TLDR: WATCH THE VIDEO (click above)
There’s a simple way to make people love (and actually use) your product: give them the ability to edit it.
In behavioral science, this is traditionally called the Ikea effect. What is the IKEA effect? If you’ve ever cobbled together an IKEA bookcase and convinced yourself that it’s the bee’s knees, you know it.
Basically, it’s the disproportionately high value we place on products we’ve partially created. Dan Ariely, Michael I. Norton, and Daniel Mochon first named it in 2011 in a paper based on three studies.
In their words: "labor alone can be sufficient to induce greater liking for the fruits of one's labor: even constructing a standardized bureau, an arduous, solitary task, can lead people to overvalue their (often poorly constructed) creations."
This idea—that you like things more when you contribute to building them—has always been intriguing for product people. But as I learn in today’s teardown, it could really be the lifeline for the new generative AI apps—because right now, many of them aren’t ready for prime time.
Here’s what happened:
I took 3 popular interior design apps that use AI and gave them all free rein to glow up my home office space:
🛋️ Interior AI
🛋️ Archi
I showed them my current setup and they spit out ideas. Some were better than others. One was missing a desk. Inspiration was shared… but with zero chance of any of it becoming a reality.
In effect, they all gave me mediocre output. It was MEH. Which could be OK if I was able to improve on the results. But I couldn’t.
Do I want a different color rug? Do I put a bamboo tree in the corner, or a Chinese fan palm? Can I fiddle with the measurements, and feel like an interior designer for 15 minutes?
Nope. I had no agency. These fun new apps just don’t live up to their magical promises. That may be OK—all their current users are likely early adopters anyway and appreciate a cool demo.
But there’s no way they’re going to collect ongoing subscription fees with their current product performance.
Things I cover in this teardown:
💡Why interior designers can keep their day jobs (for now)
💡 What AI apps in general could do to dramatically improve how people engage with their products
💡 Why current AI apps may make things easier, but not provide the perception of value that they could
‘Build it and they will come’? Wrong. Let me build it and I’ll keep coming.
👉See you next week! In the meantime, I’ll be at IKEA. 🛋️
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Questions about your product? Email kristen@irrationallabs.com.
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