AirBnb's new site design | Hacker News Reader

AirBnb's new site design

airbnb.com

58 pointsraheemm66 comments

To be honest, I never had any interest in trying AirBnB services. I never saw the allure of staying in someone else's rundown apartment or guest bedroom. I mean who wants to be that stranger in the other room? THAT SAID, this website did change my mind a little bit. I still don't think I'd like to stay in someone else's home but this website has demonstrated that there are some really amazing places you can stay in for very low costs. If I could get over my own hangups about being in other people's home, I'd definitely give AirBnB a shot after visiting this website.

It comes off as a luxury hotel website, or one of those 'ooh la la' HGTV tv shows where they show you cool, abstract homes you'll never live in. This is a good thing.

To the topic of site speed, is it really an issue to non-web-geeks? Do normal users of the web really know what a slow website is? Anyone know of studies or stats on what an average internet user considers is a slow page?

UPDATED

The website has done a good enough job of convincing me this is a legit service where it's customers are happy. I've decided to give AirBnB a shot. Going to plan a trip utilizing their services this evening. Wish me luck.

> I mean who wants to be that stranger in the other room?

It feels just like a hotel. You usually get towels and your own separate room.

Usually you're travelling so you don't really spend much time there unless you're sleeping.

I stayed in the lower east side for only $50/night, so its definitely worth it.

I agree, I am not usually in my hotel room very often if I am on vacation but that raises the point of, if I am hardly in the room, who cares where I stay? I know this flies in the face of my point of being hung up on being in other peoples homes, but why not just stay in a cheaper motel (if available)?

To be honest, I'd really like to try it one day. Some of those locations look great and the prices are very reasonable.

I've done a number of AirBnB stays now including a two week trip to SF and LA with my girlfriend and the whole system is pretty awesome.

To some extent you get what you pay for but in many ways you get much more. I think I've stayed in five different AirBnB locations now and the houses were as pictured or slightly better, better located than an equivalent hotel and always clean.

On two occasions the owners were so awesome (one in Napa brought us wine and cheese every night and warm muffins for breakfast in the morning) that they literally made the holiday.

They've done a special thing with AirBnB so kudos to them and I for one welcome their new site design too. Holidays are literal escapism and so much better if the laborious booking process is made more pleasurable too.

"To the topic of site speed, is it really an issue to non-web-geeks? Do normal users of the web really know what a slow website is?"

My lord, yes. Here's a really interesting post/study with Bing and Google testing the user/business impact of speed.

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/06/bing-and-google-agree-slow-...

Great, thanks. I guess looking back at my own experience with 'average users' my mom will start to yell at the computer if Facebook or some other website won't show up fairly quickly. And when it comes to AirBnB I suppose that most users of the service aren't 'average users', but more savvy crowds.

> I mean who wants to be that stranger in the other room?

Most of my guests end up being "the cool startup guy from Beijing" or "that really nice couple from Toronto", because I make an effort to welcome them into my home and show them a glimpse of local life. And thanks to the culture that Airbnb has built around the site, my guests make a similar effort to get to know me. It simply never feels like "that stranger".

Do your guests get keys to come and go as they please?

I've never used Airbnb for staying in a place with the owner. Selecting that you only want an entire house/apt is wonderful. You don't have to be that "stranger in the other room," at all.

I have stayed in places like downtown Hollywood, within a couple minute walking distance of having stars under your feet, for a fraction of what a hotel in the area would've cost.

Every place I've stayed in has been clean; the owners kind and wonderful for introducing you to the area. You end up with all the amenities of a suite, like a fridge, a stove, and so on, without having to pay the price.

When I see heavy web pages like this it makes me worry about the state of front-end web design.

According to YSlow, the site came to 3.5MB, which is quite large when compared to the average home page. The site took at least five seconds to load on my fast dev machine, which is far too long.

The nail in the coffin for me, however, is that this site does not work in older browser, namely IE7. I've worked with large clients and we've made sure that everything works in IE6 and above because they make the cost back from sales within hours. A large company like airbnb simply cannot afford to not support older browsers and I firmly believe that they'll lose a ton on money on their lack of support.

