When people talk about IKEA they usually expect good and simply design from Sweden (actually from Holland now). There is a strong antiIKEA movement among designers but we are talking about huge part customers who adore this brand. If you visit IKEA main page you can hardly link it with the company because there are very bad visual decoration and usability. You can hardly believe that company tries to spare on web-designers. I have no idea what is the reason of such uncomfortable design. Lets have a look at their others pages and try to analyse what's going on there.
This the first page of IKEA international. It is absolutely non adaptive. I have resolution 1920x1080 on my computer and it is really small in left corner of the screen. What do they expect for? The next problem is the concept of entrance page. It is an obstacle to reach the information and bad first impression from the company. Now you connect IKEA not with aesthetic design but with a complicated way of web surfing. Few rows of code can make an identification what country are users from and drive them on local website of his country automatically. We don't really need to choose, web site has to do it itself. Developers can leave country choosing option if it is so important in the right top corner of main page. In my humble opinion users have to see visual message with corporative identity first. Lets look at http://www.ffdm.com/
We can feel the identity of this company because of colours, logo, details, big slider with furniture samples etc.
Next page goes better but still bad. We can feel some identity here because of big advertisement slider. IKEA commercials are made much more aesthetic than website. Probably they are products of different agency. Slider is not an answer for all the decoration problem but at least it gives you nice photos. If we don't want spend much affords for decoration and want to have nice view - we use slider with nice photos.
Pages are quite nice inside because of good wares’ design and professional photos.
They use photo even in infographic. It is original but I prefer vector signs.
Different parts of site have different design. Some of them are beautiful because of good grid and simplicity.
Some components are ugly. They seemed alien in this design. It is good sample how marketer can force designer to make web-site worse.
Let’s have a look at IKEA top part. Navigation in the site is well ordered. It is arranged in big menu items (Living room, Bedroom etc.) If users choose one – they can see the submenu. All departments are in right menu item. So users can find what they need.
We can see some elements that are not readable. “Welcome!” under the logo is too small and probably there is no need in it. Logotype can be bigger to represent company identity. Facebook can leave it this size but not market system's web-site. “Ask Anna” is too small. We can hardly understand what is on the photo there. Search is very important for trade site and it is here not very visible. Search has to be highlighted.
Size problem is common on this site. Have a look at the favicon. You cannot even read it through.
“New” page has very small photos. We can remove “New” sign because section has all new wares. And we can leave it because people like to look for new stuff psychologically. Here are not very convenient search features options. The tools are not noticeable and have only “newest”, “price”, “name” and “relevance”.
Have a look how it can be on Ukrainian internet shop Rozetka. Here are tools that can adjust price, width and height diapason, colour and other features.
Here is good slideshow option you can slide it with your keyboard. Big professional photos of the ware tempt users to buy it.
The page of each ware is really well organized. We can see breadcrumbs on the top. Big picture of the ware is cut from the background for better perception. The name and the price are big and noticeable. Social button have to be in the bottom and they are there. Pictures of ware variation are in the bottom also. I prefer to put them closer to the main photo. Gray “Save to list” button is not noticeable and not very understandable. “Buy” or “Add to basket” would be better.
On textile section site has another design. Here are better features tool. Decoration of colour choosing tool is very nice. Here is big empty space that is not good.
How it can be.
There are a button to go upstairs and more links in the bottom. If users haven’t found something on the page they see site map here.
Customers use usually search form to find some ware. When you type something (e.g. “lamp”) site helps you to go in certain department.
You can feature search in the left column.
Summary
IKEA has really cool photographers, decorators and commercial designers. But they need UI/UX designer to test usability of site components. IKEA is a cult for many people. This is a symbol of democratic design. I think site needs more corporative identity to show users how special IKEA is.
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