Airbnb's Redesign Review: Something Is Missing!

All right, so Airbnb just launched a redesign and I'm going to review it because I don't think it's good. So I'm going to break this video into 2 parts. The first one is just going to be what I don't like, and I'm not just going to criticize, I'm going to also give feedback and try to figure out ways to improve it. Then I'm going to say also what I like because there are some couple of things that I like as well. And before starting, I just want to say that I appreciate Airbnb for pushing and trying new things. I feel like it's probably the only company this big that actually and proactively tries to push the product forward. And especially in the travel industry where most of the booking experiences are based on a framework from the 1950s. It is old, it is broken, and I'm not here again to pull down Airbnb or Brian and the team. And the website is in French. I'm French. And for some reason, Airbnb doesn't allow me to change the language, even if I click on it. I hope you don't mind. The first thing that's not super good is the text. It is so small. The dates, the price, the ratings, it's like 11 pixels. That's like what you have usually, you know, like the asterisk with like the legal things you are, you are obligated to say so that people cannot sue you. That's the size you use for that. It's really small and you need that, like, you need to zoom in. You need to like get closer to your screen to see what the actual dates are. And I think I'm not a big fan of that. I can understand the motivation behind it. And I think it's already cleaner, light in terms of information and very easy to digest. So I get the motivation behind it. And that's probably the rationale. It's just, I don't know if the trade-off is worth doing. Also something else that I've noticed. So here, that's a problem I'm going to just surface right after that. But there are some suggestions for location. It's like you can book for next weekend, which I think is super cool. But there are other ones, it's like, here are other options that you can book in a city around you, right? And they give you the dates for April 2026. We are mid-May 2025, and they give suggestions for next year for like 2 nights. And so just like a little thing, but I'm just wondering if there's a way to refine that, or if it's just because there are no other options, which I don't I think it's true, but I don't know, it just doesn't feel super relevant to the user, especially when right before it is like, oh, for this weekend we have options as well. And so speaking about the homepage itself, the structure of the homepage, I think that it's really smart to have those like suggestions. Like you have like stays nearby something, you can have, you know, stays for the weekend, stays based on different cities in your area, in your country. I think that's super good. The only problem is that, for example, here I tried to search Tokyo, for example. I was like, okay, I'm going to search Tokyo for a month in July or August, one traveler, and I cannot leave it. It's the homepage. It is the homepage. Like I click on Airbnb, it's the homepage. There is no way for me to dismiss it and to say, actually, I do not want, I do not want to go to Tokyo. Why cannot I dismiss it? Why do I have to, every time I go on Airbnb, see a location that I do not want to go to? And it's the same with experiences. It's the same with services that you can see. The service here is for Tokyo as well. Experiences, Tokyo as well. Of course, they have their own, like, you know, trying to hype people up, but like services in Tokyo, experiences is like original. So it's a little different, but it's still Tokyo. Everything is Tokyo-based just because I did one search one time. And so I really love that idea of like, you dropped off your search for Tokyo. Here are some options for like locations that might be relevant to you, experiences and services that you could enjoy. I think that's really smart, and I really love that design here. I think it's really beautiful, like those little cards, very Airbnb style, obviously. But there is no way for me to be like, actually, I don't want that. You could— that could have a hover state here where it gets blurred out, and you could choose to remove it, to either view it or remove it. And then the whole experience, the platform, would go back to default, which usually would be like things in France or in Europe. Another thing that I'm not a big fan of There's just one tag. It's like the Traveler's Favorites, just one throughout the whole search. And it's the same no matter the location, I feel like. Before it was Superhost, which I think was 50%, you know, reviews from travelers and 50% Airbnb approving it. And now I think it's probably 100% travelers. And so in my opinion, it's probably more accessible to unlock that feature than to be a Superhost, which is really good for people who work hard to make their stays good. But the problem in my opinion is that it doesn't change anything because it just they just flip from super host to traveler's favorites, which I think is fine. There is no problem with that. What's bad, however, is that there is no way for me to to understand why it's a traveler's favorite. There is no context on the page because you can see here like the first one, traveler's favorite, five stars. Cool. Then you go right below it. No traveler's favorite, but still five stars because there is no user review anymore. There is space. So I'm just wondering if it's like three items is too much. Let's not add it. Or is it really? Relevant to the user deciding to click on something. I don't know how they, you know, went through that, but for me there is no logic behind why is this one that looks really cool and really clean not