Airbnb Community Center
A redesigned digital platform to help Airbnb Hosts — around the globe — find community.
Context
The Airbnb Community Center is a community-generated content platform serving millions of users worldwide.
Over time, however, the user-generated community site became challenging to navigate, lacked hierarchy and the UI did not reflect Airbnb design principles. Site usage was being siloed to “core super-users” with minimal new-user groups due to the challenging navigation patterns and poor information architecture. At a high level, our goal was to:
• Create visual design parodies with other Airbnb platforms
• Redesign the information architecture to better serve users
• Determine a streamlined tagging structure that is intuitive and useful to users
• Reinforce Airbnb principles of community and openness
• Reduce friction for content creation amongst first-time users
• Maintain a balance of a community-driven feeling while representing the Airbnb brand
My team and I at AI Collaborative Consultancy worked alongside Airbnb designers and product managers.
My input
Discovery 💡
• Craft research proposal with UXR to identify the Host’s context and unmet needs
• Conduct a card-sort analysis of the site to collect data on language use and key themes, uncover opportunities to streamline
Concept generation 📐
• Design prototypes to test assumptions and illicit specific responses from users
• Conduct prototype testing sessions with users
• Synthesize findings into key insights and design directives
Final design 〰️
• Design Intuitive, task-driven information architecture
• Create a streamlined tagging structure
• Simplify content generation page
• Design a user-profile page to support connection and community
Discovery 💡
We approached this challenge by first learning what purpose the community center could serve to be most useful to Hosts. Fortunately, we had the entire Airbnb Community Center site filled with user-generated content to glean information. I worked with data analytics to discover the most used tags and categories on the site, and then I used the information to do a card-sort analysis to align key themes thematically. Concurrently, we crafted a research plan to uncover:
1. Uncover how the Community Center experience can provide long-term value for hosts and prompt return visits.
2. Understand how the Community Center can engage users as soon as they land on the site.
3. Explore what Community Center purpose is most compelling to users.
4. Identify what motivates users to generate content.
Artifacts: Research plan • Card sortConcept generation 📐
With my UX design partner, I used the information from the card sort and ethnography to create an immersive prototype for research. In our research sessions, we first observed users interacting with the Community Center to identify their key points and capture qualitative feedback about their more nuanced motivations to engage. Then, we gave users access to the prototype and asked them to perform key tasks. The semi-structured interviews were with global Hosts of varying experience levels, and held 1:1 and in group settings.
Artifacts: Airbnb prototype 
Our top-level findings:
1. Most Hosts are on the site to complete tasks — not socialize. To cater to them, we leveraged a task-oriented labeling structure that quickly surfaces their top reasons for being there.
2. New users found the density of content on the homepage intimidating and hard to engage with. A persistent ‘start a conversation’ button in the top navigation bar helps them jump in and start a conversation.
3. Hosts needs vary drastically by region. A location-specific search option in the top navigation bar helps Hosts worldwide find the content that supports them.
4. Core users (users who engage often) value a place that feels ‘like it’s theirs.’ We created the category ‘off the record’ so those Hosts can continue their social chat.
Final design 〰️
Our iterative research led us to identify on a psychological level what motivated Hosts to engage with the site and from there, we designed an experience to cater to their wants and needs while maintaining the integrity of the Airbnb brand. This is reflected in the updated information architecture, tagging structure, content generation page, and UI. center for mobile and desktop
Team
Rebecca Henderson (UX-IA Collaborative), Claudia Martinez(UX-IA Collaborative), Meghan Sherman (PM-IA Collaborative), Amy Wicks (Design Research - IA Collaborative), Amy Fazio (PM- Airbnb), Guy Michlin (PM-Airbnb)
Role
Senior Designer
Stakeholders
Airbnb UX Leadership