Ok, so if you have a copy of the Inspiration catalogue, take a look at page 11 "Flexible sofas" in the PDF, or page 18 and 19 in the actual printed catalogue. There, you can assemble your own sofa from 4 different styles, creating more than 32,000 combinations. Great, I thought.
The page lists 11 seating units, 7 armrests, 8 legs, and 11 accessories! Each armrest, leg, and accessory had dimensions, but the seating units, which are the bulk of the sofa, didn't! Furthermore, all the armrests and legs listed only the height in centimetres and inches, but no width! I guess we don't really need to know the width of the legs, but you'd think the width would be important for the armrests.
The concept is great, but it wasn't useful to us since we had no idea whether or not the seating units would fit in my friend's apartment.
It would have been a useful resource, putting the power into the hands of the consumer, but it sadly failed to do that.
My area to rant and rave about my experiences in design, UX, and SM.
NOTE: Posts from 2008, 2009, and 2010 are missing due to migration to Wordpress. Trying to fix it!
4.18.2005
uh, are you sure you work here?
So we walk into Inspiration, looking for a 2 seater sofa (loveseat or 3/4 couch) and we knew what we were looking for. With their catalogue in hand, we were approached by a Chinese salesman,
I guess we were to follow him... He brought us to the "Workshop" where he would attempt to use a software program, that allowed him to assemble a sofa by choosing 4 different looks with 3 different attachments (seating unit, armrest, and legs). He fumbled with the mouse, trying to figure out how to select the correct armrest and attach it to the chosen seating unit. I sat there resisting the temptation to just walk out. When he finally figured it out, S asked him for the dimensions. That totally stooped him as he frantically looked around the screen for, I guess, the dimensions button or something like that. :b
He walked away from the terminal for a bit, for god-knows-what, mumbling something, so I used the terminal and we figured out the dimensions on our own. I couldn't believe how incompetent he was. After realizing that the sofa was just 6 inches longer than what we wanted, he suggested another couch that was similar in design. So we followed him downstairs. The style was alright but the material wasn't. However he kept trying to sell it to us.
I attempted to tell him that S was limited by the length since it had to fit in a certain area. But he kept interrupting me and continued to sell the couch we were looking at. I couldn't complete any of my sentences. Ugh, it was awful. I kept thinking, 'Doesn't he want to know what we're looking for? Doesn't he want to help us? Doesn't he want to make a sale?'
We walked outta there unsatisfied and with very little faith or trust in the sales staff there.
We will go back there again? Not sure...
Salesguy: May I help you?
S: Yeah, we're looking for the Indivi 2 couch. We'd like to know the dimensions lengthwise and if we could see a...
Salesguy:Yes yes... (as he walked on)
I guess we were to follow him... He brought us to the "Workshop" where he would attempt to use a software program, that allowed him to assemble a sofa by choosing 4 different looks with 3 different attachments (seating unit, armrest, and legs). He fumbled with the mouse, trying to figure out how to select the correct armrest and attach it to the chosen seating unit. I sat there resisting the temptation to just walk out. When he finally figured it out, S asked him for the dimensions. That totally stooped him as he frantically looked around the screen for, I guess, the dimensions button or something like that. :b
He walked away from the terminal for a bit, for god-knows-what, mumbling something, so I used the terminal and we figured out the dimensions on our own. I couldn't believe how incompetent he was. After realizing that the sofa was just 6 inches longer than what we wanted, he suggested another couch that was similar in design. So we followed him downstairs. The style was alright but the material wasn't. However he kept trying to sell it to us.
I attempted to tell him that S was limited by the length since it had to fit in a certain area. But he kept interrupting me and continued to sell the couch we were looking at. I couldn't complete any of my sentences. Ugh, it was awful. I kept thinking, 'Doesn't he want to know what we're looking for? Doesn't he want to help us? Doesn't he want to make a sale?'
We walked outta there unsatisfied and with very little faith or trust in the sales staff there.
We will go back there again? Not sure...