AIRBNB

Comparison Feature

Overview

In 2016, over 15.5 million groups booked trips on Airbnb and this trend has continued to grow. The business has identified this as a key area for growth in revenue and brand engagement. How can Airbnb leverage their unique position and products to build solutions that solve for the needs of group travelers?

Imagine going on a group trip with 13+ people. There’s a designated group leader who is responsible for booking the accommodations. The group leader is overwhelmed with trying to keep track of who likes what homes and providing details.

I worked to reveal the users' needs from Airbnb’s product by conducting primary research, exploring user behavior and motivation. I used the information I gathered to add realistic context and insights to the design process.

Role

Visual Design
User Research
User Flows
Wireframing
Prototyping

Research

I spent time researching how I could best make the travel group experience better, which areas to focus on, and needs for improvement. Given the short timeframe, the most effective way to go about doing this was conducting a survey.

I surveyed 24 individuals who travel three or more times a year both domestic and internationally. This survey helped me to uncover:

1. How many people typically travel together?
2. How the group leader communicates with others?
3. How multiple home options are presented?
4. How is the final home decided?

Findings

More than 35% of the people I surveyed answered they travel with three or more people

  • Three or more, prefer larger space = Airbnb

  • Less than three, prefer hotel

The group leader communicates to others within the group through email, group text, screen shots and sending the link

  • Hard to keep track of and manage responses

  • One traveler goes to the extreme length of creating a spreadsheet and mentioned how having to do so creates extra work

Final home is decided based on a vote

  • This revealed the need for an in app/website voting feature

  • More than half surveyed mentioned voting

  • Majority votes wins

Design

I began to build a low-fidelity prototype to test if my concept was valid. I wanted to see if this is something users would get value from and do they generally understand how it works.

A large majority of people I surveyed said they use the mobile app. I wanted to direct my full attention to ensuring this feature works best for mobile by integrating the current Airbnb interface. The majority of people I surveyed mentioned they currently use the favorite feature. By using this feature, it allows users to compare the homes they have already shown interest in.