A case study into my booking mishap on Airbnb and how I’d fix it.

The unfortunate weekend

I was two hours from home, at the top of a mountain — enjoying a much needed reprieve from my adorable but exhausting children. My husband and I had a rare getaway as my parents kept my two young kids for an entire weekend. I planned the weekend perfectly. I was craving time in nature and so I booked an Airbnb in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It was a thirty minute drive from Hanging Rock State Park where I had meticulously planned out a full day of intensive hiking. After all, hard hikes are a rarity when you have a preschooler tagging along and this was my chance to do something I love.

At the top of our first hike we took some time to enjoy the view and snap a few photos.

Shortly after, I took my phone off airplane mode momentarily to see if there was any communication from my parents. I had a text from a number I didn’t recognize.

“The maids are here”

I thought that was odd and so I wrote back, “Sorry I think you have the wrong number”

Then the unknown number called me. And it all came rushing in. It was at that moment I realized I made a huge error, not for the first time, but the second time — I didn’t book enough nights for the Airbnb.

As I suspected, when I answered the phone it was the Airbnb host. The maids had arrived to clean for the next guests and all of our belongings and my dog were still in the house. The realization was overwhelming. I had only booked the Airbnb for Friday night — and Saturday we were checking out. Except it was Saturday at 11 am and we were on top of a mountain and I was under the assumption I had booked our Airbnb for Friday and Saturday night. I apologized profusely and my husband and I quickly ran down the mountain back to the parking lot. As we drove back we tried to find somewhere else for us to stay. There was hardly anything dog-friendly available other than a Motel 6, so we decided to go back home. My hiking plans I was so looking forward to would have to happen another time. We gathered our things and drove two hours back to Raleigh. I was so mad at myself for making such a dumb mistake.

The irony of this, is that I work in UX as a content designer. Part of my job is thinking through these exact types of stress cases and ensuring users of my product don’t muck something up like this.

Am I stupid? It’s hard not to think this when you make such an obvious mistake. The emotional toll of not being able to complete the task at hand.

Let’s find a solution

I’m sure I’m not the only person who has done this and as a UXer I don’t complain — I find solutions. So I decided to take a deep dive to understand how this happened, and present solutions to solve it. The stakes are high in this scenario— we could have been in another state. We could have had our children with us. We could have been stranded. We could have been traveling for a funeral, a wedding, a birth.

At the end of the day, somehow I thought that I had booked my Airbnb for two nights, when in reality I booked it for one.

Booking

When I book travel, I tend to use my laptop. After my kids are tucked away and hopefully sleeping — I get nice and comfy on my couch, pop on the TV, and open my laptop to start the process. This is the only time during the day I have to myself.

Here’s what I would have seen when I chose my dates.

Of course looking back it feels obvious. The language is clear. “Check in” “Check out”. Howwww did I miss this?

But I reflect on the type of user I am. I’ve likely finished a full day of work. I’m a mom to two boys, 6 and 3 years old. It could have been the day of the week where I’m also shuffling my kids to swim lessons after work. Now it’s 9 PM and I’m finally sitting down with no one’s agenda but my own. I’d say I’m probably not super attentive this time of the day. I’ve likely got a true crime documentary playing in the background and I’m sporadically checking in with my browser and back to Netflix. I’m relaxed and probably not very focused. I’m likely exhausted.

I think in my lack of focus — I assumed the selected dates were nights. Sadly, even as a content designer, I must have been breezing over the clear language. I know, I know. But the visualization of two days selected on the calendar was also likely interpreted as 2 nights. I was interpreting the information wrong without even knowing it.

What if a new field was included that automatically populates the number of nights based on the date ranges the user has selected? This reinforces the length of stay — the key piece of information I missed.

Confirmation

There’s a confirmation sent after the request is accepted. It’s hard for me to remember if I read the emails. I’m thinking not — because at the time I didn’t need to confirm the details since I had just booked it. This was one step in getting this wrong because the receipt email does reinforce the number of nights very clearly.

My guess is that the open rate for emails is low. If that’s the case, then other communication channels should reinforce the number of nights — like notifications and in-product.

But this important piece of information could also potentially be included in the subject line or the email preview. You know, just for extra reassurances.

Checking in on your upcoming trip

I do have an upcoming trip booked on Airbnb so I can see what a future trip looks like. There is however, nothing that explicitly calls out the length of the stay. Someone could easily see the date ranges and assume they’re reflective of the number of nights for the trip — not that it’s check in and check out.

When you click into the trip it leans on the existing pattern of check in and check out dates to communicate the length of the stay. But if you’re like me and assume you got it right — you’re probably not reading the fine print.

But this is a great opportunity to further clarify the length of stay. I personally come in and check on future trips a handful of times because I love to re-review the trip I’m so looking forward to. This important piece of information should be clear in-product.

Check out reminder

As far as I can remember in the many times I’ve used Airbnb — I haven’t had a check out reminder. But this could be another fail safe to alert people on the length of their stay.

If I had been reminded of check out earlier that day, or the previous evening — then I would have realized my mistake before driving half an hour away and climbing up a mountain. I may have had the time I needed to come up with a plan B.

A check out reminder could be sent via notification, in-app, and email.

Lean on content patterns

If I take a step back and look at this from a systems perspective, I see the value of depending on familiar content patterns to ensure users are retaining the most important information.

Check in and check out dates are a travel industry standard content pattern. While this content pattern does communicate the length of stay, its primary function is to reinforce the exact dates of the stay. This is where you’re ensuring you’ve selected the right weekend, the right month, etc.

Night stay is an additional content pattern that communicate a specific attribute of the trip. This is a snapshot of the total number of nights, omitting the precise calendar dates. This pattern has a primary function to communicate the length of stay.

I’d argue these are two content patterns that are important enough to embed throughout the experience. While there is some overlap, they serve unique purposes. Depending on consistent content patterns throughout an experience means users can easily gather the important information they need in a glance, and it builds a familiar and consistent experience.

How do others do this?

Expedia depends on the check in and check out dates to communicate length of stay during the booking process. However when you get to the booking page, they do call this out. Something that Airbnb doesn’t do. Without this content pattern you’re asked to do the math in your head. And if you’re like me and write for a living, there may be a good chance numbers aren’t your thing.

Vrbo does a great job of communicating length of stay from the moment you start your booking process. A quick gut check to users that you’re selecting the right date range. This feels like a great way to prevent people from doing what I did right from the get-go.

Lessons learned

This experience is a great testament to the power of content and content patterns. While Airbnb does a fantastic job of having clear language and communicating the check in and check out dates every step of the way — a pattern for communicating length of stay is missing. The night stay pattern could be part of the process from beginning to end. This could help mitigate the situation I found myself in.

And I also walk away from this as a more humbled UX practitioner, finding myself on the other end of a real life stress case. And just maybe, I won’t be the one booking travel for our next trip.