Monetising Digital Sustainability for IKEA

KICKOFF

Picking Up the Pieces for Stories

At the outset of the project during the COVID-19 lockdown, we have no idea how the IKEA members behave towards in-store recycling experience as well as specific goals for the waste management.

Without pre-existing insights, I partner with our research team members (Bryn, Shel and Joel) to explore how IKEA staff was getting around.

We start by having an affinity diagram PMP to construct a large set of questions for IKEA based on the concept of Johari window (to understand self and IKEA stakeholders).

We then combine with our other 2 teams for a brain writing to group together similar and related ideas into logical groups with colour coding.

DEEPER INSIGHTS

Solving Real Problems - Working Backwards from Reality Check

Before I jump into designing, it is important to define success and understand the participation of workplace recycling practice at scale. The best approach to find out is to have a reality check.

Prior to the redesign, I suggest to conduct a reality check across IKEA sites. I partner with the sustainability team to help coordinate the research and use this framework to investigate the recycling practice in actual site around IKEA Canberra.

Here’s what we have found on the current disposal.

What does the reality tell us?

The recyclables are not appropriate sorted with the correct bin. This makes IKEA’s aim to dispose off waste correctly, difficult as we have to spend time and resources for sorting the recyclables.

The Birth of User Story

With the research, findings and reality check above to assist problem validation, the team reaches to an agreement that we are to provide users a digital experience through an app to address the following needs:

• Know what / how to recycle

• Aware of the location of the bins

• Convenient, fast and motivated to recycle

I generate a user story to help creating a simplified, focused description of our design requirement. This is important in Agile software development to capture a description of a software feature from an end-user perspective:

As an IKEA staff who is excited about recycling,
I need an app to sort to recycle easily, knowing what, where, and how to drop items properly,
so that I feel encouraging, engaging and rewarding to use.
(For IKEA: To achieve zero waste)

HOW WE GOT THERE

Creating the Perfect Digital Recycling Experience for Everyone, Everywhere

Three primary questions informed my design strategy:

1. How do you design for everyone, everywhere?

2. What contexts need to be considered?

3. What’s the perfect digital recycling experience?

I refer to the waste hierarchy as stated in IKEA waste management handbook to reframe our conversations with the stakeholder about recycling practice and actual recycling behaviour from the staff members.

The framework helped shift from unproductive questions like “How to prevent more waste from going to landfill?” to “How might we enable an experience first designed to do appropriate recycling before anything else?”.

Working Backwards for Futures Thinking

I start to look at the causality of the problem and address the pain of recycling.

Whilst it is painful, and often too late to take action on the landfill, I realise that as the waste hierarchy progresses, the pain of recycling practice decreases.

So I reverse the polarity of the waste hierarchy to jumpstart creativity.

Then I realise it is easy to reduce waste before recycling. The pain to do recycling at this point is therefore the lowest.

I begin to think what if we design something that can change the cause of the problem in the beginning, before it is too late?

Putting my Futures Thinking Hat on

I read a quote and it triggers my futures thinking:

If you want to understand the causes that existed in the past, look at the results as they are manifested in the present.

If you want to understand what results will be manifested in the future, look at the causes that exist in the present.

The effect is the result of your cause.

I continue to dive deep into the causality of the problem. My three key design challenges emerged:

1. What are the 15% waste to landfill? (The effect)

2. Why we mix it up at first place? How do sort it before recycle? (The cause)

3. How to become better informed of appropriate recycling in the future? (The future)

“Why we mix it up at the first place? Can we do something before we mix it up with this app we are designing?” - This question keeps playing in my head throughout my design thinking process.

Then I realise if the recyclables can be 'SORTED' properly from the beginning, the 15% waste going to the landfill can also be reduced over time!

I therefore introduce an additional step before the process termed it as 'SORT'.

The concept of IKEA SORTED is now born!

Working Backwards from Sustainability

I reversed the polarity of the imperfect recycling practice at IKEA. Four key design challenges emerged:

1. How might we better recycle appropriately?

2. How might we have recycle practice that minimises effort and saves time?

3. How might we better informed the recycle drop off effectively using a map?

4. How might we better engage the workplace community to sustain recycling practice?

FROM INCONVENIENCE TO INSTANT

Giving Staff Members Back Their Time to do Recycle Immediately

Knowing the user’s goal to sort recyclables and the accurate location of the recycle bins allowed us to do the heavy lifting and select the most optimal interaction.

The app needed to be smart enough to just scroll and sort recyclable when it could, and efficient enough to provide the recycle drop off immediate to encourage actionable practice.

I conducted an immersive research (user uses the MVP to find bin, sort and recycle by holding a recyclable in hand) to consider what cues or heuristics can be introduced into the ‘recycling adaptation’ to give participants the sense that they are experiencing the recycling in the real workplace.

This so-called ‘recycling adaptation’ system was by far the most complex problem of this project.

Immersive Research & Adaptation Design Based on Not Just Empathy but Compassion

Foundational to the adaptation framework were these concepts:

1. We needed to address user needs to sort recyclable quickly without thinking. The user has to be in control of the recyclables. Design patterns needed to allow one hand scrolling (as they may hold the recyclable with the other hand) while looking for the bins. The whole recycling journey by the user needs to be taken complete control.

2. The system needed to be well-informed with the availability and location of bins. This includes the colour of the bins for appropriate sorting.

3. The system needed to be flexible and motivating enough to learn about user willingness and continuous action. Don't design only based on empathy. Design based on the compassion for recycling.

FROM AMBIGUOUS TO OBVIOUS

Better Informed Accessibility & Availability, with Perks

The map tracker does not only track and trace the nearby bins, but also indicated the colour of the bins that are available on site to make immediate recyclables sorting actionable.

To make the whole recycling experience more rewarding, the action will be incentivised with redeem for exchangeable, refillable or IKEA café food. The points collection is notified instantly and can be redeemed immediately.

FROM INDIVIDUAL TO COMMUNITY

You Build the Community While You Create the Journey

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

No single effort done to the recycling is omitted. I therefore design the need to turn your individual effort to the community awareness. The only way to achieve this is to create a leadership board liked panel, where everyone can give kudos to each other for their great cause.

THE OMNI-EXPERIENCE

One Simple Goal that Utilises Omni-interaction

IKEA SORTED has a user flow designed to keep the user engaged regardless which point they are at. The user will be able to continue their recycling journey at any touch point.

In short, it puts the user at the center of design solution meeting the business desires. Its interaction is designed to unify the experiences by motivating the user to complete the user’s recycling journey as a whole rather than making them to only click on the app, walk to the bin or sort the recyclables.

THE LAUNCH

The Most Radical Update Since 2017

In the 6 months after my involvement on the project, the team continued to evolve and polish the visual design, as well as finesse the finer functional details as the app was being built. Although I was not part of this process, it was great to see most of my work brought to life using visual key search.

On 3rd February 2021, the app ‘IKEA PLACE’ was updated to version 4.2.2 with updates include loading visual furniture and design system optimisation that is closer to the concept and visual design of ‘IKEA SORTED’ — an impressive achievement by the team, considering that it was a complete redesign and rebuild from scratch. This design platform will be used by the DevOps to further develop IKEA SORTED.

THE IMPACT

IKEA SORTED gets further development

On 3rd February 2021, the app ‘IKEA PLACE’ was updated to version 4.2.2 with updates include loading visual furniture and design system optimisation that is closer to the concept and visual design of ‘IKEA SORTED’ — an impressive achievement by the team, considering that it was a complete redesign and rebuild from scratch.

This design platform will be used by the DevOps to further develop IKEA SORTED.