IKEA “How to Build” videos: a review

Although IKEA has been publishing instructional videos on how to build their products since 2012, we’ve only just come across them. The videos feature real people assembling the furniture, plus some tips on how to carry out certain tasks.

IKEA USA

IKEA USA has eight “How to build videos”, which you can access from the IKEA USA website or IKEA’s YouTube channel:

The videos are mostly visual, and there isn’t any narration. They are between 3 minutes and 12 minutes in duration. As with many videos, it doesn’t really get started until after the first 15 seconds.

Overall, they are very good:

  • The plain background helps you focus on the furniture.
  • The close-up instructional speech bubbles are informative.
  • The animated arrows do a very good job at  highlighting the location of holes.
  • There are zoom-in shots of specific actions.

While the paper instructions tend to stick to a single viewpoint, the video shows the assembly from different angles.

The last video was made in 2015. Why did IKEA stop making them? We don’t know if they have covered all the of the products that would benefit from video instructions, or they ran out of time/money/enthusiasm.

IKEA Italia

IKEA Italia has a similar YouTube channel. This contains translated versions of the IKEA USA assembly instruction videos, plus some assembly instructions from 2016 that have a British narrator.

https://youtu.be/fYDGeFU4BM0

These videos are much more driven by narrated instructions, and are shorter in length. I suspect this style was cheaper to produce. These videos also work well, as long as you speak English.

Fan videos

There are unofficial IKEA instructional videos on YouTube as well, some of which take a less conventional approach:

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