

Couch hacking - A proof of Ikea's excellence - jlengrand
http://www.lengrand.fr/2012/05/design-innovation-and-hacking-in-a-couch/

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bane
Even though Ikea furniture is essentially disposable, it looks relatively
attractive, can easily last for a few years (I have 2 desks going on 11 years
with only minor laminate peeling), but one thing that makes buying their stuff
a joy is the instructions.

I know that Ikea's instruction style has been intensely influential in the
home furniture business when I go buy a set of curtain rods at a different
store, or an "assembly required" vacuum cleaner at a garage supply store and
they all feature copies of what look like Ikea instructions. Simple line-art,
no words (saving having to print assembly instructions in 11 languages) etc.

And then when I set out to actually follow the instructions is the brilliance
of Ikea's instruction design made clear. Curtain rod instructions? I have
almost no idea what they are trying to convey to me, random screws and
indecipherable brackets make putting them up a chore. Vacuum wasn't much
better, I'm still not sure I have the right hose in the right place.

But put together an 1100 piece Ikea drawer unit? It's as much fun, and as
simple, as building a Lego Millennium Falcon -- and they've managed to
describe the process unambiguously, and in only as many steps as necessary
(around 30). Each little connector is absolutely clear, the shape and sides of
similar looking pieces are obvious, multiple steps (when absolutely clear),
are combined into one.

The instruction manuals are virtually parts of a piece of audience
participation performance art.

~~~
mwexler
You can also tell that they've pretested them. They'll include the "X" over
common errors, like choosing the wrong length screw, instead of just putting
the picture of the right thing.

Cookbooks get dinged for this all the time... recipes are often not pre-tested
before placement in many cookbooks, such that some now feature on the cover
"Every recipe tested in our kitchens". It becomes apparent when cookbooks list
common errors (yes, even expert chefs make common errors) or ways to fix bad
outcomes or ingredient substitutions which actually still taste good.

It all looks so simple, til you get the curtain rod instructions (agreed!) or
a non-tested cookbook.

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willyt
This couch doesn't have drop shadows and an unnecessary 'loading' animation,
metaphorically speaking. This article is a great description of the product of
what _good_ designers do. It's cheap to manufacture. Easily deployed and
assembled. Well suited to its primary purpose. Incorporates multiple
additional uses without compromising the primary use. Flexible enough to be
reconfigured easily for different locations. Best of all, it doesn't have any
unnecessary 'design' frills.

~~~
jlengrand
I wouldn't have summarized better. That is exactly what I tried to show in the
article.

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ekianjo
Their designs may be innovative but the material quality is often so low you
should consider it as disposable. Especially all the 'fake wood' stuff. The
inside is made of the lightest stuff and it breaks at the first occasion. Ok,
its cheap, but it feels cheap as well. Most of their office chairs are crap
and do no last. As for the couch in question, it is probably ok for that
purpose. There are however a bunch of items for which i wont consider ikea as
an option anymore.

~~~
masklinn
> Their designs may be innovative but the material quality is often so low you
> should consider it as disposable.

It really depends on what you get, the fake wood tables definitely don't last
(though they're no worse than most "fake wood" alternatives using woodchips,
you won't get those to last either).

And I recently got a bunch of expedit units[0], it's fakewood but it feels
extremely sturdy, especially the "sides" (heavy as fuck too). I don't know how
well they survive moving, but the part was cheap and doesn't feel cheap.

Really, they've got pretty much all the range, you can find cheap stuff that
won't last and more expensive stuff which will. And their integration and
parts are really clever (for expedit parts for instance, there are something
like a dozen "basket"-type things which fit perfectly in the slots but can
also be used as independent baskets with no issue, from the $5 "drona" which
is just some tissue over cardboard — sufficient for laundry — to the $15+ pjas
or knipsa woven baskets with metal structure which feel extremely solid)

> Most of their office chairs are crap and do no last.

Then again I can say that for all office chairs I've seen under $150. Love
having screws digging in my ass after 2 weeks due to the shitty foam seat.

[0] <http://www.ikea.com/us/search/?query=expedit>

~~~
Luc
> I don't know how well they survive moving

Well, let me tell you my experience! When we moved I took apart our 5x5
Expedit shelving unit. When I had to put it back together, the heavy top shelf
turned out to be bent upwards in the middle. It was only a few centimeters. I
decided to unbend it with my foot, and through the resulting hole I found out
that the Expedit are actually cardboard inside :)

Still, it's perfectly fine (there's books on top of the hole anyway), and
straight again.

~~~
hessenwolf
I picked the wrong colour on my 5x5 expedit for one of the 30 kilo boxes, and
spent this Saturday carting it 2 u-bahn's and a bus back and forth on my
shoulder to change it. I hurt. But it looks very nice beside the desk.

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gouranga
My entire place is like an Ikea showroom. My only complaints are that the
surfaces are not hard wearing,even on expensive items. I've taken to covering
work surfaces with another layer of laminate or in the case of my desk, I had
a custom cutting mat cut for it which is glued on with impact adhesive.