a user's favorite, and why is this one a traveler's favorite. The reason may be that this one has 5 stars and 5 reviews, but this one has 5 stars and 200 reviews. I don't know, I'm making it up, but it's just to say that there is a rationale behind it in terms of why one got the tag. But when I arrive here and I see all of the, like Almost all of those are 5 stars. Why none of them have a tag, but these ones here almost all have tags. Why this one with a lower rating than the one here has a tag. That's why I really like the reviews is because it gives that context, that perspective on why this option is better than the other. And here they removed it. Again, if it doesn't impact their bottom line, sure. I feel like we're just missing that value behind why this is a special tag, why this listing is standing out against so many others. And going back to that suggestion, like this listing, I don't like the fact that this is a gallery. I mean, okay, so I really love the fact that there is customization and option based on like what they think you will like. Like here are a couple of locations that you might like and that might be relevant to your stay that you want to book. Cool. I like the idea of a gallery. It's smaller, but you can go through many options. The only problem is that on this homepage, there's only 8. Every single time it's 8. Why do we bother having a gallery if it's just to add one more card? Which, by the way, might not even be good. So I'm here clicking 5 times, 6 times to see listings that don't matter and just one of them. For me, it doesn't make sense again. And I do not appreciate the fact that even if the intention is good to customize it and make it give categorized options to the user based on like a location they want to go to, I do not appreciate the fact that this is artificially customized. It's not customized based on me. It's customized based on what they think I like. And you might say, well, yeah, but they don't know what you like. Well, I would like to tell them. But they do not let me tell them what I like. There is no way for me to say I don't want this. There is no way to say I don't like this location. There is no way for me to add another location that I would prefer. There's no way for me to say I don't want— I want to see less of this. They act as if they knew me, but it doesn't work. So a cool way would just be to say, okay, I don't want— I don't want to stay next to Tokyo Disneyland. I don't want that. I would like to have another option. So it would be good since there is one card, just remove that card and add a button here that says change location. All of this space used just for one card. For me, it makes no sense. So I would love to have a button here. And you can make a button. Like, if you can have all of those critical information at 11 pixels, you can have a button here. What would be so cool if there is one button like here, same experience. This filled button would be change the location. And this one would be give me an alert every time there is a new listing, every time there is a drop of price or like a, uh, you know, like a rare gem that happens that shows up, give me an alert on my phone. That would be next level. And please, please, Airbnb, if you're watching this, please give me a way to remove that. I am tired of seeing Tokyo and I don't want to go. I am tired. Cool. Another thing that I don't like is just you don't have an option to go through the gallery. Like when you click on, when you search, like I'm going to research, resume that search. When you search here, I love that. I mean, I'm going to say what I love later, but like you can, this is the old Airbnb design, which I think is, you know, it works. I don't, I feel like we could just remove that title and it wouldn't change anything. You can just remove that, remove the name, just keep that. And you would already have a lot more space saved. But you can see you can go through all of those cards like usual. Here as well, you select one, you can go through all of them. But for some reason on the homepage, you cannot. And it might work in some cities or some region or countries where people really care about the visual, about that first thumbnail, that first image. But some other countries and regions like France, for some example, do— don't seem to care as much. And when you compare 7 or 8 ugly thumbnails You're like, well, I'm not just— I don't want to go. It just looks terrible. Again, I'm wondering what's the motivation or the rationale behind that. It's just, I don't know. So it's just also like this disconnection. It feels very uneven in the experience when you go from this new specific design into the old one. And maybe it's a work in progress. It's an update. You're trying to see, is this design working? Are we going to also change the rest of the platform because of it? Or is this design not working and we move back to the old version and We don't have to do all the extra work. I don't know what's, you know, happening behind closed doors, so I cannot tell, but it just feels very disconnected in my opinion. Something else I'm not a super big fan of is I do like the idea of being, having those 3D designs. I'm not a big fan personally of it. I do appreciate the idea of wanting to do something different and using that story to, you know, pitch that new design. But it takes so much space. Like, I really, I mean, yeah, I really like that clean, simple, small design. And if we want to stand out, if we want to make a very different, unique experience, why don't we just put them at the bottom, like as a dock or even as a wheel? I don't know. Like there are so many, like you could have a wheel like the, like this where it's like stays, experiences, services, and it feels like this trifecta or this triangle