OVERVIEW
Connected by a common love for traveling and exploration, both Airbnb hosts and travelers now have a way to interact beyond the reviews and ratings.
Airbnb transformed the travel industry and became a leading pioneer in the sharing economy. By providing alternative accommodations for travelers, they've highlighted a new emphasis on the experience of traveling through places, people, and things (to do). With their large audience, there is a potential for further interactions and exchanges beyond the trip itself--one that doesn't involve traveling, but instead highlighting the shared experiences of their audience, communities, and users. As members document their family trips, the stories they tell could create earned trust for local Airbnb hosts by incorporating them into these stories.
This is the idea behind Airbnb Journal, our solution to the Airbnb x Adobe Creative Jam design sprint. Through a seamless platform that allows you to dive deeper into shared experiences with a post, photo, or comment, everyone can explore the connections we all share through travel.
PROBLEM
Currently, Airbnb does not offer a way for their larger community to interact on their platform besides through reviews of hosts.
Families are stuck at home due to the coronavirus, but when the shelter-in-place orders lift, we will want to create new memories with shared travel experiences and go back to booking stays with Airbnb.
Our high-level goals were to:
- Give group members a way to create a single trip or multiple stories, during or after travel
- Permit the sharing and organizing of photos, videos, notes, recommendations, links, and more
- Encourage engagement with a gamified experience
SOLUTION
Airbnb Journal
Home Screen
Saved Travels
Journals
Stories
Interactive Map
PROCESS
What were the steps we took to get there?
USER RESEARCH
Interviews with current Airbnb users revealed the missing pieces of community interaction
With a limited time frame, we were restricted by the type of research we could do and had to get creative with its implementation. Our end goal was to be able to empathize with our users and leverage the data collected to make research-based design decisions.
We understood that the concept of our application relies heavily on interactions between both community members and Airbnb users so our team interviewed both Airbnb hosts and travelers to better align our perspectives to theirs and draw conclusions.
Highlighted user quotes that addressed interactions within Airbnb
USER DEMOGRAPHICS
Getting to know who the users are
Our research indicated that millennials are the leading age group in the travel industry but there was a larger proportion of seniors than we expected. This emphasizes the need to create a platform that anyone of any age could understand and use.
It also reinforced the importance of a social media aspect as most preferred bookings that were picture worthy to share. Incorporating local elements into our solution should also be included.
150 million
36%
13%
77%
58%
Airbnb Users
Between ages 25 & 34
Aged 55 and older
Say they want to live like locals
Indicate social media is a major factor in booking decisions
Source: https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/airbnb-statistics#sources
BRAINSTORMING
How Might We...
After understanding who our users were and what they needed, we moved forward into brainstorming and narrowing down potential solution points for our application.
How might we allow people to learn, favorite, and save stories to safely connect?
The main goal of this design challenge was to create an experience to bring Airbnb travelers together so collaboration on trip itineraries or recording experiences would increase user-to-user interaction.
How might we build a safe space for the larger Airbnb community to connect?
Besides reviews, there aren't any other ways for users of Airbnb to interact and even then the ratings may not be accurate. By allowing the larger community to openly share and discuss their experiences, the stories they tell could create earned trust for local Airbnb hosts by incorporating them into these stories and avoid potential risk factors.
How might we encourage a gamified experience?
In addition to collaboration, we believed it was important to develop an experience for the user to keep coming back for more. We believed there was a possibility to establish incentives to drive engagement and bring value to the platform by leveraging one's disposition towards competition, achievement, and collaboration.
How might we give all users a chance to contribute equally?
There's an underlying connection between all of Airbnb's guests. Booking through Airbnb isn't always just a place to stay— it's an experience itself. Creating an open space to share these experiences allows users to cater to all adventurers, travelers, foodies, and explorers everywhere.
IDEATION
Turning insights into designs
We then pinpointed the main components of our extension based on our brainstorming and analyzed successful elements of competitor interfaces. Our key insights from this exercise led us to develop the following features:
Letting all family or travel members contribute, no matter how old they by creating a single trip or multiple stories, during or after travel.
Encouraging engagement with a gamified experience of a digital scratch-off map to make it unique and “gamified.”
The game is to travel the world.
Permitting the sharing and organizing of photos, videos, notes, recommendations, links, and more into a journal.
“Journal entry” sections include photos and videos, notes and tips, location secrets, recommendations.
PROTOTYPING
Putting it all together
After pinpointing the main components of our extension, we developed early prototypes in order to visualize where each would be placed and how the screens would work with one another. This meant reworking our initial ideas and cutting out aspects to streamline the user experience.
The first round of wireframing and prototyping to arrange elements of the app.
Once we both had our wireframes established, we analyzed the information architecture of different elements to determine the user flow. I then was tasked with completing the interactions between each element and unifying the different parts into one finalized prototype.
Interaction flow of page frames for final prototype.
TAKEAWAYS
Designing under pressure
With a design sprint, we weren't able to fit in as many steps and processes as we normally would. However, being able to experience an environment like this, we realized the importance of rapid prototyping. In order for us to reach a minimum viable product that allows key focus areas of the app's concept to shine.
Designing as a team
A highlight of this project was being able to work with a fellow designer on the same project. Using the coediting feature of Adobe XD was a fun and interactive experience. I learned that collaborative work is crucial to design as the exchange of ideas brings out the better parts of designs. My partner and I had many similar ideas but knew we had to cut down on certain parts. This taught us that we had to be able to let go of factors we may prefer for sake of functionality overall.
Let's Connect!
I love meeting people and engaging in new discussions so please reach out to me if you have any questions or just want to chat!
