iSubscribe
iSubscribe is a cloud-based platform that enables the sharing of updates and business critical information across IKEA’s global supply chain. IKEA co-workers and suppliers can subscribe to different information channels and customise the way they are receiving alerts and information.
March 2021 - June 2021
SCD - Supply Chain Development
UX Designer
Let’s start with the why
Given IKEA’s worldwide operations, the anticipation of supply chain issues and other information are crucial to ensure the running business. Over 20.000 IKEA co-workers and suppliers rely on iSubscribe as the main information exchange platform.
The platform needs to cater for fast and efficient interactions enabling the channel owners to release notifications alerts as fast and as easy as possible.
At the same time, the platform is an information hub where co-workers and suppliers can subscribe to work-related channels to receive information business updates.
When I joined the two solution owners together with the developer to plan and kick-off the re-design their main identified need was to update the interface as it seemed old-fashioned and somewhat was not matching the “IKEA look and feel”.
Before the re-design
After the re-design
How might we..
… improve the overall information architecture and enable channel owners to launch business critical alerts in less than 3 interactions within iSubscribe?
…enhance workflow and knowledge transparency to proactively anticipate and prevent supply chain issues?
…streamline information sharing for channel owners and allow subscribers to customise the reception of information and alerts?
Process
1. Plan and research
Understand, identify and validate existing user goals and user groups based on available data and user interviews.
2. Information architecture
Map out current information architecture of the platform and its dependencies to identify improvement areas and opportunities.
3. Define and ideate
Compiling data and defining the new information architecture based on the research findings.
4. Prototype
Design wireframes based on IKEA’s design system Skapa and making necessary alterations as well as tweaking components.
5. Test
Test the new designs and user-flows with participants from all user groups. In total we were able to conduct 8 moderated user tests with existing iSubscribe users.
6. Finalise and handover
Once the feedback from the testing phase was implemented the designs and documentation were handed over to the developer for implementation.
Before the re-design
After the re-design
User groups & identified pain points
Based on available user data from iSubscribe and the results of the conducted interviews the following user groups were identified and validated:
Channel owners & contributors: Sending out alerts and other information, providing status updates on ongoing issues, and managing channel settings
Channel subscribers: Subscribing/unsubscribing to specific information channels, managing subscription settings, and exploring other relevant channels
Key pain points:
Specific channels are not shareable so owners and subscribers cannot invite colleagues to subscribe to channels
Identified need for implementation of a search function, as often subscribers don’t know the name of a channel but know the business category of information they are interested in
Old interface has confusing flows and unclear states that makes it difficult to navigate especially in urgent situation when information needs to be send out as soon as possible.
Measuring the impact
The new iSubscribe was deployed in October 2021. The impact and outcome of the re-design was measured using qualitative and quantitative methods to capture a holistic understanding of how the re-design impacted the user behaviour and user flow.
The feedback confirmed that user flows felt more logical and shorter as well as tasks were easier to accomplish and information was better structured and faster to find.
From a quantitative perspective there was a significant increase of subscriptions and the time spend sending out business critical alerts has decreased.
(Data and metrics cannot be displayed due to confidentiality)
Anders W., Solution Owner iSubscribe