Epiphane at Ikea
The Ellusive SKÄRPT Peeler
We went recently to Ikea [a Swedish shop of everything] on a particular mission, we had a list. In particular we were looking for a replacement to a vegetable peeler that we had bought years back and really liked [sadly, it is getting blunt so naturally we thought a replacement was a good idea]. [CUT TO THE CHASE]
Everything at Ikea has a Swedish name, most unpronounceable and none of the names gives a hint as to what is in the box, or to an ignorant aussie [that is me] what it might be useful for. Annoyingly [well, it is a brilliant marketing ploy actually] you have to traverse a maze, literally, of room mock-ups, where some of the products are showcased in-situ so you can see what they look like, how they might be combined, how colours and fabrics look together and so on. It is designed to distract you from your central mission, and even the hardest of hearts end up buying the bag of tea-lights that was on special next to the luscious and cozy looking lounge mock-up, the mini-chalk board that was on special [two for the price of one, only this week] hanging on a rack beside the kids bedroom mockup and so on. 
Now this maze consumed much of my day, I looked amongst the kitchen mock-ups for artily placed utensils that gave a clue about my peeler, I studiously examined bargain bins in the hope they were on special. I scoured the homewares section with no luck, coursed the kitchen solutions department finding almost but not entirely the wrong things, entered the warehouse and searched amongst the canyon-like aisles, carefully reading shelf labels and viewing thumbnails of a myriad of things, hoping to recognise amongst the impossible to pronounce names something that looked like my vegetable peeler to no avail. It was frustrating, exhausting and more annoyingly it took up time that I did not really have.
After much trudging, a trolley full of things that we did not realise we needed until we saw them, and their perfectly reasonable prices we stumbled across the rarest of commodities – a shop assistant and I asked the tall, blonde thing about my quest – the search for this one particular peeler.
He popped on a terminal, performed a simple search and told me that product has been discontinued. He searched using a tool that was on the Ikea Website – something I [to my shame] had not even considered using prior to the trip.
We receive regularly [being put on their snail-mail list after the first visit – you remember, when the Ikea first opened, it had a “ball room” and our kids, then little tykes played in there whilst we browsed, anxiously hoping they were all right] their annual catalogue faithfully snailmailed to our home. The catalogues are lush, shiny and full of similar mock-ups, whole rooms and so on showing product being used – all themed and grouped according to living area.
Product Catalogues
Now, if you are searching for a chair, for instance, there is no one place to look, as “chairs” might appear in multiple sections of the catalogue, and although there is a “seat” section, not all chairs are there, indeed not all available to purchase chairs are in the catalogue as the print run clearly has limited pages and they want to feature “some” of their range.
Interestingly, however, on further investigation of the WEB catalogue, everything is there, every product [past, unavailable and present in-stock]. You get “meta” information – dimensions, available colours, a “thumbnail” of the item with a click to zoom web 2-ish feel, items are categorised into a product tree with breadcrumb trail navigation to explore and so on – a “modern tool” for finding things.
Epiphane
Some Assembly Required
Our “object yard” in-world should break with the established convention of being an instantiated warehouse and get with the times. The ActiveWorlds client has an integrated WEB BROWSER – what is to stop us building a web catalogue of all available objects that can be used, provide categories for browsing and examining them WITHOUT having to POP a copy of everything?
This makes sense on a bunch of levels – blowout in browser cache occurs when you visit the object yard – your browser caches a copy of everything, regardless of whether you use it [3456 objects left to download…] – this is silly when all you really need is a “starter object” – a place holder object like a lump of clay, say, and the NAME of the object you want to build. To select an appropriate object, a THUMBNAIL [possibly with a click to zoom] along with other meta details [like dimensions, textures used, size if cell capacity is an indication of storage consumed and NAME in a copy-paste able form].
This also streamlines builds, as out of world, you could browse and select, collaborate and get ready a “pick list” so you are able, realistically, to PLAN before the build – brainstorm, share, swap ideas etc. – this is sensible, right, to encourage our in-worlders to plan, design and then build?
Some FACTS: most of this meta data ALREADY EXISTS on the activeworlds help page [no thumbnails, sadly, but that is a minor thing, surely we could get someone to make them], dimensions, textures etc. are already there – example of “walk objects” . I do not know how “clever” the in-world browser is, and whether it could, for instance, “talk” to the object, “telling” it what to become based on what the searcher has found – this would be very cool [an “apply” button of sorts].
I am guessing that someone at Activeworlds has a complete catalogue – they make, package and SELL this content, and they commissioned its design and manufacture. I hazard to suggest they could provide this meta data to us in a form that would allow us to build a web-catalogue that could be used in-world and obviate the need for an object yard. More importantly, if the list is categorised it would allow us to SEARCH – watching kids work, when they want something the SEARCH for it [yes, admittedly most jump straight onto Google, but none the less the idea of using a search engine is not new and not silly] – it is a contemporary 21C skill and something we should provide as a basic service to our builders.
The list/web catalogue could be extensible, branded and pretty. It could allow us to easily add new clusters of objects [by updating things in the object path when new types of things are needed and making appropriate additions to the catalogue] and it could be organised – categories of objects would not be hard, and we could have subsetted versions for different audiences, and the language could suit them – from toddler [click on the pretty] to tweenie [that one is soooo lame, but that one is, like, cool].
I am, however, confused as to why this is not done. Seriously. Genuinely flummoxed as to how builders in ActiveWorlds put up with the status quo because the status is not … quo. Just because that is how it has been done it does not predicate how it CAN be done. I must be missing something important, because this is sensible, surely … so why is it NOT an option? Can anyone enlighten me? Is there anyone actually reading this? Is the idea worthy of further exploration? How would we make such enquiries?
Tags: activeworld, ikea, object yard
