How AirBnB does great guest Onboarding
Onboarding is the art of getting a user to the “aha” moment, where they understand the value of your product and are “activated” to stick with you.
In mobile Apps the time period for Onboarding can be ONLY seconds. In Web Apps you might get a little more time but only a FEW minutes as the user may be in a more lean-back mode.
In this 8min teardown Mellonie Francis of Rareiio joined me to dig into AirBnB’s first-time-user-experience (FTUX) on Desktop web.
It’s a tricky situation where they have to gather data for compliance** yet balance the need to keep the user moving to their goal.
So we wanted to see how they:
- avoid those compliance requirement becoming barrier to Activation
- the guest’s job-to-be-done (JTBD) is resolved and motivates them to dive deeper into the platform.
- In other words achieving User Activation!
This is Part 1 — stay tuned for Part 2 the home owner’s FTUX, I’ll post here on UXDesign. The highlights of Part 1 include:
- Make clear paths for different personas to follow (“home owner journey” vs “guest journey”
- Why force a user to enter their cell-phone number?
- “Instant Gratification”: Why allow users to shop for a place to stay first before getting users to register.
- Why OAUTH login experience is key for consumer apps.
- Cognitive helpers like icons to silently hint at what I’m supposed to type in. (see examples below)
- The use of “Stop-and-think” UI elements for compliance components.
- The role of consistent and playful design elements in the journey.
- Repeated design elements for predictability.
Transcript and original post are on the Pointzi Blog
** and for the product to work well when you are trying to collect the keys to the house!
