A New Way to
Itinerary Planning
A UX Case Study
In 2023, Southpaw Insights found that 63% of Americans revealed that they had poor experiences planning a past trip. Trip planners are overwhelmed with the time-consuming journey of the trip planning process, coordinating trip itineraries using various tools, finding themselves tired before even searching for Airbnb accommodations. By integrating and simplifying this complex pre-Airbnb journey, we can not only improve the travel planning experience of users, but also contribute to Airbnb's company goals of providing an end-to-end platform that improves people’s lives.
Role:
Researcher
UX/UI Designer
Team:
Solo Class Project
Timeline:
2 weeks
(80 Hours)
Tools:
Figma
Notion
Miro
Travelers are faced with time-consuming and stressful trip planning processes that require them to use multiple tools to plan their trip itinerary before beginning to search for Airbnb accommodations.
Introducing a new feature to help travelers plan their trip: Users can enter their travel activities, and the platform will provide personalized Airbnb recommendations, and help create the best itinerary.
Results
By integrating a tool within Airbnb's existing functionality, users can efficiently plan trips without the hassle of juggling multiple tools. This addresses key user pain points, aligning with the project's goal to enhance the overall travel experience.
High usability ratings and positive feedback from participants suggest that the new feature has successfully cut down on the time users spend navigating multiple tools.
01
Empathize
User Interviews
Competitive Analysis
02
Define
Customer Journey Map
HMW Statements
03
Ideate
Sitemap Feature Integration
User & Task Flows
Sketching
Low Fidelity Wireframes
High Fidelity Wireframes
04
Usability Testing
High Fidelity Prototype
Usability Testing
Iterate
01 EMPATHIZE
Uncovering the problems and pain points in trip itinerary planning by conducting interviews with Airbnb users aged 27 to 35.
Two key insights emerged:
1. Customers plan their travels outside of the Airbnb platform, going to it only once a basic schedule is in place.
2. A common issue is the time-consuming manual structuring of tasks for maximum efficiency.
By resolving these user-identified issues, we not only improve their planning experience, but we also connect with Airbnb's larger objective of offering a comprehensive, end-to-end platform that enhances users' lives.
Direct and indirect competitors
Two key growth opportunities emerged:
1. A prevalent trend of accommodations being booked through third-party integrations.
2. A gap in the market where no single platform seamlessly integrated both accommodation booking and itinerary planning functionalities.
These findings not only align with the widespread dissatisfaction revealed by Southpaw Insights but also lay the groundwork for a new feature solution.
CUSTOMER JOURNEY
MAP
Creating a customer journey map revealed insights into trip planning complexities.
To address the overwhelming and time-consuming nature of trip planning, the map contributes to identifying areas in simplifying the trip planning process at various stages.
02 DEFINE
Opportunities
HOW MIGHT WE
CONSIDERATIONS
1. Aligns with Airbnb core mission and values
2. Does it address at least one pain point of users?
3. What are the technical and resource constraints that might affect implementation.
HOW MIGHT WE
SOLUTIONS
Solutions aimed at keeping trip planners involved within the Airbnb ecosystem as much as possible.
INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE
With a solution direction, the new "Itinerary" function, available via the main navigation and user's profile menu, was developed to ease the overwhelming trip planning process. This feature seeks to be consistent with Airbnb's present structure and to help users immediately identify the new capability. This enhancement simplifies the various tools used to plan trip itineraries.
USER AND TASK
FLOWS
By integrating the new feature into the information architecture, the user and task flow not only ensured discoverability but also retained user familiarity as best as possible. This also uncovered insights into driving user retention, promoting the itinerary feature, and enhancing smooth user engagement, creating a more enjoyable trip planning experience.
03 IDEATE
BRAINSTORMING
IDEAS
The user and task flows played an important role in identifying crucial screens as the ideation process progressed. I learned that anchoring the sketching process around important content like trip dates and guest numbers was critical in directing the designs.
LOW FIDELITY
WIREFRAMES
Screens from the sketches were chosen based on organization and intuition. Faced with design challenges during the process, I sought inspiration from platforms like Airbnb and Mobbin, as well as competitors' websites to enhance my layout and itinerary organization.
HIGH FIDELITY
WIREFRAMES
I focused on leveraging Airbnb's current functionalities and designs. One key function was Airbnb's current location finder tool into the design, reducing the user path and aligning the design with both user and business objectives for a more natural experience.
04 USABILITY TESTING
USABILITY
TESTING
With 5 participants (2 in-person, 3 remotely), participants were asked to rate the ease of use on a scale of 1 to 10. 75% of participants rated a score of 2, indicating a high level of ease of use.
However, one key feedback was that the CTA button to “add a place” was not easily noticeable. The text was small.
ITERATIONS
With the feedback, the "add a place" hyperlink was changed from a link to a prominent primary button, placed to be easily identified as the primary call-to-action.
Similarly, on screens where the CTA functions as a secondary button, I modified it to appear as a primary button.