All in all, I'm disappointed.

I agree with everything you've written, but I couldn't disagree more.

Once the page loads it draws you in to wanting to visit nearly any of those places they've listed. Every shot looks like it was staged by an expert.

Or to put it another way, I would rather have someone who's trying to sell me steaks show me pictures of mother-watering, expertly cooked beef, rather than show me a drop down menu of the types of steaks they have. No matter how fast the page loads.

As for the Internet Exploder issue. In all honestly, anyone who is still using that browser probably wouldn't be very comfortable using AirBNB on their next vacation anyway.

Couldn't have said it better myself. That is some of the best landing page photography I've ever seen.

At the same time, that's what makes me wonder if it is legitimate or just stock photography. I know that it isn't, but from a first-timer's perspective, it almost seems "too good to be true."

Don't get me wrong. I love photography on web pages, but the page itself is similar to so many modern web pages. It's full of JS, it crawls on modern machines and just doesn't look nice enough to justify the size of the page. The page barely works with JS off, so I'd hate to imagine how a user with a screen reader would use it.

As for IE7 users, you may be right, but it is my experience that sites that are the size of airbnb can happily spend £10,000 to make your site work in older browsers, because they'll get that amount back from new customers very quickly.

Whether you like to develop for legacy browsers or not is irrelevant. It's poor practice not to.

According to statcounter ie7 was at ~1.5% last month. It dropped a full percentage point from the month before that. Even Firefox 3.6 usage was higher.

I think there is value in moving to faster deprecation. Plus even if it does make finicial sense for airbnb it is still a risky investment. Should a facebook, google, or wordpress drop ie7 support hard then all the sudden you've wasted money, developer time, and developer sanity.

Statcounter isn't your site. Everyone should look at their own site stats and make the case as to whether legacy browsers should be supported.

Regardless, for new projects we still follow the Yahoo Graded Browser Support baseline, like many other agencies do. http://yuilibrary.com/yui/docs/tutorials/gbs/

> Whether you like to develop for legacy browsers or not is irrelevant. It's poor practice not to.

Following that logic, it's poor practice to develop anything in HTML5 since IE8 and below won't support it without a JS shiv that won't work with JS turned off.

Half way through 2012 now, I've come to accept that anyone who is using a service like airbnb with IE6, or with JS turned off can just miss out. I'm not prepared to deny the 90%+ users a superior user experience in order to support buggy, insecure ancient browsers that should have died years ago.

It's time to look to the future. The IE6 crowd can be happily left behind.

"WebAIM survey results [0] reveal 98.6% of screenreader users have javascript enabled," via Paul Irish [1].

[0] http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey4/#javascript [1] http://paulirish.com/2012/accessibility-and-developers/

"Whether you like to develop for legacy browsers or not is irrelevant. It's poor practice not to."

I would argue that it is poor practice to support them.

First is cost. Even if it only takes 10 grand to make a site "functional" in x browser, rebuilding an application to fully work with ie7 does not. If it takes 15-20% (or greater) more development time to add in support for IE7, but IE7 does not provide 15-20% increased revenues (it won't, unless you're making business software specifically for tech-agnostic corporations). You might say oh, it doesn't take 15-20% more time... just use jQuery and magic will happen. No man. It takes much more time.

Second is more philosophical. Assuming you are a consumer focused company like AirBnB, you customers are fully capable of upgrading to a new browser. There are no IT limitations on a personal computer. It takes all of 5 minutes and is completely painless. Stop coddling IE7 users; it is obsolete.

As far as pages working without JS: this is 2012, not 2002. If you still treat today like you treated 10 years ago, you really have no business complaining about anything on the internet. The internet is not for you, and neither is a site like AirBnB. If you think I'm being overly harsh, see my last paragraph. Installing FF, Chrome, or IE8/9 takes all of 4 clicks.

Those sound like nothing but excuses for being a terrible web developer.

