--- title: IKEA’s design process description: Graham pointed out a recent Wall Street Journal article out to me as I was going on about my recent kitchen renovation (yes, I’ve used IKEA units). It gives a glimpse into IKEA’s ‘painstaking’ and, for me, fascinating design process. Photo by David Even though, being IKEA, they can very much define how people will […] url: https://canonical.com/blog/ikeas-design-process?format=md --- 1. [Blog](https://canonical.com/blog) 2. Article --- [Inayaili de León Persson](https://canonical.com/blog/author/inayaili-de-leon-persson "More about Inayaili de León Persson") 28 October 2013 # IKEA’s design process [Design](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/design) --- Share the article [Graham](http://design.canonical.com/author/gbancroft-canonical/) pointed out [a recent Wall Street Journal article](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303376904579134743769761378) out to me as I was going on about my recent kitchen renovation (yes, I’ve used IKEA units). It gives a glimpse into IKEA’s ‘painstaking’ and, for me, fascinating design process. *Photo by [David](http://www.flickr.com/photos/61683005@N00/3139904973/)* Even though, being IKEA, they can very much define how people will live, they go through long and careful research, which also has to be in line with their strict production processes. The symbiotic relationship between user, design, engineering, and the dedication to improving this relationship, reminded me of the design process that happens here at Canonical and Ubuntu. > Research Manager Mikael Ydholm leads a team that visits thousands of homes annually … and compiles reports from trend spotters and experts that look as far as a decade into the future. I would love to learn more about IKEA’s design processes and their designers’ work, so if anyone knows of more in-depth articles, videos or books on it, please give me a shout. [Get in touch Interested in running Ubuntu in your organization?](https://ubuntu.com/about/contact-us/form) ## Sign up for our newsletter Get the latest Canonical news and updates in your inbox. Work email: \*I agree to receive information about Canonical's products and services. By submitting this form, I confirm that I have read and agree to [Canonical's Privacy Policy](https://canonical.com/legal/dataprivacy). Sign up ## Share on --- ## Related posts [### Challenges designers face in open source (and how to fix them)](https://canonical.com/blog/challenges-designers-face-in-open-source-and-how-to-fix-them) Open source powers up to 90% of modern software, yet many projects lack usability. Canonical’s Design team surveyed 115 cross-functional professionals to uncover the 4 core... [Kola Ojoodide](https://canonical.com/blog/author/kola-ojoodide) 26 June 2026 [### Why web engineering is great](https://canonical.com/blog/why-web-engineering-is-great) Hi, I’m Johann! I’m an engineering manager in Canonical’s web team. For the larger part of my 15 years of work experience as engineer, I’ve been working in web development.... [Johann Wolf](https://canonical.com/blog/author/johannwolf) 27 April 2026 [### Canonical’s recipe for High Performance Computing](https://canonical.com/blog/canonicals-recipe-for-high-performance-computing) In essence, High Performance Computing (HPC) is quite simple. Speed and scale. In practice, the concept is quite complex and hard to achieve. It is not dissimilar to what... [Igor Ljubuncic](https://canonical.com/blog/author/igorljubuncic) 24 January 2024 [### Web team – hack week 2023](https://canonical.com/blog/web-team-hack-week-2023) Today, around 96% of software projects utilize open source in some way. The web team here at Canonical is passionate about Open source. We lead with an open-by-default approach... [Anthony Dillon](https://canonical.com/blog/author/ya-bo-ng) 25 October 2023