thing. It's not a triangle. Yeah. It would be really cool to have that. Or just like, again, a dock, very easy to go through because I don't know. I mean, yeah, UX/UI is probably, is very connected. It's like next to each other so it's easy to go through them. But I feel like because there is this like new design, it's written new next to it, there are going to be those inflated usability stats on like, wow, people click on some— click so many times on experiences and services, but actually they, they don't really care just because it looks new. And so at this point, why don't we just make a dock at the bottom and, and that's it? It's also going to be very new. I also don't like the fact that— okay, let's go back to the search. I don't like the— I really like that idea of filters next to the search. I think it's super cool and very clean and really well done. I don't like the fact that this is 3D and then it's flat again, and it's like a mix of old and new. I am not a big fan of that mix. You say flat icons are bad and old, and then you still have 80% of the platform that has those flat icons. Is it going to come later or is it different? I just don't understand or like that uneven logic behind the different icon styles. Okay, now finally the things that I like. There are not that many, but they're still pretty cool. I still think that I do appreciate this push for that fresh aesthetic, that fresh design, that uniqueness in the experience. And probably on mobile it looks better. So I think it's still, you know, it's still a solid exploration. I don't know if it should be the product. What I really like is the search. I think the search is super smooth. It had some, not problems before, but it felt a lot less smooth. Okay, I could just type Tokyo, select it, super smooth transition. Again, I can say flexible, 1 month, July, August. Here there's a problem. I mean, not a problem, but it's easy to go from destination to dates, but very hard to go from dates to travelers without having like— like when you go on destination, you click it and it works. Here you click, but it doesn't change. And so I'm wondering if there's a way to have like a little button here. Like there's a space, there's the paddings for adding a button to say next. So I would love a little button here instead of going all the way back up for travelers. And again, so smooth. I really like that. It's super smooth. And same for the search. It's like really cool. I really like that overall. Also, it's a great button. Like if I click on a stay, I really do like those new buttons. I like that gray. It looks really, really clean and really cool too. Same thing for the menu here. I think it's a, again, it looks, it looks really cool. Like those different grays, it's super cool. The menu looks amazing. I really love that menu. I was not a big fan of the previous menu. It was too, I don't know, too big. This one looks super clean, useful. So I think it's a really cool one. I still don't get why when you are logged out, the sign up, sign in thing is at the bottom where connection is. It should be at the top or like there should be a button somewhere. I'm not a big fan of that, but when you're logged in, it's really cool. I don't like the fact that when you click on your profile image, however, there is no, like there is no way to know what's going to happen. It just sends you to another, to like your profile page, but it doesn't like on hover, there could be like a, you know, like the redirect arrow maybe, or like a plus something like an overstate would be nice. It feels very unresponsive and I'm not sure what's going to happen. So yeah, but otherwise it's really cool. Again, I want to reemphasize the continuous search. I think it's super smart. It's really cool to have it impacting the whole experience. That's really nice. Please let me remove it. Let me dismiss it or let me put it aside, like the way to go back to the norm. But otherwise the idea is really cool. And I do love the card drop shadows, even though you can see the edges. Are cut off. And so you need to, I don't know how to do it in code, but in Figma you need to uncheck the clip content. And so this way the drop shadows can spread a bit more and make it more natural. But otherwise the drop shadows are super cool. I'm a big fan of that. And that's it. Overall, like the idea, the goal is really cool. I really love that impact on the whole platform, making it an experience that is as smooth as possible to go through the whole ecosystem. That is just not fully well done, in my opinion. There are still some missing pieces, some ways to improve and optimize that experience. And in my opinion, it's not about like flat design versus those 3D semi-realistic designs and drop shadow designs. It's about personalization. All I care about is to get recommendations that are based on what I like, based on where I want to go, and not based on what you think I like or think I should go. So that's just my 2 cents on the product. Again, I really want to emphasize that I'm not here to bash anybody, not bash the team. I've worked with a lot of designers at Airbnb and they're all extremely smart and next level in terms of designers. And I still appreciate the fact that this company is pushing for new experiences. I'm just trying to figure out what's missing in my opinion and how to make it a little bit better. If you're still watching this video, you can write a comment. Write a comment with What you think of the Airbnb. Say it's good, it's bad. I know what— we have to make a code, okay? If you're watching this right now, if you're listening to this, if you're at the end of the video, we need to have a code to know, like, you know, like you get me and I get you when you write the comments. So you could just say, I don't know.