How Ikea’s Assembly Instructions Champion Universal Design
For NPR’s Liz Danzico, the simple manuals illustrate the importance of designing for everyone.
Washing machines are neither very intuitive nor very interesting. Or at least they weren’t in the late ’90s, when I had a job during graduate school writing user manuals for washing machines. I actually wrote manuals for all kinds of devices that — were it not for our instruction-writing help — would never have been operated at all.
Around the same time, while I was low on cash but had a discerning aesthetic, I picked up some IKEA furniture and discovered another shining example of good design: IKEA’s instruction manuals. Printed without words, using only simple illustrations, these assembly instructions were an inspiration. Making the complex clear and making the seemingly impossible possible, these simple guidelines seemed the underdog of influence. They allow us total agency over our most intimate user experience — our home.
While many of us have at least one frustrating IKEA assembly story, what the process does accomplish merits astonishment. Each tool and part is enumerated. Each step is isolated and requires a kind of mindfulness to do one thing at a time. Right and wrong are charmingly illustrated with line-drawn figures. And all of this — whether for a 4- or a 400-part piece — is done without a single letter of type. In this way, good and affordable design is easily accessible to speakers of any language, any level, any skill. The instructions serve all equally.
Today, as a design director and educator, my central goal is helping people become more than they know they can be. And here is this simple monochromatic set of line drawings that transform common folks who don’t own hammers into carpenters and consumers into makers. The instructions embody so many of the principles I aim to uphold in my own work and life: Put yourself in your audience’s shoes, design from a human perspective, focus on the present, and be inclusive to all.
When users experience the transformative power of putting something together, they develop a stronger sense of ownership over it. Research shows that once you build an IKEA piece yourself, you are less likely to part with it — a phenomenon now known as the IKEA effect. I’m proud of my Expedit, and I’m keeping it for life.
