CONCEPT PROJECT
Brief
Improve the booking experience for holiday makers.
Details
2 week duration.
Partner: Mohammed Alhadad, UX Researcher and Designer.
Role
Research: Interviews, heuristic evaluation, competitor analysis, card sort.
Synthesis: Affinity mapping, persona, user journey.
Ideation: Sketching, feature prioritisation.
Prototyping & testing: Paper prototype, usability testing, iteration, interactive prototype (Axure).
Airbnb no longer in a market of its own
Home-rental
Hotel Accommodation
The unique 'home-rental' market established by Airbnb since 2008 is now being entered by competitors.
Similarly, since 2018 Airbnb has been listing hotel accommodation options in direct competition with travel aggregators like Expedia.
Given the similarity in service offering to consumers, quality user experience is increasingly becoming the key point of difference between competitors.
Airbnb - an exercise in confusion
As a first step in understanding the problem space a heuristic evaluation was carried out on Airbnb’s website and app which identified a number of usability issues:
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Inconsistent user controls
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Unclear navigation
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Disorganised display of search results
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Disconnect between activity and accommodation listings
These issues are a significant barrier to user orientation, navigation and systematic review of available listings.
Users care about activities the most
Five interviews were conducted with a mix of Airbnb users and non-users (two of whom have children) regarding holiday planning behaviours and preferences.
Synthesis of the data identified that 'activities' dictate the entire holiday planning process.
ASSUMPTIONS
VALIDATED
When planning a holiday, users identify both suitable activities and accommodation before committing to a course of action.
TO TEST
Users think about activities in terms of outcomes they want to achieve (e.g. relax, learn, explore) rather than by category (e.g. sport, nature, food and drink).
KEY INSIGHTS
Relevance
Users only go where there are suitable activities.
Spontaneity
Activities thoroughly researched but not booked in advance.
Essentials
Accommodation and flights booked in advance, based on proximity to suitable activities.
For the kids
Finding child-friendly activities is key when travelling with children.
PAIN POINTS
Ineffective search
functionality
...makes it difficult to find, compare and book items.
Group preferences
Accommodating different travel preferences of group members.
Overwhelming number of options
...means planning is a huge time commitment.
TAKEAWAYS
Activities drive all holiday decisions regarding where will be visited and what accommodation will be booked.
Users struggle to find suitable activities using current search, filter and view functionality.
Making holiday planning easier
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Users find it challenging to review and reconcile a large amount of travel options into a single itinerary that addresses everyone's preferences.
Ineffective search, filter and display functionality makes this task even more difficult.
SOLUTION STATEMENT
Users need a way to easily find and systematically review suitable activities and related accommodation options.
HYPOTHESIS
We believe that by improving search, filter and results display functionality on Airbnb's website, coupled with the ability to view accommodation and activity options simultaneously, users will be able to more efficiently find and book what they need when planning their holiday.
BENEFIT TO STAKEHOLDERS
Providing a more convenient holiday planning experience enables both users and Airbnb to achieve their goals.
CURRENT SEARCH EXPERIENCE
To understand how Airbnb’s activity findability and accommodation co-viewing functionality compared with other travel sites, we conducted a competitor analysis and found:
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No-one provides accommodation co-view functionality
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All provide consistently available search and filter functionality during activity searches (unlike Airbnb)
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All have a similar information architecture - grouping activities by category (e.g. Museums, Water Activities)
A better way of finding activities?
Towards making activities more findable we used an online Card Sorting tool (Optimal Sort) to test our new assumption and determine if there was a better set of filters than the 'categories' currently provided by Airbnb.
3 Card Sorts
1 open
2 hybrid
15 participants
30 activity listings to sort
TO TEST
Users think about activities in terms of outcomes they want to achieve (e.g. relax, learn, explore) rather than by category (e.g. sport, nature, food and drink).
Open Sort
When asked to create their own group names, activity groupings mostly aligned with existing Airbnb categories.
