Living with light
Concept and ideas for how to communicate lighting in a more emotional way in the IKEA store.
Light affects our wellbeing, changes the atmosphere of a room, helps you to do your daily – and nightly – tasks and makes you feel safe.
A well-lit home makes the everyday life better.
Customer Challenge – People see light as a signal for something interesting, not as an interesting subject in itself. Unfortunately for customers, shopping for lighting products (no matter the retailer) is often filled with rational and technical decisions that overshadow the emotional factors.
Business Challenge – Get more customers to think about their lighting preferences while in the IKEA-store. Build on the internal concept “Living with Light” – an initiative to communicate lighting in a more emotional way.
Technology Challenge – The solutions should be easily integrated with current store solutions without violating safety rules or taking away space from sales solutions. The store has its own internal lighting that might interfere with how well lighting can be displayed.
UX vision: How might we surprise and delight people with light as the subject rather than the signpost?
THE ESSENCE OF LIGHT
Our idea grew from the insight that lighting at home helps people to recreate the feelings and sensations of nature’s original light sources – such as the sun, moon and stars.
A romantic sunset, an inspiring sunrise, a stunning moonlit night – we often have strong emotions and poignant memories connected to the way that outdoor light changes colour and intensity throughout the day and night.
What if we mixed the essence of light, light in it's natural habitat, with the products in the store to help describe technical features and information in a more emotional and accessible way?
What if we showed technical information through the imagery of natural light to help customers understand what light source they need?
What if we showed technical information through the imagery of natural light to help customers understand what light source they need?
How we got there?
Explorative and desktop research Visits to the IKEA store as well as at competitors. “Fly on the wall observations” and co-workers interviews. Photos from the visits were put on the customer experience map together with insights from the desk research (internal documents).
Customer experience mapping helped us see the big picture and where the pain points and opportunities were.
Mind map ideation But as a team relay – It allowed us to build on, and interpret, each other’s ideas in a fast-paced session.
Who else can we learn from? We left the retail world and visited museums and galleries to get inspiration on different display techniques.