Comparing the Design and Usability of two websites/apps.
Booking.com vs Airbnb
In University, one of my final modules required me to compare and contrast two websites based on their Typography, Colours, Design & Images. You read this academic essay HERE or download it below.
University Essay - Luke Bracken
I also wanted to undertake a comparison that isn't in essay form, both because it would be more beneficial in this format for a portfolio but also because I genuinely enjoy undertaking them. So I choose to do Booking.com vs Airbnb. As the pandemic subsides people are starting to travel again including me, travel is my biggest passion so I am very familar with these apps and websites. From using it simply as a normal user I noticed there is quite a large difference in UX and Usability between the two even though them seek to fulfill the same purpose which is booking accommodation.
So here the persona I am going to use isn't actually a persona, it is myself. I am the user and I will compare the designs as myself looking to book accommodation so it is a real world example.
Luke Bracken
Age: 25
Occupation: Software Developer
Location: Kildare, Ireland
Goals:
Motivations:
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Browse and book accommodation.
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Filter results by price, location, beds etc
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Find out about costs, payments and cancellations
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Going on holidays and needs a place to stay.
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Wants the find the ideal place within a budget.
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Wants flexibility to change/cancel and needs to know about the policies surrounding this.
Pain Points:
Notes:
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Ease of search, filtering is very important and can be cumbersome.
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Needs to find all the information for each place quickly to make a choice.
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No preference between an apartment or hotel, will depend on price and how easily places are to filter and find.
Now I know this isn't what personas are for don't worry, this is about investigating and documenting my real experience of using two platforms and how their UX and usability differs, what I enjoyed and what I did not.
For other examples you can see my Final Year project where we used personas to gather information on who we were making the website for. I am also conducting a website redesign; where I take an existing website and suggest design changes. This will also use personas to get an idea of who the website is for, how they might use it and any potential pain points they may encounter along the way which will inform any design decisions.
So both websites have the same basic flow to finding and then booking accommodation as you can see below..
So I am going to split up each screen from this flowchart and compare both platforms together.
Homepage
Both homepages are quite similar with the main CTA (call to action) being the search boxes with location and dates to select and search.
Airbnb offers suggestions on their homepage listing them in a card like design with rounded edges which gives it a very modern look. While Booking doesn't do this, you can scroll down and it suggests locations and types of places to stay. I think this is on purpose, generally Airbnb users can be looking for something different or unique. If you wanted a hotel you'd probably go to Hotels.com or Booking.com. I think this is why they display "cool" listings on their homepage like this, they know their users. Meanwhile Booking knows its about location, their users are like okay we need a hotel in X for X dates so there isn't really a point in just choosing random hotels to display on the homepage. Airbnb's aren't random, they are the cool unique stays that helped make the platform so popular especially when they are shared on social media.
Overall, despite being different they are both simple designs that are designed to get you to search locations which is the main goal. You can see Booking places a higher importance on the search too in their visual hierarchy.
Search
Next is the search results page once the user enters their dates and location
The design of these pages are very different despite having the same end goal, booking accommodation.
Airbnb has a much more modern and sleek design compared to Booking which looks a bit outdated and simple. This is not inherently a bad thing, simplicity is good especially for users who are not as tech savy. This is important as the potential users of Booking is really broad and could range from a teenager to someone who is retired.
For this example I searched the same location & same dates.
Airbnb places emphasis on the map, it takes up more than half of the page so that is going to capture the users attention straight away. The listings are laid out in that card like design which fits the key information in a small form factor which makes it a lot easier to scroll through than Booking, as they can display 2 beside each other unlike Booking which has 1 under the other.
Not only this but the images on these cards are scrollable, they have arrows to scroll through the images which is such a fantastic UX/Usability feature. You can really filter out listings so quickly without ever clicking into them, you can see the images, the price, the number of beds & the rating right there. Not only that but hovering over the card will highlight the location on the map so you can see exactly where the listing is unlike Booking which says 3.3KM from the centre which is vague.
For example, to find the location on Airbnb you can hover over the listing and the map will highlight it without every clicking or opening anything else. However on Booking you have to click into the listing, which opens a new tab and then you click "Show on map" and a popup map will open. This is extra steps, extra loading and just extra time for the user to find information. This can be really important when filtering out potentially hundreds of places until you find the ideal one for you. The UX team at Airbnb have made it as easy as possible for their users to find their perfect place to stay.
You can see from the video below how Airbnb designed their search to be responsive, dynamically updating as you scroll the map. And highlighting the listing you're hovering over on the map for you. As well as the fantastic features of scrolling the images there and then. You can browse so much key information just on this page without opening every listing.
Booking
AirBNB
Both use quick filters, allowing you to sort by specific features quickly without clicking into the main filter section. You can see how these sites target different people and needs here. Airbnb is about the unique or quirky aspects, highlighted by the "OMG!" filter which you don't see on hotel websites!
Meanwhile Booking is about efficiency, filtering the most common choices users make.
Both are clever and help out their specific users well. Just a note too, you can see Airbnb's modern design, web design is taking a lot of inspiration from mobile these days and you can see that from the rounded images to the emojis/symbols they use here. Personally I like the symbols I think it really adds a pleasant design while also helping user quickly decipher what that button does.
View Listings
The next step is to then click into a listing the user is interested in and look at the finer details such as description or cancellation policies.
The listing pages are not too dissimilar here. But again I think Airbnb's modern design really stands out and it is just more pleasing to look at and easier to digest the information. Information overload is a design consideration and I think Booking may be guilty of that here. Of course you have to communicate the information to your users but Airbnb does it much simpler.
Booking is at a slight disadvantage here as hotels have different rooms, rates and offers rather than just an apartment to book. Their use of the tabs above the pictures, Info & Prices etc, is really nice and when you click them it jumps (scrolls) you down to that section and that is a really nice touch as there is a lot of information here. For example on Booking the page is about twice as long as Airbnb.
Possibly the most important part of these pages are the reviews and I think neither are perfect. For Booking, it opens in a popup while Airbnb's are already displayed on the page and will open a popup to see all of them. This is impressive again when you consider Airbnb seems to fit all this into the page while keeping it short and simple.
Again Airbnb's design is more modern and aesthetically pleasing and while that is really important, usability and ease of use is more important and Booking just have a better design here. The problem here is that on Airbnb you cannot filter the results, only search them. But on Booking there's filtering, sort by date or score etc and it gives you a lot more information quickly. For example on Airbnb it can show reviews for seemingly random times, some last week some 4 years ago and personally I'd like to see the most recent but they don't allow this and I think this is an issue. Users should be able to find what they need easily and Booking do this better here.
Checkout
The checkout process on Booking is over multiple pages and scrolling down through a lot of fields and add ons. Meanwhile Airbnb is simple, concise and on one page making it much easier to checkout and review everything such as dates, prices, payment, cancellation etc right there easy to find without information overload.
As a user of these websites, it can be quite an anxious time trying to book while you try ensure the dates, prices, cancellation etc are correct. That is why I think this design from Airbnb is much better than the multiple pages and scrolling from Booking. Everything you need to know is right there and you can checkout and pay with one click. It is simple and effective for users
Conclusion
Overall I think Airbnb place more emphasis on UX and Usability in their design, they use modern responsive pages to allow users to find exactly what they need as efficiently as possible and they do in a really aesthetically pleasing way. And importantly, they try to keep as much on one page as possible. I think this is clear that the ease of use of their website and app has helped them gain many new users and importantly retain these users to come back to their service knowing it will be straightforward to use. You can see from the graph below how popular Airbnb is and that has only continued post Covid as people travel again.
