Airbnb Services
Auditing and reimagining how Airbnb's newest feature fits into the platform experience.
Type
Concept Project
Platform
Mobile App
My Role
UX Audit & Redesign
What caught my eye
Airbnb released a new feature — Services. A dedicated tab for booking local experiences like photography, chef services, and guided tours. As a long-time Airbnb user, something felt off. It seemed detached from the familiar Airbnb flow I knew.
A few questions came to mind: Would established users readily discover this new tab? How does “Services” fit in with the existing user flow? As Airbnb adds more tabs, are these meant to be used together or function as standalone products? I decided to find out.
Mapping the friction
I mapped out the full user journey across four stages — discovery, filtering, evaluation, and booking — to see where the experience breaks down.
Research approach
I sat down with 3 friends and 2 family members who are frequent Airbnb users and deeply familiar with the platform. I walked them through the Services feature and observed where they hesitated, what confused them, and what they expected to happen.
Alongside this, I ran synthetic user research using AI — simulating different traveler personas to stress-test my assumptions at scale. This gave me a broader lens on edge cases and behavioral patterns that a small group alone wouldn't surface. The combination of real conversations and AI-driven analysis shaped the four friction stages below.
Discovery
How do users find out Services exists? Is the tab visible enough? What happens if they never tap it?
Filtering
Once inside, can users narrow down what they need? Are the categories clear? Does the filtering feel native to Airbnb?
Evaluation
How do users compare and evaluate services? Is there enough information to make a confident booking decision?
Booking
Does the booking flow feel familiar? Does it connect back to an existing stay, or is it completely isolated?
I took notes on all possible areas in which users struggled to understand something or expressed weariness to continue, and clustered them into themes.
From the clusters and usability tests I was able to tag some outlying themes under which the users felt most taken aback throughout their booking journey. I then decided to move forward focusing my efforts on resolving tensions across these blocks.
Concept Clarity Gaps
What's happening?
Users struggle to understand what Services are (vs. Experiences) and when each search control should be used. This injects early-stage uncertainty that lingers throughout the flow.
"Is a cooking class under Experiences or Services?"
Information-Hierarchy Hiccups
Where is it?
Critical decision data is hidden below folds or requires hover actions that don't exist, forcing extra scrolling and slowing evaluation.
"I can't see where the chef classes are listed"
Feedback & Cost Transparency Issues
How much is it?
Users don't receive timely feedback on how their inputs affect price or feasibility, which undermines confidence at the moment of commitment.
"All of a sudden my cart jumps to an insane number, I didn't even know where it came from."
Drawing up a hypothesis
Based on this research I was able to conclude a general hypothesis to where the pain points were rooted in and what could potentially be done to ease them.
Hypothesis
Overview
If we clarify what “Services” are, expose key package info above the fold, and show real-time pricing, then first-time users will reach the booking step with fewer back-tracks, because current confusion, hidden details, and surprise costs cause drop-offs.
Exploring directions
Keeping the hypothesis in mind I moved to FigJam and started ideating over the main clustered pain points I had discovered during my research and began carving out potential ideas from there.
After discovering 3 main concepts from FigJam I went back to ChatGPT to root out the best out of the three, prioritizing them based on impact, urgency and alignment of our goals.
After taking into consideration all potential concepts to test, I ultimately focused on the “Bundle it up” option.
Wireframes
Before committing to visuals, I worked through the structure and flow at low fidelity — testing layout ideas and interaction patterns.
The redesign
The final designs bring Services into the core Airbnb experience — connected, discoverable, and familiar.
Prototype developed with Figma Make
Growth Opportunities
Carrying out this concept was not only fun on a personal level but extremely eye-opening. Going in, I aimed to relieve some of the blockers I felt as a user of the product — but during my research I discovered how the new feature wasn't just a bottleneck for other users, but how taking a different approach could widen the horizons for Airbnb from a business perspective.
Designing the wireframes revealed how critical it was to tie the services flow into the overall booking process — not only for the user, but for the business. By surfacing services alongside accommodations, the redesign showcased a model that could increase profit margins by enabling users to add on services naturally as part of their journey, rather than discovering them in isolation.