Airbnb Concierge
How might we incentivize users to keep location services on at all times to enhance their travel experience and increase user data for Arity?
Overview
Airbnb Concierge is a strategic partnership with Arity, integrating their cutting-edge location-tracking technology into Airbnb’s existing app to drive mutual benefit and increase data utilization. Airbnb Concierge is an upgraded version of the Airbnb app, encompassing a range of user-friendly features to encourage users to change their location services to ‘always-on’ while enhancing the overall user experience.
Roles
Project management, client engagement, user testing, stakeholder research, design research, concept ideation, iterative prototyping and wireframing.
Client
I. Research
Product Discovery
Our first task was to figure out what app within the travel space we should focus on to find a partner for Arity to get users to use an app and turn location services on their phones to ‘always on’. We conducted user testing to better understand the following questions: What apps do travelers use most before, during, and after their trips? What do travelers use the apps for? What app do travelers struggle with the most? What makes users reluctant to turn location services on and what would release those inhibitions?
User Interviews
Our team started conducting interviews about travel across a wide range of people. We pinpointed opportunity spaces to solve specific users’ needs. We also conducted secondary research to better understand the landscape, habits, aspirations, and tensions of our users. We developed journey maps, tensions, insights, and frameworks to organize our findings and support our ideation for potential solutions.
II. Define
Partnerships
Once our interviews were conducted, we were able to decide which app would be most greatly impacted by the integrated of the Arity software. We chose to focus on the AirBnb app.
User Flows & Journey Maps
We modeled the users journey in a user flow.
Insights & Opportunties
Through our primary research with potential users and secondary research of Airbnb, we developed insights and opportunity areas that could meet user needs while finding ways to get users to switch their location services to "always on". We wanted to do this all while staying on brand with Airbnb's mission statement, goals, and style guide.
III. Design
Conceptualize, Ideate, Evaluate, Iterate
We started by creating low-fidelity prototype sketches to test with users. We refined our service offerings as well as the entire user experience. Next, we developed higher fidelity prototypes with our refined services. We then created a story around our designed experience, which was supported by all of our research. We developed a single digital experience that was presented to Arity.
IV. Deliver
Features Overview
Personalized recommendations: Restaurants and activities based on previous trips, likes, and dislikes.
Host Recommendations: Restaurants and activities based on recommendations from the host.
Necessities Near Me: Shows where the closest necessities are such as grocery stores, pharmacies, and hospitals.
Reservations: Scheduling appointments & reservations virtually in the user's own language to alleviate barriers.
Local Traffic Densities: Label locations as low, medium, or high traffic.
Safety Scores: Score-rated system to show how far away things are and the safest way to get there.
Feedback on recommendations: Ability to give feedback to the app on whether or not the personal recommendations or information is helpful/accurate.
V. Review
We shared our completed UI and UX flow with Arity, along with our finished research, frameworks, and any opportunity areas we identified beyond the scope of the project that provided valuable insights.
Key Learnings
Due to privacy concerns, users are cautious about sharing their data. To gain their trust, it is essential to be transparent about how the data will be used and offer tangible benefits to the user.
Collaborating with strategic partners who possess field expertise can enhance the value of data by providing more insights and perspectives.
Our team's productivity was greatly improved by assigning tasks based on each team member's strengths. This approach allowed us to work efficiently, produce high-quality outputs, and learn from one another.
The Team
Special thanks to Sydney Bernstein, Caroline Scheibel, and Seth Applebaum.
