AIRBNB CASE STUDY

Introduction

This case study attempts to try to understand how Airbnb got be so successful. Companies, like Airbnb, come into a space and are disruptors to such a degree that they change an industry.  Airbnb’s pioneering of the sharing economy helped them gain strength to become the giant they are today. Airbnb’s business model was supported by great tech ideas suitable for collaborative consumption that aimed to take down the standard hotel industry. Even though they are on the bleeding edge of UX, there are inconsistencies with the site. It is hard to imagine that a site like this would have flaws; that will be explored in this case study.

A few factors that I found that make Airbnb so successful are …

Trust

The user must first ask him or herself a question: Can I sleep comfortably at night knowing the home owner still has access to the room or house? Airbnb set up a platform for exchanges to be made between an owner and renter; Airbnb is the middleman. Renters are required to go through a security check where their real identity is checked using Facebook connect. They also ask the question: Why are you visiting? The answer to this question helps establish trust. The reviews that people have and the experiences they go on are what really make Airbnb stand out from the hotel industry. You are renting a home from another person. The connection is to real people not a faceless company.

Ease of Use

Airbnb built an exceptionally user-friendly site that took the pain out of discovering and booking accommodations. They are heavy in to user experience, they actually listen to their users, and they are constantly changing their site to reflect that what the user wants. Airbnb releases updates on a regular basis to enrich the user experience. Just few days back the app was updated by incorporating interactive features.

Brand

Airbnb’s brand does a great job in curating listings on their homepage to make a spare room for rent look much more desirable. Searching for a place to stay on Airbnb becomes more about finding a more unique, quirky, creative space to stay– as if it is a quest or journey. This is in opposition to the hotel search engine websites where the options are standard, common, and boring. These listings generated the best kind of marketing– word of mouth. Traveling and staying in an Airbnb is “cool” and staying in a hotel is just average. Many people actually prefer Airbnb when traveling for work because they can find better listings on a hotel-sized budget.

Price

For the most part, none of the reasons above would have mattered if Airbnb’s prices weren’t generally 30-80% lower than available hotels. They could have built an interesting business renting niche properties like tree houses (which you can actually do now) but luckily they had a great business model plan and stuck with it.

Self Reported Survey

Renting a home can be scary, and as a customer, you want to feel safe. After all Airbnb’s business is about people. From their launch they have made substantial improvements to their safety. They have a robust 24/7 customer support, a trust and safety team, and they constantly remove bad users. But would you know that if I didn’t tell you? This needs to be apparent on the homepage. The only place that users can discover this is on the global footer which is not enough.

In late 2016, the company introduced a new category to the site called Experience (formally called Trips). As it is now, according to Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky, it ranked higher than homes because people like the experience of doing activities more than that of renting a home. By doing this, their mission changed a bit, and in turn, the experience of the website took a different direction. My concern is that the UX of the “Experience” section, is subpar to that of “Home Rentals”. There isn’t as many options or features to help the user find what they want faster, and the fear is that can this deter people from using it.

Adding these features would create solutions for a better experience in using the Airbnb website

  • Interactive map showing where the Experiences are located
  • Integrate Experiences into the home rental detail page
  • Make search work just as good if not better than how you search for a home
  • Making trust and safety more prominent on the homepage.

Task Based Questions for Survey

I asked three people, who fit the demographic of Airbnb, to complete a few tasks. All were millennials. Millennials already account for roughly 60 percent of all guests who have ever booked on Airbnb, and the number of Millennials who have booked on Airbnb has grown more than 120 percent in the past year. As the travel and hospitality market continues to expand, Millennials and Generation Z have been quicker to embrace home sharing.

QUESTION 1

Find a home to rent in New York City by Central Park.

Results 

Jim M. [User 1]

Age: 31 years old Gender: Male Title: Clothing Designer

  • Clicked on the search bar
  • Picked home filter before typing
  • Typed ‘New York,’ click on the home filter again
  • Used the map
  • Zoomed in to find the closest home to Central Park
Internal Comments

User still had to click homes filter button again to get the home rental section.

Mary T. [User 2]

Age: 33 years old Gender: Female Title: Writer

  • Clicked on the search bar
  • Started to typed ‘New York,’ and from the drop down selected ‘Home in New York’
  • Used the map
  • Zoomed in to find the closest home to central park
Internal Comments

Nice to have the filter that pops up with the search field results.

Blake E. [User 3]

Age: 35 years old Gender: Male Title: Craft Beer Brewer

  • Clicked on the search bar
  • Started to typed ‘New York Central Park’
  • The results came back Manhattan
  • Click on the home filter
  • Map had already loaded to show homes around Central Park
Internal Comments

User typed in Central Park, but the results served up Manhattan, which for some users might be confusing.

Wireframe Solution

QUESTION 2

Find an activity to do in Central Park from a home rental detail page.

Results 

Jim M. [User 1]

Age: 31 years old Gender: Male Title: Clothing Designer

  • Went back to the top, and retyped New York, but was still in the home rental section
  • Had to go back to the home page, by clicking the Airbnb logo
  • Typed New York again and selected ‘Experiences in New York’.
Internal Comments

Doesn’t give the user a map or a way to select an area section, similar to (home rental section). It just gives what types of activities, location is just as important as the type of activity.

Mary T. [User 2]

Age: 33 years old Gender: Female Title: Writer

  • User went back to the homepage
  • Selected the Experiences filter
  • Started typing in ‘walking tour in central park’
  • Results generate home rentals with the word ‘walk’ in them
Internal Comments

Search needs to filter for what was selected. If users choose the Experiences filter button, results should not be related to home rental.

Blake E. [User 3]

Age: 35 years old Gender: Male Title: Craft Beer Brewer

  • User had to use the Airbnb logo to go back to the home page
  • Typed New York in the search bar and selected ‘Experiences’ in New York
  • Scrolled down a few lines and randomly found a bike tour that started in Central Park.
Internal Comments

This user got lucky and randomly found what the task was, but if the task was more specific, they wouldn’t have been so lucky.

Wireframe Solution

QUESTION 3

Find Trust & Safety Section

Results 

Jim M. [User 1]

Age: 31 years old Gender: Male Title: Clothing Designer

  • Tried to type Trust and Safety into the search bar and results were ‘Trust, NC, United States’
  • User looked at the top navigation
  • Clicked help
  • Typed in ‘Trust’ and was able to find some articles that had trust and safety factors, but was unable to successfully find the Trust & Safety section
Internal Comments

Have the search at least be able to provide the page users are looking for, and not have it hidden and hard to find. When a user types in Trust, the first result should be the ‘Trust & Safety’ page

Mary T. [User 2]

Age: 33 years old Gender: Female Title: Writer

  • Went back to the home page and looked at the top navigation, then scrolled down
  • User had to continued to scroll three times due to auto populating/ continuous scroll of content before reaching the bottom of the page
  • User looked around a bit more in the footer and finally found the ‘Trust & Safety’ section
Internal Comments

Don’t have the page auto populate, or at a minimum, make it less, maybe only once. It took so long to finally get to the end of the page, that I feel most user might give up before hitting the end just because it just takes so long to get to it.

Blake E. [User 3]

Age: 35 years old Gender: Male Title: Craft Beer Brewer

  • Stayed on rental detail page
  • The user scrolled down all the way to the bottom
  • Found the link in the global footer.
Internal Comments

Even on the rental detail page, it took quite some time to scroll all the way down to the bottom because so many other blocks were in there: Details, Reviews, Host Details, Neighborhood, Map, and Similar Listings.

Wireframe Solution

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