"First is cost. Even if it only takes 10 grand to make a site "functional" in x browser, rebuilding an application to fully work with ie7 does not. If it takes 15-20% (or greater) more development time to add in support for IE7, but IE7 does not provide 15-20% increased revenues (it won't, unless you're making business software specifically for tech-agnostic corporations). You might say oh, it doesn't take 15-20% more time... just use jQuery and magic will happen. No man. It takes much more time."

Oh man, there is so much that is wrong with this comment.

First of all, users are more willing to buy from a service that works compared to one that, well, doesn't. That's just common sense. Secondly, if you really think that sprinkling some jQuery over a site will just make it work then I really hope that you aren't a web developer, because that mentality is exactly what is wrong with many websites out there today.

"Second is more philosophical. Assuming you are a consumer focused company like AirBnB, you customers are fully capable of upgrading to a new browser. There are no IT limitations on a personal computer. It takes all of 5 minutes and is completely painless. Stop coddling IE7 users; it is obsolete."

Again, if you are incapable of supporting older browsers it's probably because you're a terrible developer. Regardless, there is no philosophical debate here. Users can use whatever the hell they want and it is not your business to tell that what to use. It's entirely up to the client, and if there are users that are using IE6-7 it's probably because they are on old hardware or a machine that isn't theirs (i.e. a work or library machine). The limitation on a personal computer is just that. If your site takes ages to load are you going to suggest to the user to get a better internet connection or to buy a new computer?

"As far as pages working without JS: this is 2012, not 2002. If you still treat today like you treated 10 years ago, you really have no business complaining about anything on the internet. The internet is not for you, and neither is a site like AirBnB. If you think I'm being overly harsh, see my last paragraph. Installing FF, Chrome, or IE8/9 takes all of 4 clicks."

So, where do users limited to screen readers fall into your "the Internet is not for you" speech?

The reason many of us develop solutions that work across legacy browsers and screen readers is because we have the experience to be conscious of those who CAN'T view the web as you'd like to.

Again, it is not your place to dictate what users should be using. Regardless of their lack of browser support it is a wasteful site that is entirely dependent on JS and as such it is completely inaccessible.

It's comments like yours that give me "the fear" when talking about web development.

It works for me in IE7 on IETester (mostly e.g. there's a correct mixed content error and the "popular cities" tab doesn't work). I assume they have looked at their stats and concluded that IE6/7 doesn't represent a large enough proportion of their market to support it. I also wouldn't regard airbnb as a large company.

It loaded for me in ~2 seconds, on a 2010 Macbook Air. I think we're at the stage where 'heavy' pages are permissible, and even advantageous at times.

It loaded for me in ~30 seconds on a 2011 Macbook Pro. I don't see what your loading experience has to do with anything. Different people have different connection speeds in different parts of the world (my connection speed varies within the same building depending on congestion, etc).

That said, all the fancy pictures do look very nice, and certainly draw you in like no other travel site that I've come across (when it eventually loads).

I don't see what your loading experience has to do with anything.

I was responding to anecdotal evidence with contrary anecdotal evidence. In the big scheme of things neither really means anything, but it would be pretty tedious if I had to test a statistically significant number of machines every time I altered a page layout.

Your computer is barely two years old, and doesn't reflect your internet connection. Most people are on far older, and probably far slower connections.

"Most people" on the internet, or "most people" in AirBnb's user base? Because they could be very different. For once it would be nice to see HN give a site the benefit of the doubt in that they might have actually looked at their analytics and planned accordingly.

It's still pretty heavily reliant on internet speeds. If you're using wifi at a coffee shop, or have a relatively congested work connection, the site does crawl -- though I can only attest to the latter case.

Thankfully, I use noscript to cut down the loading a good amount, but the parent's issue is a very significant one.

But aren't people like you the reason why we still have to support IE6 and 7? I think depending on your customer base, you have to support it, but I'd bet that a lot of Airbnb's users aren't using an IE6 or 7.

