This week’s lecture focused on Art Direction and its importance in setting the overall feel and meaning in a design. We looked at what Art Direction is, where it sits in a design process and at lots of different examples of how a different art direction can totally change a user experience. We looked at the difference between The Orient Express and Ryanair as a very clear example of how a totally different art direction tells a totally different story and elicits totally different emotions.
Looking at our own Apollo project we were treated to a guest lecture from Ezra about the Space Shuttle and it was great to see how space can excite people of all ages.
During the lecture it was mentioned that Airbnb are a great example of a business that use storytelling in their digital products, so this week I wanted to explore that further.
Airbnb is highly regarded in terms of its UX and UI design, through my design email newsletters it is regularly cited for having great design and great storytelling, so I was not surprised that it was brought up in this week’s lecture as an example to look at. Actually a couple of days after the lecture this article (https://blog.prototypr.io/how-airbnb-became-a-leader-in-ux-design-7d8ab8ad803e Last Accessed 21/02/24) was included in one of these newsletters so I checked it out.
While not strictly focused on the storytelling aspects of the Airbnb design it does look at how embedding design thinking and using design methods has helped Airbnb to its position as a byword for booking accommodation. It looks at how Airbnb designs have evolved since its launch in 2009, through the first mobile app in 2012, to how it is using AI to assist users today.
Airbnb places a huge focus on UX and UI design, one of the founders of the business has a background in design thinking and they have their own in-house design studio Samara. They have also hired leading designers such as Jony Ive (previously of Apple) to steer the direction of Samara. They also encourage their designers to engage in projects outside of the scope of Airbnb’s core business and they make a lot of their knowledge freely available here: *https://airbnb.design/* including case studies and articles on research they have completed.
In terms of storytelling this became a major part of Airbnb’s design in 2014 which the launch of the “Belo” symbol and the associated brand story all about belonging, with the tagline “We imagine a world where you can belong anywhere”. This story influenced all their products from website to advertisements and has become the real differential between Airbnb and other sites where you can get accommodation.
We see this on their website, even in the little things especially around the language they use for example how accommodation on Airbnb has a host, and on each piece of accommodation you get the name of the host and a picture of them, compare this to the more corporate style of booking.com with its hotel chains.
Source: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/17403841 (Last Accessed 21/02/24)
Source: https://www.booking.com/hotel/gb/ropewalks.en-gb (Last Accessed 21/02/24)
Although this is a very minor thing it does make a huge difference to how you feel about the different options, with Airbnb it feels so much more personal, as you feel like you are dealing with a person rather than a hotel chain.
We see this again in how they show you the experiences you can book, they are hosted by locals the emphasis is always on that human story even down to the images and short video clips used, again you can contrast this to Virgin Experiences website where the experience names and images are much drier and unengaging.
Source: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/s/experiences (Last Accessed 21/02/23)
Source: https://www.virginexperiencedays.co.uk/london (Last Accessed 21/02/24)