PROJECT OVERVIEW

Transforming IKEA experience into web.


Simple Furniture is a web-based project by two senior students at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, to offer an experience of assembling IKEA furniture through a medium of web. This project consists of the two students working on the entire workflow from initial sketch, UX research & design, prototyping to production build website.


Simple Furniture invites users to interact with the site, and get results in real time. It introduces users with a live image simulation of each assembly step in great detail to better help them comprehend the steps while they are simultaneously assembling their furniture. By transforming a complex systems of information, we wanted to offer stressful process of IKEA assembling experience into an interactive and an entertaining one - where the users can feel a sense of achievement, rather than frustration when they finish assembling their furniture.

CHALLENGES

Self-assembling furniture is not only efficient and affordable, but also a trendy way to decorate houses. Although these types of furniture are commonly used due to these previously mentioned advantages, there are still very clear disadvantages why people can be reluctant to buy self-assembly furniture, one of the reasons being the complication and frustration of the assembly steps.

  • Although furniture companies provide instructions, they are not real photos, but simple illustrations, which does not effectively convey all the assembly steps clearly.

  • Unclear instructions naturally take longer to assemble, and eventually customers become tired of wasting their time with something that is supposed to be simple. Customers end up spending extra money on hiring technicians to assemble their furniture.

  • These limitations make existing customers hesitate buying self-assembling furniture. Furthermore, these problems blur the purpose of self-assembling furniture, which is to make customers feel accomplished when they are done assembling.

SOLUTIONS

The ultimate goal of this website is

  • Lower barriers of entry.

  • Minimize negative aspects of self-assembling furniture, such as its complexity, time-consuming, and unclear instructions by shortening assembly steps.

  • Maximize customers’ pure accomplishments.

JUNG HWANG

UIUX & PRODUCT DESIGNER

I love designing experiences, and solving complex problems. I design with stories which people can feel and interact to. Design-wise, I am sensitive to typography, grid-systems, and design consistencies.


I am also deeply interested in human psychology and behaviors. I like to observe how users are interacting to visual imagery, and how they experience them.


I have experiences of working as a graphic design intern for several companies in Chicago, and as a promotion & marketing intern in Seoul. Additionally, I worked as a branding design freelancer in Korea, including many diverse companies, from a coffee shop in Seoul, to a logistics company in Shanghai.


I love exploring all around the world, and meeting and having conversations with people from different countries and cultures. I also love meeting animals and communicating with them.


Feel free to check my work at jungrey.com

jung-profile

WILL KIM

UIUX & SOFTWARE DEVELOPER

I am a student at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, focusing on UIUX design and programming. During my sophomore year, I thought of an idea making my app that I designed into real working app, which led me to study programming. I fell in love, and currently I am studying Computer Science along with UIUX at school, building variety of apps for iOS, Front-End Development and Server side.

When I am not studying, I usually spend my time playing bass guitar and making games. Oh, also I enjoy collecting quotes.


When undergoing this project, I wanted to attempt building the project with using pure JavaScript - no 3rd party libraries - to practice, and challenge myself learning the technology. Hence if you look into the source codes, the website is created entirely with native HTML5, CSS3, and pure JavaScript. It was rigorous, but fun and very rewarding process.


Feel free to visit my website or GitHub, and thanks for visiting simple furniture!


Withoutwax,



Will

jung-profile

SPECIAL THANKS TO

HILL YIM

PHOTOGRAPHER

Even though Hill is not a member of simple furniture project, he volunteered to become the photographer for this project to manage and be in charge of majority of digital photo part. Since photograph demonstrates huge parts in simple furniture project, professional and highly skillful photos were required, and based on years of experiences in photography department, Hill successfully finished his job awesome and we really do appreciate his dedication.