Part of a content project for Airbnb. Created for Product Content Strategy course, taught by Katrina Schwieterman at University of Washington.
Content audit excel file: including page level, module level, and element level audits
Scope of the audit
Home page (before logging in)
Home page (after logging in)
Search results page (stay)
List of results
Map
Summary
Filters
Global navigation
Terms, privacy & more
Bnb information page
Photos
Price & rating
Basic info
Dates, availability & capacity
Popularity
Reviews
Details
Availability
Host info
Booking confirmation page
Key Learnings
Overall, the site is simple and easy to understand. The emphasized content is the most concerned information to the audience, and the information architect is quite clear through accurate position, color and size.
The home page delivers a clear brand message through photos and the minimum text effectively shows what Airbnb has to offer.
For the target audience, price, rating, location, and appearance are the most important content. On the search results page, those pieces of information are all visible and easy to find partly because texts are minimized.
Details on the bnb information page are categorized clearly and sorted in an expected order. Icons are used to make reading easier. Call-to-action is always present on the right.
Problems & Suggestions
Search results page: adventure promotion
Although the list is clear, after scrolling for a while an adventure promotion section pops up and interrupt the browsing process. In the case I encountered, I searched for stays in Paris and I bumped into a “bikepacking adventure” in Bath, UK, which is not even close to Paris. This promotion is irrelevant to the purpose of the search results page and should not be placed here.
→ Suggestion: I would suggest placing an adventure promotion only if the location is near the city where users are searching for stays. This improvement can be measured by click-through rate of the adventure promotion section.
Search results page: sort by
The order of the list of results is not specified. As users cannot adjust the order, they might wonder if Airbnb is promoting particular places by putting those on the top, which would decrease Airbnb’s credibility and brand trust.
→ Suggestion: Just like most e-commerce sites, I would suggest adding a “sort by” function, enabling users to customize the order of the results by price or rating. Success would be people using the function and shortening the time spent on browsing through the list.
List of results module: utilities
The utilities element on search results page raise some questions. I can see places with Wifi, heating, air conditioning, and kitchen, but I don’t know which of them lack those utilities. If “wifi” is not specified, does it mean that the place doesn’t provide wifi? It is unclear that only those present are specified, yet those absent are not. I figured out that the list includes wifi, kitchen, heating, and air conditioning only after scrolling for a while.
→ Suggestion: First of all, research is required to figure out which information are the most concerned for the audience, so that we can decide what to put on the search results page instead of leaving them on the bnb information page. If those four are the top concerned, I would suggest a clearer list such as “Wifi ✓, Kitchen X, Heating ✓, Air conditioning X” which is visible on each booking option.