Smart Travel Companion
A mobile-based solution for Airbnb users to discover authentic, local experiences in city they are unfamiliar with, guided by the opinions of local Airbnb hosts
Duration// 3 weeks
Tools// Figma, Illustrator, InVision, Principle
Team Size// 4
Role// Visual Design, Prototyping, Ideation, Interviewing, Usability Testing
Problem Space
This companion experience would provide Airbnb guests with local and authentic experiences that aptly balance the business needs of creating bookings with the guests desire to have a great trip.
Airbnb provided us four metrics for success
The response is useful for pre-trip planning as well as for on-trip guidance
The response is intuitive for travelers to follow and plan their existing itinerary
The response has simple ways to get inspiration to further build their itinerary
The response is as easy to use for occasional travelers as it is for frequent travelers
Research
Scoping our research
Due to the rapid nature of this project, we knew it was critical to scope our research accordingly. To do this we started with breaking down the prompt given to us and preparing questions for our stakeholders at Airbnb.
Talking with them we learned Airbnb had a desire to show their value as a trusted company across all Airbnb products and the information they provide.
To create this trust, they wanted us to focus our response on cultivating local and & authentic trips for its guests.
Narrowing our demographic
We had an assumption that adults between the ages of 20-35 do lot of traveling and therefore are a core user group for Airbnb. We narrowed in on this target demographic based on this assumption.
Research Round 1:
Method and Goal:
Diving into research, we conducted interviews with 10 Airbnb users with a goal of understanding how they plan a trip. We wanted to know what their process was like, what kind of information were they after, and what tools they were using.
From these findings, we identified two users groups we wanted to design for. We named these groups Savvy Spreadsheeters and Thrifty Drifters based on how they trip plan.
Savvy Spreadsheeters
Travels who want to plan out their trip completely and leave little room for change
Thrifty Drifters
Travelers who do little to no planning for a trip and enjoy whatever experiences present themselves through serendipity
We knew we needed to craft a response that appealed to both of these users groups.
Research Round 2:
Method and Goal:
Before we felt comfortable jumping into design we wanted to tackle this question of what people value in reviews and recommendations.
I did another 10 interviews, this time focusing on why people trust certain kinds of reviews over others.
I created an activity in which participants were asked to rank multiple screens of product pages, all with different kinds of reviews and endorsements, while thinking out loud.
People put a lot of trust in an endorsed review. For example, a review with 500 likes garnered a lot of trust from participants. Participants also valued reviews from people with a perceived level of expertise in what they are reviewing. We sought our to find a reliable source of reviews from people who knew the travel destination very well.
1st Insight
A few quality, well written reviews, meant more to participants than many smaller reviews
2nd Insight
Participants prefered verified, highly endorsed reviews above all else
In short,
Quality > Quantity
Finding a local, authentic voice:
From our research, we knew it was imperative for our solution to have a reliable source of reviews from locals in different cities all over the world. These reviews would also need to convey inherit authenticity to gain the trust of Airbnb customers.
To this end, Airbnb already collects recommendations from local hosts to display in the hosts guidebooks in the web version of Airbnb. By condensing these reviews within the context of location, we can leverage the voice of Airbnb hosts as the authority on where travelers can have authentic, local experiences. Based on our interviews, it is clear that travelers value local perspectives because they know better than anybody else about unique and authentic things to do in their area.
We believe that making these recommendations more easily accessible will build trust among users and hosts and allow travelers to live like a local in a new city.
Design Process
With these insights, we worked to create a guide book that allows travelers to find vetted local and authentic experiences at any point in their trip
Initial Wireframing
To start designing we decided to create numerous wireframes that we felt accomplished some of the different design goals set before us. Looking at different UI conventions and implementations, we then went through a series of dot voting experiences to come up with ideas that we felt eased the burdon of trip planning by presenting these reviews and recommendations to travels before and during their travels.
Group Sketching
I took the voted upon wireframes and created a cohesive flow which could be used for testing. Once everyone on the team felt our wireframes accomplished our measures for success, I created a click-through, low-fidelity prototype in InVision.
Usability Testing
I conducted a usability test with 6 participants using our click-through prototype. Each participant was given a series of 4 tasks to accomplish. These included scenarios such as, “You just finished a hike and it’s a hot day. You want to eat at a local snow cone place. How would you find the closest one to where you are currently located?” I recorded the amount of time and clicks it took people to accomplish these tasks and then evaluated each flow based on these metrics. From there, we made adjustments to the screens that proved more troublesome to our users in testing.
Design Response
After finalizing wireframes and low-fidelity prototypes with the results of the usability test, I created a high-fidelity prototype with Airbnb’s style guide to convey what the final product would look like when shipped
Finding a home for our solution
Since we were creating this a feature for Airbnb’s existing mobile app, our first challenge was to find
a home for our solution.
Considering we were serving information based on the specific destination of the travelers Airbnb, we found the trips tab to be most appropriate for this travel companion to live.
When a traveler goes to find information about a booked Airbnb, they are presented with a call-to-action to “Explore and plan your visit” using a “City Guide.” This is where our solution lives.
Your Cheat Sheet to the City
Once the City Guide is open, travelers can pick from a variety of different categories to explore.
We choose these categories because they are already used within Airbnb’s Guidebooks. We assumed these categories were created and tested by a team within Airbnb and met both user experience
and business needs.
In this instance, the user is looking at the Food Scene category in the City Guide for Nashville, TN.
Endorsed Reviews from Local Hosts
Here, the travelers can see a list of the most recommend experiences by local Airbnb hosts.
By defult, a ranked list of all the best experiences that the destination has to offer is featured.
This ranking is based on recommendations from local Airbnb hosts in the area. The more local hosts endorse an experience, the further up the rankings it climbs.
Each of these experiences lives on a card where users can see some quick information about the place, save them to an itinerary, or tap to see further information.
On the top of the screen, a map marked with the experiences listed is displayed. This gives users a lay of the land and and an understanding of where these local spots are in relation to one another.
Flexibility by Sorting
Travelers also have the ability to sort how the experiences are presented.
By choosing to sort with “Near Me,” a traveler can find experiences close to their current location. This empowers the Thrifty Drifter to be able to find vetted experiences, on the go, no matter where they are in the city.
By sorting with “Near My Stay,” a traveler can find experiences close to their booked Airbnb. By doing so, Savvy Spreadsheeters can plan ahead of their booking to find convenient restaurants and experiences close to their stay without sacrificing authenticity or time.
Artitecture of how the Travel Companion presents it’s information from the Airbnb guide books.
Local, Authentic, and Trustworthy
If a traveler clicks on one of these experiences, for example Biscuit Love, they can find information about how far away it is, where the restaurant is located, contact information, a price and type of food category, and hours.
Additionally, users can view endorsements from local Airbnb hosts about the restaurant. For example, Casey is a Nashville local and has given Biscuit Love a raving review. Those who found the review helpful can mark it as such, ensuring that future users only see information that will be useful to them.
Looking back
The biggest thing I took away from this project is how to distill the design process down when needed. This was a very short project and while plenty of assumptions had to be made for the sake of time, the core concept of the design was able to be tested with target users.
Working off of a specific prompt rather than a more abstract problem space was also a new challenge for me. I learned to always dive deeper into what a client is actually trying to accomplish with the product being created. By doing this, you, as the designer, can solve real user problems instead of only meeting
a sterile business case.
Overall, this was an exhausting but very rewarding design project. However, it was all worth it when our design was selected by Airbnb as the best design response
in the class.
Going Forward
I will keep an approach of rapid testing to ensure design decisions are valid. I will also always being sure to circle back to the needs of the people I am designing for.