Airbnb

Airbnb is a marketplace to discover and book unique accommodations around the world. The concept behind Airbnb — to allow individuals to monetise their extra space and to showcase it to an audience of millions. Multiple applications enabled us to book accommodation worldwide, yet none of them allowed us to experience the true culture of a particular city. Airbnb captures a need all humans need to fulfil — the desire to connect with other humans. Combining the two built the foundation of what we know as Airbnb.

It started out as two friends not being able to pay rent in San Francisco, they rented out air mattresses to individuals to save on rent, then the idea struck them, they built a website and had a few bookings, this is when they faced their first problem — photos of the location. When we book an accommodation we prefer the ones that have an aesthetic appeal — they went door to door clicking pictures of listings on Airbnb. Soon after they grew and are presently valued at $30 Billion.

Today, Airbnb works towards experiences. Alex Schleifer, VP of Design at Airbnb believes that one cannot innovate on products without innovating the way one builds them. I believe this philosophy is why Airbnb is so successful today. The idea of changing the way we do something to achieve a change in the overall process is within Airbnb’s roots. Their offices worldwide come together as a place to connect people. They first believe in their idea, and hence they make it happen. Airbnb has offices all around the globe and those offices connect Airbnb to the local community, be it China, Singapore or Brazil, they never fail to capture the local culture and heritage while maintaining a universal outlook.

While connecting people throughout the world is an exceptional task in itself, Airbnb faces challenges just like every other application out there. Software companies need to keep evolving, while Airbnb’s main strategy is design based it wishes to include code into the same. While software has a few physical constraints it also is built by teams, different ideas and styles may cause experiences to diverge.

The New Airbnb Application is not only a refreshed look of the old app. It has new possible and literally allows humans worldwide to connect with others without the barrier of language. This is critical to Airbnb’s design interventions. Again following the principal of innovating the way of building before innovating the product, Airbnb, solved a design problem within their teams. A common language was needed so as to build on all platforms at the same time with the design and engineers together. They build the Design Language System (DLS). This captured the brand and its principles — universal, unified, iconic and conversational. Language is the base of every good design, they understood this concept and revealed Airshots. It works like css to html. A common application with any language, on any device they support. A breakthrough in mobile applications.

 

Airbnb, unlike other applications launched on Apple TV. This was done to enhance the experience of viewing potential homes one could stay in. Airbnb on Apple TV allowed users to explore exceptional homes and with the click of a button, send their favourites to their phone to complete their bookings, again creating an iconic experience.

The brands’s identity was and always will be strong. The brand identity is given importance and never forgotten, not for their employees, not for the users and not for creating experiences — unique and iconic. The idea of connecting people, creating a universal language amongst designers and engineers, and creating conversation amongst humans — in their offices and throughout the world, a truly iconic idea and brand. The design possibilities are endless due to this new found philosophy of innovating and improving the way one innovates.