Airbnb is an online marketplace for stays and experiences while charging commissions after each booking. They are known for providing users with untraditional and unique stays as a cheaper alternative to hotels. The UI design of both their desktop and mobile versions are clean and minimal; making it easy for users to navigate, find listings, and reserve bookings.
People use Airbnb for more than just finding places to stay when on vacation. Airbnb is only one part of the planning process for a solo or group trip. Organizing trips with groups can be especially challenging because users need to coordinate with others and rely on other platforms and services to share listings and calculate the final costs to be split among the group. How might we minimize the need to go back and forth between platforms when deciding stays and ensure everyone pays their share in a group?
Design a feature that lets users create and join groups to easily share listings and be able to split payment. Providing a seamless experience that does not affect users' current task flow with the platform.
To start off, I went to the Google Play store to read reviews of the Airbnb app. While reading the reviews would not help me define the problem, it would give me a good starting point to direct my focus.
From those reviews, there were common elements found related to pricing, but I chose not to consider those as they were more about how Airbnb runs their business and not exactly something that could be improved through design.
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Having realized the general pain points users were experiencing, I set about creating user interview questions to elaborate on those issues and see if real users were experiencing them.
I interviewed five frequent Airbnb users between the ages of 25 - 40. Two users had spouses, with one having a family. The rest were individuals who either liked traveling alone, or mainly traveled with a group.
From the interviews I gathered these insights:
Creating a persona helped to remind me who I was designing for and what pain points I needed to consider the most.
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After synthesizing my research, I had a brainstorming session to come up with a feature that would not only be useful to the user but also provide value to the business.
These were the 3 major features I came up with:
From this list, I used the Impact Effort matrix to further determine the actual feasibility and values of each.
Splitting the cost!
Although the effort is high, the overall impact of this feature may be worth investing in. It can improve both retention and acquisition because it would get users to sign up for an account in order to split costs within a group. Users would also benefit because it means paying less and ensuring that everyone pays their share before finalizing a booking.
I also came up with a secondary feature which would allow for users to create and join groups which would then lead into the Split the cost feature.
I did, however, also consider implementing the Add images/videos to reviews feature because of its low effort/high impact along with designing for Split the cost. But ultimately, in the end, focused more on designing the bigger feature. More on how I would have implemented the Review feature at the end of this case study.
Having decided on a feature to work on, I created User and Task flows. The flows for Adding images/videos to reviews is also included in these.
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Because i could reference the current UI of Airbnb (and had limited time), I did not create low or mid-fi wireframes, but went straight to full visual high fidelity mockups. Airbnb's UI is very simple so changing/providing iterations was done easily without having to completely rework elements.
This would also help when testing with Airbnb users, as they would be less likely to be thrown off completely or confused if the UI did not match what they already expected. It would also be difficult to provide a seamless experience of the new feature if this were the case.
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I conducted usability testing with five Airbnb users. Although most of the tasks were completed within a set timeframe, much of the confusion that users had were about the split payment and how it worked. Different wording and screens that could provide more informative context were necessary iterations to make after the tests. I also asked users their feedback on how well implemented the new feature was and if it fit in with the existing UI.
With the feedback taken from testing, I iterated upon the design. The overall flow of creating a group and reserving a booking remained unchanged.
However I designed additional screens to help lessen the confusion that was prominent from the initial design. These screens changed what would happen after creating group. Allowing users to find listings for their group and thus being able to calculate split payments with listings added to the group wishlist. This was one of the major points of confusion for users as they did not understand how the split payment worked because there was not enough context provided in the initial design. By having users add listings first, they can preview the estimated costs for a listing and use the split payment with more context.
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Because of the major changes I made to the flow of screens, I knew I needed to test out the new iteration. I was able to get a previous user to test as well as three new users. I gave out the same tests and adjusted the success metrics to measure how well the new iteration was able to provide more efficiency in task completion and lessen confusion.
The second iteration proved to be much more successful in handling how users actually go about finding and booking listings. The UI was consistent and easy to navigate while providing the right context in how to proceed.
With the feedback from the test, I iterated on finding better wording and layout which were minor improvements to the overall design.
This project was one I very much enjoyed doing. It provided a challenge I had not come across before but I knew the design process and was able to plan out the project easily. It was especially interesting to work with a platform that I had never used myself. Therefore, thorough research was a necessary part of this project. Although this project took around 4 weeks to complete, I felt that I could have finished in a much shorter timeframe but work and life did have a hand in elongating the time taken.
I am proud of what I was able to accomplish though, and speaking to other users and testers of my design, they all felt like my feature was something they would use themselves which felt very validating for me.
Adding images/videos to reviews:
If I had more time I would have also liked to work on the Add images/videos to reviews feature as it was something that a lot of users mentioned in interviews. Reviews were something many users relied on and having the ability to see what other users have actually experienced would have been good for user's confidence and Airbnb's own ability to retain happy customers. Given the minimal nature of the UI and the professional photography displayed, adding user images/videos may make the UI look cluttered and 'un-professional.' In this case, I would have added icons with badges to reviews to let users know if a review has an image/video attached. Clicking the icons would then create a pop-up modal that will allow users to see the media. Thus allowing for the overall UI to retain its minimal and clean look. When users finish booking, the email that gets sent will have extra information to remind them to take photos/videos before leaving the stay. A reminder email will also be sent right before check-out as well.
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