industry
Furnishing retail industry
year
2023-
TOOLS & METHODS
Workshops, user surveys,
high fidelity prototyping,
usability testing, UI redesign
A good example is an improvement on the existing processes happening in IKEA stores. This can be from offering a discount, upselling items, to automate a co-worker's work flow - anything that benefits either the customer or employees (or both).
Such good examples have an explanation of:
• How was it implemented in a store
• How many people were needed to implement it
• Time needed for implementation
• KPI measurements.
PURPOSE OF VETLANDA
AREAS OF MY WORK
Throughout the year there have been requests from the stakeholders and
co-workers to revamp the old submission and implement flow as it didn’t reflect changes in KPI calculation as many factors are included when calculating various KPI’s (country, fiscal year, store size etc). The location and store unit weren’t displayed properly. We needed to make sure that the co-worker is able to insert information in the form as seamlessly as possible.
Implement flow encourages co-workers to mark that they have implemented a certain good example in their stores. Previous research showed that the IKEA employees are very competitive and would very much like to see how many stores on a country level have implemented a good example.
USABILITY TESTING
To discover what would bring bigger value, I conducted 11 usability tests with co-workers who have implemented at least two good examples in their stores.
Co-workers want to have:
• More structured store and unit displayed (in IKEA they have a special terminology) as implementing a good example varies tremendously according to the size
• To see who had already implemented a good example and how they did it - so that they can contact them for questions and more info
• To be able to add photos or PDF files in the form
We did stumble upon a GDPR issue where we need to confirm with the legal department whether it's valid to put name and surname of business representative in a good example. For now we have substituted it with the city and country, but this will get changed as large cities have multiple stores.
Co-workers wanted to also have the possibility to add attachments, such as photos, PDF or Excel files, besides of giving their impressions about the good example altogether.
As IKEA co-workers are very competitive on a store level, there is an option of seeing how many business responsibles and countries have implemented the same solution. There is also a possibility to see the last three implementations from co-workers and their country of employment.
Now every co-worker can see how was a certain good example implemented in their store and compare the store size and circumstances with the store they're working in. KPI measurements are also visible.
Submission flow is the flow where co-workers enter a good example into Vetlanda after he/she had measured at least one KPI.
The biggest problems that we were facing is that the KPI form is too generic - it doesn't cover all aspects of measurement, the review topics and campaigns were missing, and the design wasn't aligned according to the Skapa design system (IKEA's design system).
In the submission flow, a co-worker can add at least one KPI from seven available KPI's: Visitation, Climate footprint, Cost savings, Increased sales, Competence empowerement, Engagement index, Hours saved.
In the suggested KPI form, co-worker needs to enter how much have they saved per week/month. For quantitative KPI's, we also ask if they have any data measurement prior implementing. In every case, a free text input field appears, where they can write a shorter description.
Instead of typing down in a free text field, co-workers can now choose review topic, campaign and location and store unit. All IKEA stores are now automatically fetched from the database.
Co-worker can now explain how was return on investment calculated. These calculations then help other co-workers to adjust the implementation of their good examples according to the staff and store size.
USABILITY TESTING
Repeated the usability test for the new submission flow which was proposed by the team and the business stakeholders with seven (different) co-workers across Europe.
Results:
• co-workers understood and saw value in defining the KPI's, as they have to measure some of them in every case
• they did not like that the number of required input fields is larger
• most of them agreed that the 'Make it searchable' section is well defined, even though they have one extra field to enter. Why? - because often when they are searching for good examples, they are filtering it out based on these inputs.
Changes were overall well accepted.
Currently I'm working on preparing a usability test for the search function.
Reasons:
• The number of good examples is getting larger, as Vetlanda is getting extra space for promotion and marketing in the IKEA workspace
• Now it is possible to browse with more filters
• Co-workers have expressed in the previous research that sometimes it is difficult to find certain good examples - note: most of the times, when co-workers are browsing for good examples, they have a specific function within review topic or KPI in mind.
The results are a comparison of monthly time period - December 2023 vs. January 2024 and are retrieved from Looker Studio.
