Overview
Belong anywhere and everywhere, that is the heart of the Airbnb home and a big part of what makes it so special; it’s not a house or an apartment; a hotel or a condo; it’s a living, breathing piece of culture and personality. Airbnb reached out to SCAD to gather a curated team of designers and illustrators to illustration work infused with this philosophy.
Story
When Jennifer Hom joined Airbnb as Art Director and Illustration Manager she discovered an opportunity to focus in celebrating diversity. Why? Because when she sought to reinvent the visual identity of the brand, she quickly found out a problematic and glaring reality--minorities had a hard time relating to Airbnb's illustrations. many felt underrepresented and excluded.
As Hom herself puts it: "...I’m just now seeing illustration pique interest in the tech industry. Companies are starting to understand its value—that the images can inform and delight their audience."
This is where we came in. SCAD + Airbnb was a collaboration project with the purpose of infusing storytelling elements into illustration and design work with the end-goal of creating concepts that educate hosts and guests about new and existing features of Airbnb in a delightful way.
Design Process
Research
The research during this project was secondary, so I decided tone it down to the basics: secondary and primary research, organized through affinitization to uncover insights.
Our research helped inspire both the designers and illustrators in their work. The research methods varied from something as simple as pulling a drawing references of people, houses and places to conducting long-form interviews with both hosts and guests in Airbnb's current ecosystem.
Our research accrued into:
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20+ interviews
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100+ survey responses
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350+ data points
Secondary Research
What is Airbnb doing behind the curtains? What is it’s corporate nature and how are they looking to innovate in the near future? Answering these and more questions helped fill the gaps between all the data we gathered from hosts and guests, and Airbnb’s approach in tackling them.
Affinitization
Once we felt confident enough on both quality and quantity of our research, we moved on to affinitization where we grouped more 350 data points into clusters, finding patterns and discovering the user's voice.
Primary Research
For guests, we fixated on two types of users: heavy users and casual ones. By gathering information from those, we accelerated our findings in both ends of the spectrum.
For hosts, we focused on both former and current hosts to try and understand not only why people are drawn to consistently rent out their spaces in this platform, but also why they would stop.
Findings
By organizing all that research we were able to build a comprehensive criteria for our ideas. This turned into a design framework which soon became a lens with which we designed extraordinary concepts with precision and creativity.
How can I feel like I belong?
Trust
People feel vulnerable dealing with strangers, so reliable visual proof and traveling with family/friends can help increase a sense of trust.Communication
Friendliness and good communication contribute to fond memories and create an opportunity for relationships that go beyond Airbnb.Empathy
Since sharing a home is such a personal experience, being empathetic can make a new relationship more enjoyable.Meaning
Authentic, immersive travel creates meaningful interactions and a sense of belonging.
How can I dive into a new culture?
Experiences
An organized and stress-free trip with extra amenities, food, gifts, and smooth planning makes the experience fully enjoyable.Interactions
After overcoming language barriers, valuable interactions and cultural exchanges take place.Involvement
Getting fully involved and meeting expectations can be hard work but is crucial for the foundation of an enjoyable experience.
How can I customize my trip?
Flexibility
The platform should be able to adapt to the individual needs and preferences of each user, without creating inconsistencies or conflicts.Comfort
Airbnb guests are looking for comfortable and affordable accommodations that provide a unique and personal touch.Control
Users should have the ability to control their level of interaction with the platform and with other users, in order to create a safe and comfortable experience.
How can I be aware?
Clarity
It's possible to trust and enjoy a trip when there is full clarity on the information provided and the roles and responsibilities of all parties.Safety
Simplified reviews are desired as they are important to determine first impressions, safety, issues to be improved and recognition in advance.Information
Locals are concerned that Airbnb is negatively impacting rental home availability.
Design Solutions
Asset Library
So, we delivered more than a 100 beautiful illustrations, but we didn't stop there. With a little bit of UX knowledge, we designed a library program to store, organize all existing and future vector-based work. Separated by categories, it offers a simple solution to plug in assets into all of Airbnb's channels quickly and efficiently.
Note-worthy features include the ability to select multiple assets at once, and a "My Assets" category that allows employees to bookmark their most frequently used illustrations for easy access at all times. We designed it to be seamless. It included drag-and-drop integrations with programs Airbnb frequent programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, Sketch, Figma and even e-mail.
Variable Illustrations
Why deliver only a handful of illustrations, when you can build a system that produces infinite variations? As its biggest feature,we designed this program to be customizeable. By clicking on an image, you can easily edit the illustration; swapping out characters; changing accessories; even adding scenery. We also included the option to export the vector image in any size.
Location-Specific Illustrations
What's more, we envisioned how this program could be enhanced using Airbnb's community. By taking advantage of its inherent tagging system, we able to generate images automatically for each individual user connected to the Airbnb platform. Imagine traveling anywhere, and seeing both yourself and your host accurately represented on your phone screen. We wanted to create the ultimate celebration of diversity and culture, and tailor it to each person individually.
Enhanced Onboarding
Airbnb starts with the on-boarding experience. Like any first impression, it can be pivotal in a user’s decision to commit to the platform. Following our research, we realized there was a missed opportunity to integrate Airbnb’s illustrations to the mobile platform. This is how we envisioned it could look embellished with these beautiful illustrations.
Guest-Host Match
If your home is a reflection of your personality, what better way to create memorable stays than by matching hosts and guests with common interests? Imagine an art enthusiast backpacking through Europe stumbles into an Airbnb that feels like an art museum; imagine a gamer at an e-sports player’s condo, or a fishing fanatic in a boat house in New Orleans.
Physical Products
We even designed a rewards points system, where hosts can accumulate points for getting 5 star ratings and spend it on these branded Airbnb products. The purpose is to spread the brand, reward host’s performance and above all, brand and amenitize the Airbnb lodging experience.
As designers, we couldn't help ourselves, we took all these beautiful illustrations and made them physical. We wanted to see how far we could take it.
Outcome
During the 10th week, we flew to Airbnb's headquarters in San Francisco and I presented this project to the clients. They loved it. The entire team agreed the quality was indistinguishable from their in-house work and gave us a standing ovation for those 10 weeks of hard work.
Since then we've been spotting some of our illustrations here and there.
Like what you see?
Check out the full process book here.