I currently work with a number of large clients in the travel sector, and you'd be very surprised.

Yes, it's restricting at times, but any developer worth their salt can write code that works in all browsers fairly easily. I've spent enough time on Reddit to know that a lot of developers refuse to support legacy browsers simply because it's too hard.

It is my belief that we'll have to support IE6-8 until XP dies, and I think that will happen when Windows 8 becomes the default install for most PC's. The real problem isn't older browsers, but older machines that need to upgrade their operating systems, and once that war is won the old browsers will drop like flies.

They can use FF/Chrome if they want to see the site correctly on XP. The faster people stop supporting broken browsers the faster they'll go away! If they can't/don't then they can suffer the trade-off knowingly.

For a successful startup that needs to grow at a reasonable pace (not too quickly) select browser support is one way to apply some light breaking. In five years if/when the business has scaled on its merits, those browsers will be history anyway. That very early (==expensive) developer time would have been wasted when it could have been focused on building a product people want to use.

Think of how Apple slowly removed restrictions to each version of iPhone so that they could handle the interest it generated. They simply couldn't have handled shipping 100 million the first year. So their focus worked out perfectly (despite all the bitching about cut/paste and At&t we had to listen to.) If they had wasted time on "perfection" it would have shipped for years.

Considering that a (considerable/significant) section of their target audience could be "on the move" and not have a great internet connection, not sure if the 3.5MB gorgeous looking site is a good idea.

More importantly than just being slow, the site crashes my iPad. After about 60-80% of the page loads, Safari closes to the home screen.

It crashed my browser (Opera) right after it loaded.

Ughh, I really don't like it. I felt lost right away. I use to think about Airbnb's design a lot when designing on my own because it was simple and told you directly what you wanted. Like dropbox for example. I don't get the complication here.

PS: This should be #1 on HN...

As an Airbnb host, I'm worried that this new homepage has too much going on. The old design really emphasized the "Where are you going?" search box, which led quite naturally on to the listing results page. Also, many of my guests are making bookings on-the-go in countries with less than ideal internet connectivity. So page size definitely matters, and 3.5MB is pushing the limits.

I do really like how the check-in/check-out date widgets slide out from the search box when you click it, though... makes the interface feel responsive and de-clutters the search box.

Luckily, the rest of the site hasn't been touched other than to add the "Wish Lists" feature (which I like so far).

Dear Airbnb team and design crew, you did a great job! The landing page is great and I´ve always been waiting for the infinite scroll solution for your service you implemented right now. Especially I really like the Picks and Collections which have their own style and a cool font. Is your designer featured on dribbble? For sure, these images are becoming the "Google Doodles" of airbnb.

I think the whole website looks nice & furnished right now and underlines the community culture. Maybe you can still tune the city listings page a little? They grey containers right here http://www.airbnb.com/s/San-Francisco--CA could be improved.

@airbnb: do you plan to offer the "Wish List" in combination with a gifting function, so that a user can gift his girlfriend or whomever with X nights in Wish List place younameit? I think if you integrate that into Facebook "X just gifted Y with Z nights in this beautiful room (link) in City Awesome", it would be nice.

Kelli Anderson did most the visual graphics in Airbnb Picks: http://dribbble.com/kellianderson

I love the new wishlists and how you're featuring people's lists on the home page. Probably a nice lightweight way to get people engaged with the site.

Some feedback - when I'm on a wishlist, it's actually pretty difficult to navigate to the listings themselves. I click the listing name and see a pop up that really only has one call to action - the "Save to Wish list" button. The listing name links just link you back to the wish list - in fact, the only way to actually view the real listing is to click the price tag. Maybe I'm missing something, but if I see a listing that looks interesting, I'd like to be able to view the listing and possibly book it.

You're right, increasing engagement is a goal here. Regarding your feedback, under the Wish List button is the location, map, and 'Book it' link. All three take you to the listing. Keep the feedback coming.

Except that "wish list" lost all the favorites I had saved for a trip in October...

