Airbnb Design Jam

“Create a solution that helps international students find support in their
new communities.“
 

Empathize

With just 90 minutes to come up with a solution, our team broke down problem solving into the five steps of design thinking: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. Since half of our group consisted on international students, we conducted rapid open-ended interviews to identify motivations and pain points. From our analysis, we jotted down ideas on sticky notes and summarized key findings from our interviews.

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Define & Ideate

Through our initial understanding the the problem statement and its scope, we were able to define our solution. Our team wanted to bring the gap between good onboarding experiences for incoming international students and the lack of resources and interactions with locals. With that in mind, we were able to create a brand positioning statement:

“For international students studying an undergraduate or graduate program who are seeking support while abroad for an extended period of time, Humble Abroad is a physical and virtual community that provides resources and connections to bridge gaps in the knowledge and university experiences.

*Humble Abroad was our team’s take on the phrase “humble abode,” a humble way to introduce someone to your new home.

Humble Abroad is an end-to-end service that gives international students the necessary support from the time they accept their university offer to when they step foot on campus for orientation. We wanted to incorporate Airbnb’s mission of belonging to make sure international students found their home in a new home.

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Prototype & Test

With the user, problem, and solution in mind, we began building wireframes and prototypes. We prioritized usability, scalability, and reliability as we designed screens that were easy to navigate, consistent for all languages, and had credible information. Below is an example of one wireframe we created.  

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“5 MINUTES LEFT” the Airbnb team announced. Crunched for time, our team wanted to test our prototype with our international students, and we allocated parts to present to the judges. While our team did not win, I learned many valuable lessons from this design jam:

  1. Efficiency: Outline deadlines for each phase early on in the challenge so time will be balanced for each step of the design thinking process.
  2. Empathy: Always keep the problem statement and core values in mind. It’s easy to drift away with conflicting ideas, but prioritizing needs and motivations will ensure a proper solution.
  3. Enthusiasm: Be creative and have fun! I had such as blast by having a diversity of thought within our team and I can’t wait for the next design jam!
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