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> Robot Conquers One of the Hardest Human Tasks: Assembling Ikea Furniture Totally off-topic but keeps bugging me everytime I stumble upon it: The decades old
by woodpanel 9y ago
> Robot Conquers One of the Hardest Human Tasks:
Assembling Ikea Furniture
Totally off-topic but keeps bugging me everytime I stumble upon it: The decades old cliché that Ikea instructions are tough to understand and the assembly will always fail (at first try).
Is this some anti-globalist urban myth?
Has anyone claiming this ever looked at the assembly instruction of furniture of smaller companies? Every mid- to high-class designer furniture item I've bought came with instructions that had terrible UX, that were over-detailed, cramped onto one sheet of paper, had way too small print size to read, made it difficult to differentiate screw sizes etc. virtually all of them left you at one point in uncertainty how to interpret the next step, which could cause destruction if done wrong. Some even came with outright wrong instructions.
Contrast that not only to the text-free Ikea-pictograms that work across the globe, but also to the thought that went into optimizing the assembling so that complicated "points of no return" are virtually absent.
- tenaciousDaniel 9y agoAbsolutely seconded. People think that because the visualizations are relatively simple in their shapes, then the design itself must have been simple. It's exceedingly difficult to create instructions that work across language and cultural barriers. It takes a tremendous amount of thought and effort, and IKEA is almost certainly the best in the world and deserve recognition for that.
- BurningFrog 9y agoSome call it the Thelonious Monk principle "Simple ain't easy"
- knodi123 9y agoIt's just like the cliché about taco bell food forcing you to spend an excruciating hour on the toilet the next day. I think both myths comes from the same innocent place - that it's fun to take swings at a big guy who won't get hurt or swing back.
- wombatpm 9y agohttps://www.inquisitr.com/2060551/ikea-cabinet-dubbed-the-divorce-maker-due-to-its-32-page-instruction-booklet-and-169-screws/ https://www.inquisitr.com/2060551/ikea-cabinet-dubbed-the-di... However, one Ikea product, the formidable “Liatorp” storage unit, which stands at 7-feet tall, has been dubbed “the divorce maker” by one marriage counselor who says the product’s 32-page instruction manual and 169 screws are enough to test even the most solid relationship.
- woodpanel 9y agoThe article proves my point: Instead of providing any in-depth content, other than the name of said marriage counselor, the article completely lives off the Ikea cliché. Does said marriage counselor offer us any better "formidable 7-feet tall storage units" by competitors? No. Because for that, if the "divorce maker" claim has any merit, we'd have to ask the local precinct to find out about their experiences with other cabinets.
- lukas099 9y agoI came here to say this too. Every time I've assembled IKEA I've been been amazed at how well the booklets explain everything without words. IKEA makes things that just about anyone can assemble, including people who would never try to build any other furniture. Those same people may be the ones propping up the myth because building IKEA furniture is harder than purchasing pre-built stuff from the store.