Airbnb Installment Booking Design

My Story with Airbnb

I did my UX internship in Airbnb, Guest Growth Team. Airbnb Installment Booking is my last project in my internship. According to our previous user research, we found potential users would like to use Airbnb for travel but the cost is higher than their expectations or they do not have enough budget for travel. In this project, I worked with Christopher (Lead UX Researcher) and Xin Zhang (Product Designer) to propose a new payment method design, reducing users' concerns about travel budge :-) 

Primary Research

According to previous user research from colleagues, we learned Airbnb is a fast growing company (YoY increase rate 120%+). On the other hand, we also learned some obstacles bother users to use our product. Travel budget & safety concerns are the most important issues when they book in Airbnb.

Cluster topics

We initiated idea that installment travel pay may reduce user concerns during booking. Another concern we had is installment may bring negative influence to our existing users. Since we don't want to hurt exiting users (Airbnb hosts), we want to understand their feelings and ideas about travel installment objectively.

User Segment Analysis

Focus Group Research

User segment analysis did not only help us to understand user needs different in different age group, but also helped us to recruit correct participants for focus group research and user testing. Because booking installments is a new concept, focus group research is a better idea compare with user interviews for exploring inspired new ideas from users. 

User Research Insights

Host trustworthiness, quality of host service, convenience of check-in/out, and cancellation policy are the main booking blockers of potential users that installment or insurance products can address.

Live first and pay later (pay at checkout time) was more appreciated compare with check-in time because it can increase guest confidence in receiving high quality service from the host

Payment installments is appreciated is that it allows users to increase their travel budget, even making trips possible that would otherwise not be

Cancellation insurance is generally appreciated because it simplifies users’ mental model of how cancellation works on Airbnb. However, the terms of general cancellation insurance) should be made clearer and easily-distinguished from that for hotels.

Design Process

Design Ideations

We wrote all ideas we collected from user research on the whiteboard and highlighted the useful information for out installment booking design.

After brainstorm session, I arranged the installment ideas in user journey map. We separated the user journey in three parts: before travel, in travel and after travel. After discussing with manager about business strategy and future plan, we narrowed down our ideas in pay before check in and pay after check out.

Information Architecture for Airbnb Booking

When we embedded the installment ideas to product design , we noticed that installment may influence users' decisions in any steps during booking. Meanwhile, the whole Guest team was re-designing the booking process in order to make it smoother and easier for new users. Therefore, we started from the mobile app design to determine which page should be embedded installment features and then gradually extended to responsive web design.

Core Wireframe and Usability Testing

As we simplified the booking workflow, we added our booking installment ideas into the core wireframe and created a quick design prototype based on Airbnb Design Language System.

After we finished the design critiques in our internal design team, I conducted a user testing session with real 12 Airbnb users. Different from digital usability testing, I printed out all the prototypes in paper and asked participants to mark the points they like or dislike and then talk aloud about what they think of installment features.

Overall, the participants like the installment booking ideas, especially potential Airbnb users. Based on the design critiques and user testing results, I iterated the design prototypes several times and created two different versions for A/B testing including Explore 2.0 and Airbnb Plus.   

Visual Design and Explore 2.0

Because the team planed to release the installment features with Explore 2.0 version, we followed the Airbnb Visual Language System (Lottie) for our design prototype. For more details about Airbnb visual design, you can find the article in here.

Final Evaluated Prototype

After I finished the prototype design, we released the prototype implements step by step. By the end of January 2018, the less up front installment is released with Airbnb Plus. Here is the demo for the latest booking flow.

Influence

In January 2018, Airbnb released a new payment method called "less up front" for both Mobile and Web. The design implementation is originally from what I did in this user research & design during my internship. Check it out! :-)