Swedish furniture retailer, IKEA, is famous for products that require to be assembled by the customers. Creating products with their own hands makes the customers place a high value on the product. This is called the IKEA effect.
Contrary to popular belief, making things too easy is not necessary to provide a better experience to the users. Making things too difficult, on the other hand, will prevent the users from completing (and using) the product. It is critical to find the sweet spot for the IKEA effect to happen.
How can we use the IKEA effect in designing products:
Aim to create a product where the actual level of effort put in by the user is low, but the perceived contribution is high. Secondly, try to make users feel like they are in control.
If you are creating online products and want to utilize the power of the IKEA effect, make the first product interaction interactive and customizable. Interaction makes the user feel like a creator, and the customization makes them feel like they are in control.
A perfect example is Trello's onboarding process. It makes the user create their own boards but allows them to customize them at the same time.
Original artcle by: Anton Nikolov | Full article