~~~
ovi256
I've already had to replace the desktop of an otherwise fine Ikea desk. Wear-
and-tear over some two years had removed the paint on a palm-sized oval area
where my mouse hand sat. Some unfortunate punches in less glorious moments
cracked through (it's not solid wood, but basically a thin walled box with a
cardboard hex structure inside).

The good part is that the desktop costs a lot less than the whole desk, it's
always in stock and it takes 5 minutes with a screwdriver to change.

The thin-box design is smart, it makes it very light, and the cardboard hex
structure deadens resonance, so it doesn't sound like a "cheap" box, even if
it is one. A lot like how car doors have sound deadening to give them a solid,
satisfying thump, instead of a cheap, high frequency ring when you close them.

~~~
gouranga
I never knew you could get individual parts.

I found that the desk I have has some resonance with a Sony all in desktop pc
I had. Was solved by putting a couple of glue gun glue blobs on the bottom of
the unit.

Was slightly annoying.

~~~
excuse-me
Another IKEA solution. Buy a piece of the kitchen counter top rather than a
desktop - 3x as heavy and waterproof (check the damagedbin to get one for
$10). Then add the legs from the do it yourself table range and add an extra
one in the middle at the back.

Then you can have a 3m long desk for $50 that will hold an array of large CRTs

~~~
gouranga
Great idea! Must try that!

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dybber
Manstad is awesome, got one 10 years ago and it is still in use every day.

Another IKEA-item I'm really impressed by is the simple NJUTA shampoo
containers: <http://www.ikea.com/dk/da/catalog/products/70192699/> \- what
impresses me is how they have shaped the container such that it can be stored
in different ways depending on your bathroom: standing on the lid, hanging
from a hook or squeezed in between the wall and the water pipe.

Now I'm buying shampoo based on the shape of the container.

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nicholassmith
IKEA sits at that price point where it's expensive enough to not seem cheap,
and cheap enough to be affordable.

Plus half the furniture into something else hacks seem to be from IKEA, so
maybe they just design it with the idea in mind that it'll end up as part of a
rackmount setup or something.

~~~
Drbble
IKEA makes simple pieces designed for reuse across their whole inventory, so
it is natural that their components extend to third party aftermarket designs.

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sparknlaunch12
Ikea are absolutely brilliant. Some may have issues with their style or
perceived quality however for price and flexibility they dominate.

Other companies are trying to mimic the flat pack business model. However the
overall shopping environment, forcible furniture, warranties make them
standout.

The sofa is just one example of adaptable furniture. One limitation though is
their bed and mattress products. They have different dimensions (unique to
ikea) and therefore you need an ikea mattress for a perfect fit.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
_One limitation though is their bed and mattress products. They have different
dimensions (unique to ikea)_

Are you in a country that uses imperial measures? I have an IKEA Mattress, in
a non-IKEA Habitat bedframe, that uses the same non-standard (in the UK)
sizes. I assumed it was just a metric standard from continental Europe.

~~~
hessenwolf
Nah, I'm in Germany and the duvets and beds are very awkwardly proportioned.
It means you have to choose IKEA sheets to get them to fit just right.

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forgotAgain
I have never purchased Ikea furniture. I've only had the pleasure of putting
it together for other people. So far that experience has included wardrobes,
desks and beds. Without fail the stuff is absolute crap.

From pressboard panels, where the slightest overtweak of connectors causes
permanent damage, to undersized drawers that fall off of slides, to the
inevitable missing parts, the stuff is garbage. It looks nice in the showroom
maze and it's inexpensive but you definitely get what you pay for. Maybe even
less than that.

And yes its disposable. It cannot take the abuse of moving from one apartment
to another.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Our bedroom is largely from Ikea, except for one bookshelf and one dresser. We
have run into precisely zero of these issues. The only significant damage
incurred was when we slammed a car trunk onto the bottom of a table,
puncturing it underneath. So far, the desk and shelves have survived moves
without any problem.

Ikea has a pretty big range of furniture, and some of it is made out of actual
wood; maybe that makes the difference.

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ender7
A lot of IKEA stuff is at a really nice price point, but I tend to avoid
buying anything from them that involves wood. The particle-board composites
they use are so heavy that their furniture becomes impractical to actually
move around (and for someone who moves frequently, this is a major drawback).
For bookcases and dressers, I usually try to find something made out of pine
(or some light hardwood). You can get them from unfinished furniture outlets
for a very decent price, and they look quite attractive, even if you don't
finish them.

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whatusername
I remember looking at Ikea when buying a sofa-bed earlier this year. I
dismissed it as too expensive. This MANSTAD looks great so I decide to have a
look.

$699. Not too bad. Much cheaper than I remember Ikea. Now to look for the
Australian Price. Can't be too much more than that. $1299. And that's why I
bought a 2nd hand leather couch off gumtree for $200.

~~~
yitchelle
I have had the similar experience. Living in Melbourne, IKEA was considered as
almost exclusive, being Swedish and with a pricing slight higher than Freedom
or Plush. Now that I am living in Germany, IKEA is considered almost poverty
pack furniture!

