
Airbnb Case Study
The "Airbnb Case Study" is an academic project that uses Figma and Google Docs to incorporate research, user needs, feedback, workflow, wireframing, and testing, all central to my design process. My primary audience was frequent Airbnb users, who praised the app's intuitive interface and personalized filters but noted the lack of better communication and information-sharing features. Through interviews and user testing, I gained insights that led to the development of new social features, including a "Reply" button for improved communication, a "Heart" feature to enhance user satisfaction, and a "Profile" page where users can personalize and share their experiences. These enhancements aimed to create a more socially interactive platform, addressing key user pain points and improving overall engagement. This project taught me how to design social media features and interfaces and develop a proper case study to showcase my design process.
Case Study: Research Airbnb
ARTG2400 Interaction Design Principles
Giovanna M. Bruno
27 February 2024
Introduction
Background
Since 2007, Airbnb has continued to transform the process and experiences of travel and discovery, thanks to its many personalized, easy-to-use features that allow users to craft their ideal trip. It also enables users to connect and communicate information with each other by giving users access to view or write reviews on the Host's Airbnb pages about their past experiences staying at Airbnb. As a result, it dramatically impacts the final decision-making of whether a user wants to stay at Airbnb. This project will continue to deliver ways to encourage communication, engagement, and improvements in user satisfaction. This will be achieved by incorporating new features into the current Airbnb platform and transforming it into a more social platform where users can better engage and share information.
Problem statement
After completing the dissection and initial research of the Airbnb app, the most prominent challenge emerged while exploring all of Airbnb's communication, engagement, satisfaction, and social features. As a result, the only feature that represented these aspects was the Host review section, where past Airbnb guests can write reviews of their stays. With that, the primary objective of this project is to provide Airbnb users with new features that can improve communication, engagement, and satisfaction while using the platform, making the app more social overall. Doing this will make Airbnb a social community where Users can share information and interact.
Approach
Research Methods
After conducting a competitive usability analysis that revealed features Airbnb possesses compared to other prominent booking platforms, such as Expedia and Vrbo, three preliminary interviews were conducted to identify different unmet needs, features, or obstacles within the Airbnb interface. Succeeding in a few aspects of the initial general research on the platform led to the discovery of recurring themes and consistent patterns. This observation was then dissected and reinterpreted into essential data, which later helped construct the How Might We (HMW) questions to guide the design process. Furthermore, after reviewing the HMW questions my classmates and fellow project members created and submitted, I selected one question that I found most applicable to a significant user pain point. Based on the HMW I choices, I began thinking of various wireframe concepts that I later sketched, shared with my project members, and then received feedback and discussed how to improve them. This led to the development of my low-fidelity wireframes and more user interviews; I guided the interviewees through the wireframes during these interviews, collecting identified problems and their proposed solutions. Based on the informative interviews, I implemented the proposed solutions and updated the wireframes to the final high-wireframe design.
User Personas
The General Personas were formulated during the initial interviews conducted on the Airbnb app. The Selected HMW Persona emerges from a thorough review of the HMW questions, pinpointing the most significant challenges, which were then identified and selected
Asked Questions:
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How would you rate their website layout on a scale of 1 to 10? Is it easy to understand and use?
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What are your favorite features on the Airbnb platform?
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Regarding the filter section, what other factors could be added to enhance the user experience?
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How can we improve the connection section?
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How can we prove communication?
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What are your thoughts about the Airbnb Experience and Online Experience sections?
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What are your minor favorite aspects of using the app?
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On average, how long would it take you to book a place while using this app?
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Would you use Airbnb for all your booking needs? If not, why, and what other platform?
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Regarding the rating process, such as "Cleanliness" and "Accuracy," what other aspects can we add to rate user experience?
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To protect the host, what other safety measures can Airbnb implement to allow this wise guest access?
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What are your thoughts about the Airbnb helpline?
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What other aspects can be added to improve Airbnb?
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Are there any aspects you think are unnecessary on this platform?
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How can we improve user satisfaction and engagement?
Group collected HMW:
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HMW Simplify?
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HMW provide more options for viewing the list?
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HMW stand out against other competitive travel apps?
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HMW improve the process of finding a place to stay?
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HMW attract new Airbnb users?
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HMW create a social platform for each user?
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HMW improve the safety of both guests and hosts?