This makes me think that their "supply side" is fully stocked and that they really just need people to book nights on existing inventory. Kind of seems like they are neglecting the supply side and focusing on the demand right now, by putting the "list your space" all the way in the top right with a small box.

Definitely the case. They've put a lot of effort into bringing on new hosts this past year, to the point that I've noticed a distinct slowdown in bookings recently. I'm all for Airbnb focusing on demand now. :)

It looks nice but it also looks very busy.

One thing I will never understand though, is a design that includes infinite scrolling and a footer. I finally got to the footer because the refreshing locked somehow, but it seems that it's just supposed to add more listings forever.

There new feature Wish List may have something to do with the redesign. More here --> http://blog.airbnb.com/hello-world-im-an-airbnb-wish-list-yo...

I love how the long-scrolling tiled design sucks you into exploring all their offerings. So much easier to do that via scrolling than by clicking around through the site.

Great use of two design concepts to remove barriers to and simplify the core customer experience.

PS - the Frank Lloyd Wright collection, for anyone who missed it:

https://www.airbnb.com/wishlists/frank-lloyd-wright

Also, looks like Jack Dorsey is a fan of houseboats and the occasional mega-yacht:

https://www.airbnb.com/wishlists/3182046

This type of redesign is not needed. Full redesigns are rarely needed. In my opinion, they should have spent several months changing small pieces of their site and testing how well people respond to the changes.

My first thought (before clicking): Why would they redesign their site? Their site, and all their related apps, look really wonderful.

After clicking: Still looks great, although now the landing page looks like grooveshark :)

Yikes, it looks more like a Gilt/Fab site than something I'd feel comfortable renting my place through. Resizing is a disaster, which is weird because this site would be easy to media query up.

I personally like the look of the site. I think it is a bit overdone, but still visually pleasing. I completely agree with your resizing comment though. In 2012, if you are going all out on a redesign, the site should be responsive.

I simultaneously dislike the design (too busy, too big, silverlight, moving, etc.) and am more likely to use airbnb (because the great photography reveals some awesome rentals, although usually far away places I'd be unlikely to go). I wonder if that's what they were going for.

Where are people getting silverlight from? There's no silverlight on the site.

Something pegs my CPU when I browse the site on Windows in IE, but not on OSX. I have silverlight and flash on the windows browser but not on osx, so that's what I assumed it was (based on someone else having mentioned silverlight); I guess it's something else.

Searching support is pretty broken. It seems to return lots of links that are gone. For example, I searched "favorites" and the top two results (a page on favorites and a page on wish lists) don't work. And they were the ones that had the info I needed.

Next month's post: Wimdu's new site design http://wimdu.com

Beautiful design. I like how it focuses on the imagery (as it should) and once again great typography.

The first click on a link works, the second does not (tested on latest stable Chrome).

Same for me. It keeps freezing as well. I am pretty floored they they decided to use silverlight... why?

It's a new homepage, not a new site. The profile pages are unchanged.

Square Up is the url for Square's website. It should also now be used to describe sites that outright copy it's style. "Hey, you go to www.abcdefg.com? looks like they squared up!"

They seem to be using Backbone.js now

This should also be called "Responsive design fail".

Hate it. It looks like some kind of interior design site than a site that allows me find places to stay... or list my place. I scrolled down and down hoping to find some meat, but no - just more glossy nonsense.

More importantly, I was about to list my place on the site. It's a nice looking house in London, but no - it dose NOT look like something from an interior design mag. Clearly my house does not meet the required standard. Better not list it.

Designers should indeed consider the insecurities of their audience.

Designers should indeed consider the fact that all aspects of a design can impart a powerful message. If the message imparted is, 'Find a place to stay in expensive, upscale properties' then yes, that's an important consideration.

> It's a nice looking house in London, but no - it dose NOT look like something from an interior design mag. Clearly my house does not meet the required standard. Better not list it.

This is a fair point, I worry it might get lost in the first half of your post!

Agreed. It was a very testy post I shod just learn to avoid posting while in a bad mood.

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