[Susan]

What are your predictions, desires, insights? What can we do to better meet your needs? How do you think we can improve the site?

Tell us like it is! We can take it...

Susan

[deagna]

I want to say THANK YOU, though I've said it many times. You guys have saved many a kitchen (and maybe many a marriage!).

My number one piece of advice is to just keep posting. I have had almost all of my questions answered well and very quickly. Keep it up, wise ones.

As a long-distance orderer (8 hours away), I would always appreciate more photos of store displays. It's impossible to try and imagine which things you'd like together when you can't get a picture of them in the same shot. Also, I've heard there are many things in the store that aren't online or in the catalog. It's just nice to live vicariously, too.

Thanks again for you fellow IKEA fans. I absolutely can't wait to get my kitchen!
-Deanna

[kisaacs]

Along those lines, what if we could get IKEA to let us do "virtual tours" of kitchen displays or departments for those who couldn't get to a store.

Kristen

[erikakn]

As always, I'm grateful for this online community. My requests have to do with gallery albums.

1) Working with the gallery albums is awkward. You know how you can batch items into different categories? It would be terrific if one can move photos as a group into desired albums.

Check, check, check--choose album, done. Currently, one has to put pictures in albums one by one.

2) Is there a more direct route to get to one's images in the gallery? I'd love to have a link to my posts from a link under "My account."

[NBeth]

How about master sets of instructions in the Ikeapedia? Ikea has a different set for each individual item and we've got a lot of them posted, but real people do certain standard combinations and might not even know which individual items to look for. Keep the individual listings, but then create higher level organizational structures with mastersets. The user would look up kitchens, Akurum, pullouts, then choose from base pullouts or high pantry pullouts. Pulling up base pullouts, they would read "to assemble a base pullout, you'll need the following items (x,y,z). Assembly instructions, in suggested order of assembly, below:

1
1b (optional item)
2
3
3b (optional item)

Even better if the summary provided internal info or links to info about considerations in choosing pullouts vs. drawers vs. doors, like the recent thread Pantry: Pull-out v/s Door ??.

Does that make sense?

[Tigratrus]

Originally Posted by erikakn

As always, I'm grateful for this online community. My requests have to do with gallery albums.

1) Working with the gallery albums is awkward. You know how you can batch items into different categories? It would be terrific if one can move photos as a group into desired albums.

Check, check, check--choose album, done. Currently, one has to put pictures in albums one by one.

2) Is there a more direct route to get to one's images in the gallery? I'd love to have a link to my posts from a link under "My account."

Excellent suggestions!

1) Regarding a better way to move things in and out of albums, I totally agree. Ideally I'd like to see image "sets" be much more flexible too, so that you can add/subtract images from them etc. I've been thinking that maybe the album functionality and the sets functionality should be combined in some way?

2) You want to add a link on the "My Account" menu that brings you to a listing of all your gallery images? If I've got that right, that's totally doable, could probably add that this evening...

Originally Posted by NBeth

How about master sets of instructions in the Ikeapedia? Ikea has a different set for each individual item and we've got a lot of them posted, but real people do certain standard combinations and might not even know which individual items to look for. Keep the individual listings, but then create higher level organizational structures with mastersets. The user would look up kitchens, Akurum, pullouts, then choose from base pullouts or high pantry pullouts. Pulling up base pullouts, they would read "to assemble a base pullout, you'll need the following items (x,y,z). Assembly instructions, in suggested order of assembly, below:

1
1b (optional item)
2
3
3b (optional item)

Even better if the summary provided internal info or links to info about considerations in choosing pullouts vs. drawers vs. doors, like the recent thread Pantry: Pull-out v/s Door ??.

Does that make sense?

Another really good idea... We've been looking at ways to provide that sort of grouping of information and linking between entries. One part of it was adding links on the instructions entries to find posts in the forum about that product, it's not infallible, but it's pretty useful.

The problem with the grouping of products together is what goes with what and how tricky it is to maintain. We've been thinking about hiring some help to build a system that presents dynamic pages based on a database built outside of the forums itself. The idea is that we would have autolinks (like we have for forum slang, store names etc) that would take you to pages that are all linked together. So if someone typed Akurum in a post, it would provide a link to an AKURUM page, that would list all elements in the AKURUM line with links to their individual pages. Each individual product page would have links to find forums posts about that product, the instructions for that product, as well as links to upload pictures of that product as well as (once the video system is done) videos of that product. The idea is to link everything to everything as much as possible.

James

[laurie]

Really all I want is some lingonberries for my pancakes. 5 hours is a long way to drive for lingonberries. Mail order?

Seriously, the virtual tour thing would be fantastic!! Of course, seeing the doorstyles in person can't be replaced, but it would be so helpful for those who live so far away.

Susan and James, it's amazing how much the site has grown!

[Tigratrus]

'K Had a bit of a stumbling block with the syntax in that template but it seems to be working now.

"View Your Gallery" link added at the bottom of the first section in the "My Account" menu. It's the last choice under "Settings & Options"... Is that what you were looking for Erika?

James

[erikakn]

Originally Posted by Tigratrus

'"View Your Gallery" link added at the bottom of the first section in the "My Account" menu. It's the last choice under "Settings & Options"... Is that what you were looking for Erika?

Perfect! Yaaaay!

Thank you!

Erika

[Susan]

You guys are full of great ideas! No wonder this place is so good.


We hope to be able to bring some IKEA benefits exclusive to IKEAFANS' members to you in the next year...we shall see...


Susan