant parents’ needs.
We decided to think about what expectant parents need from a common need.
A common need is something that all expectant parents will have, while a qualifier needs is very specific to an action. This needs hierarchy allowed us to create design principles that were rooted in the users' needs.
Below is a depiction of the relationship between each need.
Design Principles
With the users' needs in mind, the following design principles were put in place to guide the final solution:
📍 Personalized fit - Tailor to each home’s layout, style, and needs.
📍 Detached guidance - Offer virtual, unbiased product recommendations.
📍 Global voices - Share authentic testimonials from diverse parents.
Final Deliverable
IKEAvision
IKEA is currently working on an AR/VR component in stores and for their app, and IKEAvision is an AR feature that can be added to address expectant parents' needs.
Parents can take a style inspiration quiz that takes into account their demographics, and more importantly, what styles they like and influencers parents trust. This information then curates rooms for them to explore on their phones.
In such a big turning point in the parents’ lives, IKEA can become a leader in making shopping joyful and relatable by catering to virtual demands. By addressing this gap, IKEA can continue to grow as a staple in household furniture.