5 ms·

The IKEA person may have stated the claim in a broad way, but as a thought experiment, is it possible that they're correct despite this study? > on average, m

by mr_luc 11y ago

The IKEA person may have stated the claim in a broad way, but as a thought experiment, is it possible that they're correct despite this study? > on average, men tend to outperform women on spatial skills, which you'd expect would be relevant to furniture construction. Could it actually be irrelevant? There's a case to be made there. Is time of construction, as measured in this study, actually important to IKEA? If the reasons for faster male performance in this study are down to (possibly genetic) advantages in dealing with new spatial problems, or a cultural factor like males having on average more exposure to various kinds of construction, which manifest in them showing a (slight) edge in constructing a brand-new design, well ... due to the manufacturing effect, that advantage should disappear! With practice, false starts and misunderstandings will go away. At that point, what matters to IKEA? Probably, 'perfect' assembly. It's possible that IKEA found that women showed lower defect rates than men. That would make sense given that they called out that women followed the assembly instructions more closely. IKEA's claim was simply that 'women are better at assembling flat-pack furniture than men,' and this study wanted to see if the known male edge in understanding spatial problems extended to flat-pack furniture. It apparently does, but that doesn't necessarily mean that women still might not be 'better,' at least from IKEA's point of view.

carleverett 11y ago
> In terms of construction scores (from 1 to 10 where 10 represents a perfectly built trolley), men averaged 8.9 with instructions, 7.6 without; the women averaged 7.5 with, and 5.7 without. The women spent more time building and did a worse job, according to this study.
RyanZAG 11y ago
I'm not sure I understand the angle you are coming from given the following: In terms of construction scores (from 1 to 10 where 10 represents a perfectly built trolley), men averaged 8.9 with instructions, 7.6 without; the women averaged 7.5 with, and 5.7 without. So men without instructions do slightly better than women with instructions, and men with instructions do far better..
TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
The results showed that men were rated higher for construction quality. But I think it's interesting that it takes around 25 minutes to put a trolley together, and it's hard to get a perfect score for construction quality. The design of the product has a lot more influence on time/quality than gender. And it looks like the design could be improved. I always assumed that flat pack furniture was similar to cheap commercial furniture without the construction costs, and with lower shipping costs. But it's assembled using the same standard techniques. Is it possible to design good furniture with much simpler/quicker assembly techniques? Maybe not. But if it is, perhaps there's a commercial opportunity there.
- larrik 11y ago
  In my experience, the techniques can be quite different. Flat-pack furniture needs to buildable by just about anyone, using tools that they can be expected to have (screwdriver and hammer only, in practice) or you are willing to include (allen wrench). On top of that, it's usually also designed to be disassembled as well to a degree, since otherwise mistakes and can be permanent and costly. Also, and perhaps most importantly, flat pack furniture almost never uses glue, which is often a very important component of factory assembled furniture.
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    Factory assembled furniture often makes use of highly specialized and expensive equipment that most people don't even have access to. For instance, a wood steamer, to bend the back of a chair into a curve, followed by a few days of immobilizing and drying the piece. This sort of step is only cost effective when you are building hundreds of chairs. Or there might be staples from a staple gun, or springs that can only be installed with the help of a power tool. And, as already mentioned by parent, most factory-assembled wood furniture nowadays uses dowels or wafers and wood glue. The resulting join is much stronger than twistlock connectors in particle board. But you can fit more flat-pack chairs in one cargo container, which is about the only reason they even exist. If you are confident in your assembly abilities, a bottle of wood glue, clamps, and a framing square will produce better results on particle-board furniture than following the instructions as written. If not, you'll make a mess and ruin your furniture. And honestly, sometimes you just need something that's good enough to do the job, for $20, that you can just discard the next time you move.

by mr_luc 11y ago

carleverett 11y ago

> In terms of construction scores (from 1 to 10 where 10 represents a perfectly built trolley), men averaged 8.9 with instructions, 7.6 without; the women averaged 7.5 with, and 5.7 without. The women spent more time building and did a worse job, according to this study.

RyanZAG 11y ago

I'm not sure I understand the angle you are coming from given the following: In terms of construction scores (from 1 to 10 where 10 represents a perfectly built trolley), men averaged 8.9 with instructions, 7.6 without; the women averaged 7.5 with, and 5.7 without. So men without instructions do slightly better than women with instructions, and men with instructions do far better..

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago

The results showed that men were rated higher for construction quality. But I think it's interesting that it takes around 25 minutes to put a trolley together, and it's hard to get a perfect score for construction quality. The design of the product has a lot more influence on time/quality than gender. And it looks like the design could be improved. I always assumed that flat pack furniture was similar to cheap commercial furniture without the construction costs, and with lower shipping costs. But it's assembled using the same standard techniques. Is it possible to design good furniture with much simpler/quicker assembly techniques? Maybe not. But if it is, perhaps there's a commercial opportunity there.

larrik 11y ago
In my experience, the techniques can be quite different. Flat-pack furniture needs to buildable by just about anyone, using tools that they can be expected to have (screwdriver and hammer only, in practice) or you are willing to include (allen wrench). On top of that, it's usually also designed to be disassembled as well to a degree, since otherwise mistakes and can be permanent and costly. Also, and perhaps most importantly, flat pack furniture almost never uses glue, which is often a very important component of factory assembled furniture.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  Factory assembled furniture often makes use of highly specialized and expensive equipment that most people don't even have access to. For instance, a wood steamer, to bend the back of a chair into a curve, followed by a few days of immobilizing and drying the piece. This sort of step is only cost effective when you are building hundreds of chairs. Or there might be staples from a staple gun, or springs that can only be installed with the help of a power tool. And, as already mentioned by parent, most factory-assembled wood furniture nowadays uses dowels or wafers and wood glue. The resulting join is much stronger than twistlock connectors in particle board. But you can fit more flat-pack chairs in one cargo container, which is about the only reason they even exist. If you are confident in your assembly abilities, a bottle of wood glue, clamps, and a framing square will produce better results on particle-board furniture than following the instructions as written. If not, you'll make a mess and ruin your furniture. And honestly, sometimes you just need something that's good enough to do the job, for $20, that you can just discard the next time you move.