1 in 10 people in Israel is suffering a form of physical disability. This audience struggles with tasks others take for granted, such as opening a closet, switching on a lamp or getting up from a sofa (IKEA’s sofas too, unfortunately).

Our brief was straightforward: open a new market for IKEA by bridging the gap between IKEA’s products and the special needs of people with disabilities. Strategically, rectifying this situation posed a double win for IKEA: tapping into an old-new audience, one that craves IKEA furniture which they could easily use & fixing the one major dissonance the brand was facing - creating a better life, truly for everyone. This is IKEAs ThisAbles project.

This insight shaped our approach: rather than design a new line of special-needs furniture which will be more expensive and not scalable, we would hack our existing designs with a range of add-ons to make our most accessible products accessible: sofa elevating-legs for easier ascend, lamp button-enlargement, super-zipper for pillows-covers.

Introducing ThisAbles by IKEA: democratizing home-furniture for people with disabilities with 3D printed add-ons.

In order to create a really comprehensive IKEA EXPERIENCE, we had to exceed expectations, to ensure 2 major conditions are fulfilled: firstly, we had to provide the IKEA design quality: beautiful, functional, and simple. Secondly, it had to be affordable and easily accessible.

We made the add-ons fully accessible, virtually and physically: open-source designs, available to 3d print, from anywhere in the world. And to enable people with disabilities to watch, touch and experience them, we constructed the first-ever accessible space in the IKEA stores.

We can only imagine the daily struggles people with disabilities go through in order to survive in the outside world - public transportation, stairs, restaurants, shops, and the list goes on. You’d expect that their own home would be a place of comfort, but the truth is that is at home where they are reminded the most: “you are disabled”.

By listening to the insights coming from the community we have found out what people with disability truly want – to be part of the mainstream, not singled-out as being different. They wanted to enjoy what the same things everyone else did, including furniture.

We partnered with the leading non-profit organizations in Israel that specialize in improving the life of the disabled. We spent close and intense time with people with disabilities. Together, we arranged a one-week hackathon, hosting product engineers, accessibility experts, psychologists, and IKEA’S designers – coming up with 13 add-ons, each solving a different accessibility problem.

We created the ultimate exhibition that no one could miss: online –we developed a new and designated website, ThisAbles.com, offering all add-ons in an open-source file, ready to be 3D printed or modified from every spot in the world. We also prepared 13 video-tutorials to make sure functionality and installment are clear and easy.

Physical - we constructed the first-of-it’s-kind IKEA ACCESIBLE SPACE, inviting people with disabilities to fully experience IKEA. our new 13 add-ons were spread all over our different departments, applied on our iconic items, inviting the general public to try the products

More than 45,000 people from 127 countries visited our website ThisAbles.com, thousands of them downloading and 3D printing our add-ons. The sales of our 13 iconic items grew up by 33%, shortly after the project was launched

ThisAbles also drove one of the biggest organic international coverage in the history of Israeli brands, with PR value of $4M and reach of 489M unique users!

Media coverage came from all over the world, including publications like the Washington Post, Fast Company, The Verge, and The Independent.

+1500% in no. of visits to the websites of the Non-profit accessibility organizations we partnered with.