Overview
CONTEXT
Company Background
Airbnb has completely shifted the hospitality industry over the last decade and strongly participated to the recent travel revolution.
Founded in 2008 by Brian Chesky and Nathan Blecharczyk, the preferred one-night booking platform operates as a peer to peer marketplace for short-term vacation rentals and offers a wide range of options worldwide among its 5.6 million active listings.
CHALLENGE
WHY ?
Complaints on the app store
We know there is a conformity issue by reading many bad reviews about this matter on the app store.
KEY SUCCESS CRITERIA
Discover
BENCHMARKS
Competitive analysis
We performed a competitive analysis to understand how leading businesses address similar challenges. By examining around 10 products, we identified key strategies to minimize non-conformity risks.
Define
Conformity Assessment
Before digging further into this project, we needed to get a detailed understanding of conformity assessment.
This step was crucial to fully comprehend the broad scope of the problem. We made sure to consider all the relevant implications and actors concerned.
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Subjective
interpretation
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Transparency
& honesty
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Responsibility Monitoring
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Importance
of the community
Actions to maximise compliance
Ensuring compliance of lodging listings on Airbnb involves addressing each phase of the stay with targeted actions. Focusing on these steps before, during, and after the stay enhances user satisfaction and trust.
Integrating these measures at every stage is essential for achieving optimal compliance, meeting travelers' expectations, and providing a high-quality, reliable lodging experience.
Check content accuracy
and clarify listing
Check Before
Report mismatch
or malfunction
Report During
Share after
Share your experience
with the community
Develop
Mindmap & Crazy 8S
Our mind map has been instrumental in highlighting crucial aspects for ensuring conformity and understanding the distinct roles each actor plays.
Purpose :
Ensure all aspects of conformity are identified and considered.
Group associated ideas and create hierarchies.
Focus on the most promising objectives.
KEY FACTORS & STAKEHOLDERS
Subjectivity
Detecting and preventing fraudulent activities is critical. Airbnb must monitor and address fraudulent behavior promptly to maintain trust and safety.
Host
Honesty, regular updates, active involvement, and responsiveness are essential. Clear communication ensures reliability and reassures travelers.
Airbnb
Responsibility, safety, rapid problem identification and support are key. Assistance is crucial for a secure user experience, but procedures remain limited
Storyboards
Those storyboards helped us to visualise our concepts from both point of views : host and travelers.
It was also an effective way to project ourself into the flow we wanted to create and generate key concept for our solutions .
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Keywords search in the comments
Filter comments by criteria
Publication date ( pictures)
Ambassador concept ( superhost version traveler)
Notifcation to update the listing
Profile : see previous comments left by travellers
(discourage overly critical individual)
Breakdown of the listing page
We analyzed the listing page views to understand how members access the listings and which information they value most, based on comments. This helped us identify the main causes of non-conformity :
Recurring complaints :
Missing / Broken amenities
Accomodations layout
Cleanliness
Common complaints :
Inacurrate listing
Misleading location
Scams
Lack of clear process
During this analysis we also realised airbnb didn't have a clear process regarding conformity issue. If there is a mismatch or a fraud, travelers can contact customers service, but there isn't a dedicated feature to make it a priority.
When a problem emerges, travelers require airbnb to adress it with reactivity, but the lack of clear process makes it more delicate to handle.
Deliver
PROTOYPE V1
Task prioritisation
To enhance the application within a short timeframe, it was imperative to plan ahead and prioritise our tasks.
Our main solution was based on the prioritisation of listing content to highlight certain information and foster a climate of trust and transparency. We implemented micro features helping travelers to assess listing accuracy and personalise their research
2021
Play button suggesting a virtual tour video is available
Rainbow circle around the preiview picture
Circular Gauges
Cleanliness rating
Dot navigation
Search comments
Dot navigation
Compliance Rating
Travelers' overall impression is based on the nature of comments left by previous travelers. Therefore, we personalized travelers' search by adding new features in the comments section
Test context & objectives
We conducted usability tests with 5 participants. The goal was to test our solution concept, understand participants habits when booking an accomodation and detect pain points in our prototype.
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Iterate
Value more host’s profile on the listing page
We underestimated the importance of the host's profile: users often looked for it first for reassurance on responsiveness and commitment.
Many struggled to find it, so we moved the host's profile to the top of the listing, just below the picture, and added multiple entry points.
This improvement helps users quickly find the info they need to feel confident in their choice.
Add filters in the comments search bar
Each rating criteria is still clickable but we also included complimentary search criterias filters in the comments section : global rating, criteria rating, publication date, frequently mentioned keywords
As we noticed the classification of comments by rating criteria was not always seen during the test, we added multiples filters criterias in the comments search bar.
Report an issue with amenities in the post trip survey
During the usability test, most participants informed us they were checking in details amenities, even on pictures to avoid bad surprises when they’ll arrive.
We therefore decided to include an easy way to report an issue with an appliance.
Next traveler would be informed before booking as the incident will be displayed on the accomodation listing until the issue has been solved,
KEY METRICS TO MONITOR
Are the new entry points effectively guiding users to payment limit information and encouraging interaction with the limit pages?
Tracks the decrease in negative reviews to assess the effectiveness of user experience enhancements.
Are we seeing a significant drop in support tickets related to freemium limits ?
What is the conversion rate of users upgrading to premium plans? The target conversion rate should ideally be between 5% to 10%.