Airbnb Design Challenge

 

In this self-appointed project, I'll attempt making recommendations on making some features in Airbnb more intuitive, as well as adding a new feature to an existing product.

 

Background:

Airbnb is something my entire family and friend circle used extensively, more so in the past 2-3 years than ever. Thanks to the remote working set up that allowed for a nomadic life for many in my circle who were otherwise 100% office goers, it not only increased usage of Airbnb as a traveler but also as a host to enable bookings for our flats while we travelled for longer periods.

 

It started with my personal experience of frustration when I would make a booking for a relaxing stay with a co-traveler and then having to copy paste any details the stay host would have shared with me to my co-traveler again separately!!  Not a pleasant user experience

My 55 year old entrepreneurial mom decided to open up her farm for Airbnb stay. She uses Airbnb App as a host almost 2-3 hours a day must have asked me at least 20 times in the past year (at the risk of sounding like an exaggeration) on how to switch from travelling mode to hosting mode and vice versa.

 

So I decided to turn my experiences into my learnings. And here is the self appointed design assignment I took for myself to. redesign the features that I experienced the most confusion in as a user.

1. To Make switching between Travel mode and Histing mode more intuitive.

2. Group Chat feature – Allowing for the whole group of travelers and host to communicate on a group chat.

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Design Process:

As being new to this process, I used a simplified model to cover all the key aspects of a UX design process. As shown in the visual below, I used a flow chart to show I approached the design challenge in 5 simple steps.

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 1. Understanding 

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Based on my background of longstanding experience with Airbnb App as an user or a family of extensive users I throught it be of value to do a research on the design gaps and see if the problem faced was universal. I did a combination of observational research from available open topics on Airbnb community as well as a survey in an identified target group of  travelers on social media who promote Airbnb by using Survey Monkey

     

 2.Research & Insights

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In order to understand the current user stories and pain points related to hosts not being able to connect with additional guest(s), I looked into the Airbnb Community page and highlighted some of the comments on the same issue that I faced.

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“…I often have two or more people turn up and I don’t have a clue who the other person/s are.” — Gina, Australia

“… It would be a vast improvement to have all guests (we take up to 8) to be reviewed and also to be able to receive on-platform communication. This is particularly important for hosts who take more guests– coz communication gap.” — Kelly, TX

 

“… I’m very frustrated with Airbnb, as they do ask their Guests to list others travelling in their party — but they don’t give that info to the Airbnb Hosts..” — Tina, CA

 

Public Survey

Aside from understanding hosts, I also wanted to see what guests have experienced. So I surveyed 33 people (age 18-44) by sending a survey monkey link to almost 50 people who have travelled quite a lot in the last year, with Airbnb to obtain their thoughts and experiences. I decided on my target audience from social media.

 

90% of participants usually travel with another friend or with a group of people.

72% of co- travelers (not the main guest) faced issues in getting information about the place that was communicated to the main guest by the host. (Ex: Extra details on directions, Dos & Donts sent on message)

55% of main guest reported that they frustrated for having to copy paste the chat sent by the host to their co traveller.

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Accordingly, enabling a group chat functionality can possibly alleviate any concerns both parties and eliminate time waiting on redundant conversations users may come across. At the same time, it allows hosts to better manage and anticipate the needs of their upcoming guests — especially when accommodating a large group of visitors.​

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3. Goal

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1. To simplify and make switching between hosting and traveling pages easier for the users.

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2. To propose design changes to inculde group chat functionality in the app to ensure both the host and guests are able to communicate with each other effectively, I proposed the objectives should focus on perfecting the current mobile app features.​

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4.Design

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In order to improve upon current post-booking, pre-arrival user experience on the Airbnb mobile In In app,redesigned the user-flow to implement the following features:

• Allow the Booking Person to invite Additional Guest(s) via mobile phone number instead of the email address.

• Build a framework for Group Conversation to be possible amongst Host, Booking Person, and Additional Guest(s).

• Authorize Hosts to view the Airbnb profile and review of the Additional Guest(s).

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The goal of my redesign is to enhance the mobile experience for new and existing users while retaining a coherent design structure that resembles the existing visual language. To do this, I studied and traced Airbnb’s current design language and elements to develop my own mockups.

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Learnings 

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In the end, I asked myself: “If I had more resources, what would I improve/change in my evaluation and design?”

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First, talk to Airbnb market team to get more information about itsstrategy priority. For now, I can only use my knowledge and understanding to select the information, but I can imagine that the business strategy might change the information priority totally.

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Second, talk to Airbnb's developer team to learn the engineering capacity. I believe designers always collaborate with everyone on the team to work the best design solution out.