A Heart Is Different From A Star

How Airbnb Evolved To Focus On Social Rather Than Searches - Cliff Kuang via Co.Design

For a couple years, registered Airbnb users have been able to star the properties they browse, and save them to a list. But Gebbia’s team wondered whether just a few tweaks here and there could change engagement, so they changed that star to a heart. To their surprise, engagement went up by a whopping 30%. The star, they realized, was a generic web shorthand and a utilitarian symbol that didn’t carry much weight. The heart, by contrast, was aspirational. “It showed us the potential for something bigger,” Gebbia tells Co.Design. And in particular, it made them think about the subtle limitations of having a search-based service. “You have to have search,” Gebbia says. “But what if you don’t know where you want to go?”

It’s the little things, people.

Source: fastcodesign.com

9 October 2012 30
stars and heartsairbnbuiuxdesign

Notes

  1. rori5000 reblogged this from emergentfutures
  2. emergentfutures reblogged this from stoweboyd
  3. faradaycagefight reblogged this from stoweboyd
  4. bricin reblogged this from stoweboyd and added:
    things… notice how Tumblr uses the heart as well. At what point does that become as cliched as the star and you need...
  5. jayjamison reblogged this from stoweboyd
  6. ambienttraffic reblogged this from stoweboyd
  7. whitneymcn reblogged this from stoweboyd and added:
    I think there may be another factor here, more specific to Airbnb: stars (even if there’s just one) connote rating in...
  8. stoweboyd posted this

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