Personally, I really like their design - clean, functional and to the point.

~~~
jlengrand
And I must say that I was surprised at the US price tags when writing the
article. I always assumed IKEA's prices were kinda standardized.

Experience showed that they absolutely don't. The Manstad is 100$ cheaper in
France than it is in the US.

~~~
excuse-me
It's changed a little. When I first lived in the US in the 90s, IKEA was
almost exclusively a grad student level store. Now it seems to be upmarket
here.

Remember as well that the French price presumably includes 20% vat while the
US price will be +sales tax.

~~~
jlengrand
I was actually including the tax :)

~~~
whatusername
So the $AUD price is €1021 including the 10% GST. The Ikea/fr website lists
€499

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paganel
> It was by far the item I loved most in my flat (even before my computer).

I left a marriage and a fully furnished house behind me, but my old couch is
one of the things I regret the most, it was just perfect :) That, and the
dish-washer, someone should write a poem or build a statue for the person who
invented/perfected this wonderful piece of machinery.

~~~
morsch
The best thing about dish-washers is that they use _less_ energy and water
than most humans cleaning the same amount of dishes. At least if you get a
modern one.

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loceng
They definitely are an innovation company.

~~~
objclxt
One of Ikea's greatest innovations (and also the one they keep quiet about) is
that it's actually a _non-profit organisation_. In 2009 Ikea Group made a €2.5
billion profit, _none of which_ was taxed.

Depending on your viewpoint, it's either insanely brilliant or morally
bankrupt: the vast majority of Ikea's revenue goes to the INGKA Foundation, a
charity which ostensible supports 'innovation in the field of architecture',
but only gives 0.2% of its total equity to charitable causes each year.

It makes the fairly standard tax avoidance measures carried out by tech
companies like Apple or Vodafone look amateur by comparison!

~~~
kalleboo
It's slightly disingenuous to say "none of which was taxed" when each store
and regional organization does pay taxes in the country they're located. The
part that's not taxed are the royalty fees paid from each store (franchise
system) to the parent corporation (which of course is still a massive amount).

~~~
Zakharov
There's also income tax paid by Ikea employees, which I guess is why the
Swedish government has let Ikea get away with the rest of it.

~~~
excuse-me
Ikea isn't a swedish company it's dutch.

ps this is exactly the same sort of scam (double Irish rather than dutch
sandwich) used by Google/HP/MSFT/Dell and every other company operating in
Europe

~~~
objclxt
No, it's not 'exactly the same sort of scam' - unless you're trying to tell me
that Google, HP, and Microsoft all divert the bulk of their profits through
non-profit charities to avoid tax. They divert their profits through _holding
companies_ , but these are _for profit_. Ikea don't do that.

Setting up holding companies in EU to pay minimal tax is standard practice:
creating a 'charitable organisation' absolutely isn't. Ikea is a very unique,
and in some ways innovative, example of creative accounting.

~~~
Drbble
Occams razor tells me that if IKEA's system saved any more money than Google's
etc, Google etc would switch systems.

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darkxanthos
I had that couch and notice a glaring omission: it's VERY uncomfortable. Hard
as concrete slabs. That's it's primary function and it fails. Also when trying
to move it around my apartment the particle wood/cardboard sides started
tearing within it. Are they innovative? Yes. Excellent? No.

~~~
randlet
Exactly. We have the same couch as well (in a small guest room)and it's
fantastic in theory (lots of internal storage space, incredibly easy to
convert between bed & couch) but in practice it makes for an uncomfortable bed
as well as an uncomfortable couch. As you said, the Ikea particle board is
also quite fragile.

We ended up purchasing a down mattress pad (for ~15% of the price of the
couch) for when it is used as a bed and it makes it bearable as a bed, but now
we have to store the mattress pad in the couch itself.

After living with the couch for a year I would happily pay twice as much for a
similar design that is executed better. Unfortunately no such thing exists as
far as I can tell!

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parbo
The best part about Ikea is the experience when you return something. No fuss,
and it's no biggie if you lost the receipt or come after the return period has
ended. Awesome customer treatment.

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ylem
I may have had bad luck, but the last time I shopped there, the customer
experience was horrible. I had a new tenant coming in, so perhaps I was buying
more than a usual purchase, but an app that let me know where to pick up all
the parts for items (for some I would have to go to different parts of the
warehouse) and let me check them off as I got them (perhaps using the phone as
a scanner) would have been very useful...

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jaems33
I still prefer MUJI. It's too bad they don't really have many locations in
North America outside of New York City.

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njx
It is fun to shop around in IKEA and we do frequent visits there but often the
quality is too low.

On the other hand, IKEA operates under the ownership of non-profit
establishment using sleazy tricks to avoid taxes.

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ippa
IKEA ftw, came for the furniture, stayed for the meatballs.

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Apreche
I have that couch. It's so good my friend also got it.

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asarazan
That's the couch we got when I moved out here to work at Greplin. Brilliant
design.

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ktizo
When they learn how to cut bed slats to the width required for the bed, so
that they don't fall through when you sit on them, I will be a lot more
impressed.