Insights
The following user personas provide valuable insights into not only the bright points but also the different pain points and desired needs of the Airbnb interface for users. At the same time, some Airbnb users expressed positive opinions about many of the platform's features, such as its easy-to-use, comprehensible interface and personalized filter options. They have also expressed their issues and struggles related to a lack of communication and gathering of information. Furthermore, the chosen How We Might (HMW) Persona, Lilly Brooks, who expresses a desire for her training apps to have social qualities in the platform interfaces, makes her a positive and insightful source for the design process. Her desire for features that make the travel app more engaging, communicative, informative, and satisfying is vital to enhancing the Airbnb app's user experience.
Workflows
Based on the previous research, our primary goal is to develop features that make Airbnb's travel and booking interface more socially friendly. This will be done by creating new features to increase user engagement, communication, connection, and satisfaction. The first (light blue) workflow emphasizes the critical importance of improving communications and engagement between users by simply incorporating a "Reply" button on the Host's Airbnb reviews; users will have access to the comment page, where they can write as many reply comments as desired to the host's review or other users' reply comments. If a user receives a reply comment from another user, it will appear in the notification section of the interface. Overall, this feature will improve communication and engagement among users by enabling them to interact more with one another. The second (medium blue) workflow emphasizes user satisfaction and engagement. This is achieved by incorporating a "Heart" button on each user's comment and reply. By doing this, users can like or dislike the message. The total number of likes is recorded underneath the heart. If the user wants to see who liked the comment, they can click the number icon below, which opens a list of users who liked it. If a user receives a "like" on a comment they wrote from another user, that "like" will be shared and posted in the interface's notification section. As a result, it will improve user satisfaction when they receive a "Heart" on a comment they wrote and strengthen user engagement by allowing them to like or dislike a comment.
The third and final (dark blue) workflow focuses on the importance of all desired aspects: user satisfaction, engagement, communication, and user connection. This is done by developing and upgrading the "Profile" section of the Airbnb interface. This page provides users with a personalized and easily accessible space to share blog posts about their Airbnb experiences, which other users can view and interact with. This space allows users to manage their information, preferences, and activities. To break it down, the first incorporated feature is the "Add Blog Post" icon, which provides access to a feature that lets users choose from blog post styles to write and post their experiences, along with the optional "Add photo" feature. The next feature is the "Follower" icon, which records and displays who follows that profile and how many users follow it, along with a "Following" icon, which similarly records and displays who and how many users that profile follows.
Furthermore, each blog post includes "Comment" and "Heart" buttons that count and display the number of people who have "liked" or "replied" to it. If users receive a "Heart" or a "comment" on their post, they will be notified in the interface's notification section. Overall, adding these features will result in Airbnb's traveling and booking platform having more social media-based aspects, allowing users to connect and share information.
Workflow #1
Goal: Provide users with an engagement feature that increases communication and connection by allowing users to reply to other users' comments.

Workflow #2
Goal: Provide users with a satisfaction feature that increases connection and engagement with other users, allowing them the choice to "like" other users' comments.

Workflow #3
Goal: Provide users with a personalized profile section to post blog posts about their traveling experiences using Airbnb that others can view, message, like, follow, share, and comment on.

Design Solutions and User Testing
Low-fi Wireframes
Low-fi Wireframe Before User Testing
Combination of Workflow 1 & 2

Workflow 3:

Low-fi Wireframe User Testing
Low-fi User Testing #1

Low-fi User Testing #2

Low-fi User Testing #3

Hi-fi Wireframes
Combination of Workflow 1& 2


Workflow 3:

Conclusion
Throughout the design process for the "Research Airbnb" project, the most critical elements were user needs, feedback, and user testing. During my user testing, my primary audience consisted of participants who frequently used the Airbnb app at least once when planning their trips. During interviews, interviewees shared similar positive opinions about the platform's features, such as its easy-to-use, comprehensible interfaces and personalized filtering. However, they expressed concern about the apps' lack of features that would give users better communication and information-gathering capabilities. The persona of Lilly Brooks, a world traveler who heavily uses travel apps to plan her frequent adventures, was a great representation of the primary audience. During my primary research, interviews, and user testing, I gathered critical insights into the most vital aspects of users' values and design styles, focusing on Airbnb's engaging, communicative, informative, and satisfying features. Based on their insights, I experimented with various ideas to address the problems users faced with the existing communication, engagement, information, and satisfaction features in Airbnb's interface. As my research progressed, I aimed to add more social features to the app to enhance each user's experience. This concept led me to focus on providing users with a "Reply" feature, a "Heart" feature, and an updated profile page where users can personalize and share their Airbnb Express by writing Blog posts that other users can view. Overall, these designs focus on improving users' engagement, communication, connection, and satisfaction while using the Airbnb interface. As a result of exploring Airbnb's design interface, I have learned the importance of creating a social community where users can share information and interact. The redesign of the interface, such as adding a "Reply" button to improve communication and engagement, a "Heart" button that improved users' satisfaction, and lastly, a personal "Profile" page where users can connect and share information, serves the overall purpose of making the traveling and booking app Airbnb more socially interactive. Ultimately, it helps resolve several pain points from the interviews and user testing. Overall, when it comes to further refining the social aspect of the interface, the first possible feature would be creating a "Home" page, where users can showcase recent blog posts from other Airbnb users they follow or are following. By doing this, users will have easier access to connect and engage with others, as they can see what other users have been up to while using the app or in their daily travel experiences. Another feature I could add to improve communication and connection between users would be a "DM" section where users can contact each other for one-on-one or group conversations. Lastly, I would add a fraud detector to the blog post section of the interface. Doing this will ensure that no user creates blog posts about Airbnb experiences they did not have, thereby serving the overall purpose of protecting hosts and preventing the spread of false information.
