An ergonomics lesson usually provided by an Ikea video, promoting their paper catalog (the “bookbook™”) is fantastic from many points of view. It became viral because of making fun of Apple product introduction. It could also be a self-mockery about some Swedish clichés (the smiling blond guy), but there are strong ergonomics backgrounds and product design truths in that video also. And that’s our topic. And then to the original Steve Jobs new product introduction!
Contents
The Marketing Parody
“Once in a while…”, “Introducing the”, “amazing”, nice music while a slow-motion of the product …. that remembers you something, right?
(see the link at the bottom for the answer)
The Centuries-old Book Ergonomics Lesson
or, seen in an innovative way, the electronic accessories have still some innovation possible:
| books | possibly new technology/improvement over books |
| not many electronics have no radio communication anymore (IoT Internet of Things) |
| the biggest electronic drawback; any phone or tablet currently lasts between hours and at best days of usage Induction charging is developing, thus a relatively low-efficiency ratio; but still requires a docking base or equivalent To improve this or decrease the need for recharging
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| currently nothing really with variable screen size on the market yet some progress on foldable/rollable screens in R&D pipes Other ideas? |
| the physical contact so has the paper smell is indeed not there; would that really be a user function? the sharing easily aspect, well, mail, short message, online library, social network (…) have probably |
| no device has indeed a book-flip-pages speed yet so as a book The need is not really to obtain an animated character like in early flipbooks but to find information fast, visually, by color, or by aspect. A search feature using words does not help you much when you don’t know keywords for it yet or just looking for nice ideas innovation is probably still to find here !? |
| electronic bookmarks exist in all shapes and flavors … none is visible when the app /tablet/phone has not even started … |
| to be fair, not really a book-only advantage anymore; mid to high-end devices have now a resolution that is under the human eye perception. … providing that the app provides pictures in a sufficient resolution (saving memory app can destroy the tech advantage) |
Not mentioned in the video:
- price point: book=low; tablet, although the app can be free, the device required to view is several $100s, although some viewers-only are cheaper.
The Ergonomics Lesson Video, See By Yourself
To be compared with Steve Jobs’s iconic iPhone product introduction in 2007 (“once in a while” … you’ve heard that before?) that was clearly a milestone in product introduction methodology, but also showing a typical modern Product Development cycle; see this iconic product introduction here.
Last Ergonomics Words
All these being said, and while we are big fans (in the product design sense) of the assembly instructions delivered with their products,
this catalog is difficult to use to find a product in particular.
It does put the products in their context in a nice way (a kid’s room, a kitchen …), but trying to quickly find all tables for example is impossible … you have them all around the catalog, mixed with other furniture.