Learning from IKEA Hacking: “Iʼm Not One to Decoupage a Tabletop and Call It a Day.”

By Daniela Rosner and Jonathan Bean

Comment:
Lupfer, Nicholas

Summary:

This paper discussed IKEA Hackers and the role the internet plays in their lives. IKEA Hackers are people who take the relatively cheap mass marketed IKEA furniture and customize it for personal use or for creative purposes. The authors of this paper interviewed several IKEA Hackers to understand what they do, why they do it, and how the internet and particular forums and webistes play a role. IKEA Hackers themselves are typically Do-It-Yourself (DIY) persons. They like to manipulate the already existing products to fit their wants. Not only does this give a more personal feel to the furniture they modify, but the act of hacking itself gives them an artistic and creative feel.

The larger part of this paper discussed how the internet influences IKEA Hackers. Although IKEA Hacking is generally a personal experience, a lot of the hackers like to post their ideas online for others to appreciate and learn from. Likewise these online resources serve for good ideas and starting points for other IKEA hackers to pick up the hobby. A couple of common websites used by IKEA Hackers are IKEAHacker.com and Instructables.com. Below is a picture of a typical IKEA Hacker's workspace:


Figure 2. A common site for IKEA hacking: a residential kitchen. IKEA cabinets are “hacked” through modifications or the addition of custom components. One participant blogged his kitchen remodeling project.

Discussion:

The main reason I read this paper is because IKEA Hacking was mentioned in my assigned reading. In the previous paper I read IKEA Hacking was mentioned as an example of sustainable interaction design in that the IKEA furniture was often used and modified for reuse by the user who inherently reflected the principles of an 'everyday designer' mentioned in the paper. This paper however was far less interesting than the first, and although it was short (preferable length), it relatively had very little content except for introducing the concept of an IKEA Hacker. IKEA Hacking is an interesting idea but an entire paper devoted to it with emphasis on how online resources are used felt unnecessary.