However, some participants created alternate group names based on outomes to achieve, e.g. 'Learn new skill', 'Get physical' and 'Self Help'.
Hybrid Sort 1
When given 2 pre-made sets of group names, users sorted activities equally between them.
Set 1: strongest group names from open card sort, e.g. 'Mind, body, soul'.
Set 2: 'Outcomes' group names derived from interview data, e.g. 'Learning'.
Hybrid Sort 2
When given only outcome-based group names, e.g. 'Relaxing', 'Learning' and 'Family bonding', activities were mostly sorted into these categories.
However, a small portion of participants also created Airbnb-style categories, e.g. 'Culture', 'History' and 'Cooking'.
TAKEAWAYS
Users think about activities in terms of both outcomes and categories.
Instead of replacing Airbnb’s categories altogether, they should instead be augmented by an additional set of selectable ‘interests’ that imply the outcome users are seeking to achieve.
Airbnb categories
Interests
Art & Culture
Entertainment
Food & Drink
Nature
Sport
Wellness
Adrenaline Rush
Family bonding
Group Activies
Kid-friendly
Learning
Relaxing
Determining the solution focus
With users carrying out holiday planning primarily on laptop / desktop,
Airbnb's website was chosen as the focus for solution design.
Activity search and display functionality was prioritised for the initial solution given its importance to the holiday planning process.
FEATURE PRIORITISATION
MUST
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Add ‘Interests’ filters
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Filters always available
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Add ‘change location’ function without resetting whole search
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Add 2nd search bar to refine results within selected geography
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Activity results arranged by type
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Change category ‘Wellness’ to ‘Mind, Body, Soul’
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SHOULD
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Savable activity searches
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View accommodation options on same map as activities
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Provide filters to refine accommodation listings whilst in activity map view
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Continuous breadcrumb trail
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Update global navigation to: highlight section of site user is in
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Update menu terms to match in-page headers
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Add ‘Animals’ as a standalone category
COULD
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Enter ‘points of interest’ to help define catchment area for accommodation options
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Apply saved ‘accommodation’ searches to activity map view
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WONT
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Pull in activity and accommodation listings from other travel sites
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Multi-user voting system to identify preferred activities and accommodation
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Designing for a better search experience
Iteration 1 - Paper Prototype
FEATURES INCLUDED
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Filters always available
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‘Interests’ filters
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‘Change location’ function without resetting search
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2nd search bar to search within selected location
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Pop-up windows on entry to ‘Experiences’ section to select location and interest preferences
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Search results displayed on same page (does not navigate to a different page)
TESTING AND FEEDBACK
Usability testing was conducted wherein users had the task of finding and booking a specific activity. A number of feedback items were gathered and analysed.
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New activity search / filter functions useful and understandable.
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Users want more screen space for viewing results.
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Users want information tags on filters and listings to assist with decision making.e.g. # activities per interest / category.
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Home page is confusing. Unsure what Stays, Experiences and Adventure tiles contain or how they relate to rest of page.
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Remove pop-up on 'Experiences' page as is considered unnecessary noise and a barrier to getting started with search.
Iteration 2
An interactive prototype was then created incorporating the updates identified from first round usability testing and then presented.
CHANGES
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Home page tiles and layout updated
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Collapsible search and filters
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Various info tags added to interests, categories and listings
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'Experiences' pop-up window removed
Coming home
In conclusion, prototype testing indicated that the solution we developed would result in improved usability and overall user experience of Airbnb's website.
Next steps
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Test iteration 2 with additional users to further refine feature set and measure impact on user experience.
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Build and test remaining features within ‘activity findability’, ‘accommodation co-view’ and ‘global navigation’.
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Research ‘during holiday’ user behaviours to determine what solution could be provided to assist users in selecting and booking previously identified suitable activities whilst ‘on the go’.
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Research ‘non-holiday maker’ users to identify usability improvement opportunities for people seeking to find and book an ad hoc activity for the immediate future, e.g. the upcoming weekend.