Role & Setting: UX Designer. Academic.
Project Length: Two-week design sprint.
Scope of Challenge: Improving platform trust on Airbnb.
Problem
Platform trust isn’t just between Airbnb hosts and guests, but also government and neighbors.
How might we encourage greater compliance through design?
Future State: Compliance Redesign
Exploratory Research
Airbnb & the Affordable Housing Crisis
A study published in the Harvard Business Review found that Airbnb is responsible for 20% of rental increases in the U.S.
A NYC Comptroller report found that Airbnb removed 180k affordable units from the housing supply in New York.
In response to short term rentals effect on housing supply, cities worldwide began to enact short term rental laws.
Some Popular Cities with Short-term Rental Laws
- Paris
- Barcelona
- London
- Amsterdam
- Seoul
- Beijing
- Tokyo
- Hong Kong
- New York
- New Orleans
- San Francisco
- Los Angeles
The Law in Los Angeles
- Must have a short term rental license
- No rent controlled units
- No Ellis Evictions prior to listing
- Must be a primary resident
- Multiple listings banned
- No commercial operators
- $500/day fine
- Airbnb also subject to fines
- Occupancy tax must be collected
Noncompliance is a Problem
A 2020 Los Angeles Times analysis found that of more than 6000 active listings in the City of Los Angeles, 42% were found to be noncompliant with licenses.
The same analysis found that over 400 hosts had more than one listing active in violation of primary residency requirements.
Confirmatory Research
User Interviews: A Tale of Two Hosts
In order to qualify my research findings, I set out to interview two hosts currently listing on Airbnb.
- Male, 65+
- Properties: 2
- Locations: Cape Cod, Long Island
- Complies with all laws
- Female, 45
- Properties: 3
- Locations: Las Vegas, San Diego, (formerly) W. Hollywood
- Did not comply with laws
Compliant Host
"It was not easy to find local rules... Airbnb never checked to make sure I had a license."
"There are many illegal Airbnbs in my area but I don't know how to report them... it's not fair to people who pay to follow the rules."
Noncompliant Host
"I rented an extra room in W. Hollywood for years... even though I was violating the law by listing a rent controlled place, Airbnb still made me a super host."
"I got evicted for violating the law. They only found my place because I wrote City Council against prohibiting renters from hosting."
User Flow: Becoming an (illegal) Host
Following my interviews, I was left with the following “How Might We” question:
How might we… determine how easy is it to create an illegal listing? To answer that, I set out to create an illegal listing myself.
I live in West Hollywood, which is an independent city within Los Angeles. In addition to mirroring the Los Angeles law, West Hollywood also has additional requirements that must be met.
Additional laws in West Hollywood:
- Cannot host for less than 30 days w/out registering with the City
- Must own the property, no renter-hosts
Current State User Flow:
Become a Host
Despite violating both the Los Angeles and West Hollywood laws, I was able to create and upload an illegal listing in less than 25 minutes.
At no point did Airbnb block my ability to do so. Instead, it reminded me to check my local laws for compliance before submitting, however the link to the West Hollywood law was broken. Compliance is ultimately optional and had I not immediately deleted the listing, I could have faced eviction for listing a rent-controlled unit.
Major Pain Points
Compliance with the law is currently the responsibility of the user, not the platform.
- Laws are not easy to understand or find
- Compliance is lacking, with many illegal listings remaining active
- There is no dedicated display for required licenses
- You can only report a noncompliant listing to cities themselves
- Failure to comply with, or understand all laws could result in fines and even eviction
Who is Involved?
Using Indi Young’s character descriptions in lieu of Personas, I wanted to explore the many different people involved. The two primary users are the hosts, compliant and not compliant. Others include designers at Airbnb who have to convince stakeholders of changing compliance; the city regulators trying to keep up; neighbors displaced or inconvenienced by Airbnb.
Compliant Kara
Kara wants to rent out a room in her condo in West Hollywood to make extra money. However, she cannot find reliable information via Airbnb. She is worried that if she doesn’t correctly comply with the law, she may be fined up to $500 per day. She understands why the law is in place, and wants to comply to be a good neighbor.
Pain Points:
- Rules are hard to find
- Information is dated
- Hosts are held liable, even if they try to comply
Needs:
- To make additional money
- Reliable information to avoid liability
Noncompliant Nadine
Nadine works for a real estate developer. They own multiple properties across Los Angeles, and rent many via Airbnb. Since oversight is lax, they are able to list multiple illegal properties- none of which are primary residences. She doesn’t feel that government should interfere with private property.
Paint Points:
- Restrictions impact profit
- Has to find loopholes
- Laws keep changing
Needs:
- To keep rentals current
- Meet quarterly profit goals
- To avoid regulatory scrutiny
Ideation & Design
Possible solutions to improve compliance?
Using an impact/effort grid, I decided to plot various solutions according to their feasibility.
Some of my proposed solutions included:
- Increase regulatory compliance through B2G communication
- Improve the ‘report listing’ process
- Create a dedicated license display
- Reform the ‘become a host’ process
Becoming a Legal Host
While all solutions would improve compliance, only one solution targets the root of the problem: creating an illegal listing. By reforming the ‘become a host’ process, we can design a hard block based on requirements. This forces compliance from the outset.
Future State User Flow:
Current State
- No eligibility screening
- No hard block on illegal listings
- Links to local laws
Future State
- Eligibility screening
- Hard block on illegal listings
- Dedicated page for local laws
Wireframe
Modifying the current Airbnb desktop design and information architecture, I decided to add the required pages from my future state user flow and integrate it into the current state ‘become a host’ flow.
Before: Current State
You can begin editing your listing as soon as you enter your address.
No law is checked against what you enter. Prior to submitting and activating your listing, all you need to do is optionally review the law and indicate whether your place has certain security features. This allows for optional compliance upon submitting a listing as opposed to required compliance.
After: My Compliance Redesign
Prior to editing a listing, prospective hosts are required to enter their address. Based on the submission, a second page will ask relevant screening questions according to local law.
The second page produces questions with strict logic handling. The binary nature of questions prevents any loopholes from being exploited. The question mark icon helps direct unfamiliar users to necessary requirements.
Failure to answer these questions in accordance with the law’s requirements will result in ineligibility– and thus a hard block on illegal listings.
How does the new flow affect our hosts?
Noncompliant Nadine tries to submit a rent-controlled unit in her building. She is unable to do so without a license. She applies for one at City Hall, but is rejected since the unit is subject to rent-control, and would remove affordable housing. Nadine and her company now have no choice but to return the unit to West Hollywood’s housing supply for rent.
Compliant Kara is glad to have an easy to understand list of requirements she must meet. Unsure of where to find a license, Kara is linked to the application. She completes it, and returns to finish her listing process. Within 3 days, her listing is approved. She is relieved and confident in her compliance with local law.
Conclusion &
Next Steps
Conclusion
- Up front requirements forces compliance and stops bad actors
- Reducing illegal listings improves housing supply
- A hard block is a good faith effort by Airbnb to regain trust with regulators
- By acting in good faith, Airbnb also improves its community reputation
- It is in Airbnb’s interest to adopt this design to reduce legal liability & continued reputation damage
Next Steps
- Code a prototype to replicate logic handling, conduct usability testing
- Contact City of West Hollywood to conduct a pilot; a small city would be a suitable way to test this design before a larger rollout