Rules of Flow for Product Management: an AirBnB Case Study
“Engagement” is a term that is so overused in product management that it has almost lost its meaning. So often I’ve heard from teams, “We’ll measure the success of this test with engagement,” which could mean anything from feature click through to bounce to we-aren’t-really-sure-this-will-drive-conversion-so-we’re-hedging-our-bet. Underneath, the reason this term has been co-opted and jargonized is that genuine, productive engagement can be ramps toward long term customer loyalty. And loyalty pays off: a loyalty increase of 7% can boost lifetime profits per customer by as much as 85%, and a loyalty increase of 3% can correlate to a 10% cost reduction (Brand Keys).
Engagement is a series of high-value user actions that the user of your product performs to get her closer to her goal, satisfying an unmet need.
Engagement is a series of high-value user actions that the user of your product performs to get her closer to her goal, some unmet need. For a streaming product like Netflix, that series might be viewing recommended titles and watching an episode of a Netflix original, all in service of solving the problem of being entertained. Prying deeper, that problem is… Boredom! For a transactional product like Amazon, that might look like entering a search for a regularly purchased item like diapers and creating a subscription. For travel site Airbnb, that series of high value actions might be entering a search for accommodation in a place I really want to visit, viewing vacation rental options, and booking one that I believe will give me an awesome local experience. As a product steward, your challenge is to make that series of actions itself it’s own self-fulfilling reward.
In this post, we’ll explore how to parlay engagement into a powerful tool that cultivates passionate, loyal users through flow.
“Flow” IS true engagement
Flow? I’ll explain. When was the last time you go “lost” in an activity? You were completely immersed and focused. You knew what you were doing and how well you were doing. Maybe it was the last time you played a video game. Or maybe you were planning a trip. For me, it was the last time I made jewelry, focusing on threading the little beads together, replicating the same pattern over and over, a warm feeling of anticipation building as I neared completing the pair of earrings. I was in the zone. I was in “flow”.
Flow is a concept developed by positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounce: me high cheeks send me high). More on him in a minute.
Up until the late 90’s, psychology was focused on researching and treating disorders. You’re probably familiar with fear of loss, fear of rejection, fear of missing out. Between 1887 and 2001, for every 21 research studies related to a negative topic there was only one related to a positive aspect of life. In the late 90s many psychologists began to question how we thought about human psychology. Researchers Martin Seligman, Babarara Fredrickson, Christopher Peterson, and our guy Csikszentmihaly developed the field of “positive psychology” to understand and create frameworks for what made life worth living.
Mihaly specifically was interested in engagement and its affect on the person’s brain and her overall well-being. During states of deep, self-fulfilling states of engagement, the participants in his research showed that lower activation in the prefrontal cortex. This is the area of our brain responsible for cognitive processes such as self-reflection consciousness. Which explains the loss of self and self-consciousness during this state. The result his a heightened level of performance and creativity. He coined this “flow”. His study led him to develop 8 rules of flow we’ll examine and apply to human-centered product management. (Also, be sure to check out his Ted Talk.)
8 Rules of Flow for Product Management: Airbnb Case Study
I chose to apply Csikszentmihaly’s principles to Airbnb because of their high retention rate. A whopping 40% of new Airbnb customers return within the first year (Second Measure). This retention rate is notable given three reasons:
- Airbnb’s retention rate is growing year over year, where traditional lodging brands rates are is falling. (Second Measure).
- Trip purchase is costly: Americans spend about $2,000 on lodging (Value Penguin).
- Trip purchase is infrequent: Americans take on average 4.2 leisure trips per year (Travel Pulse).
Airbnb has a very strong mobile app experience designed to facilitate flow.
While there are also lots of reasons Airbnb is winning the local lodging game (the scale of their inventory, community structure, and full trip focus being a few), Airbnb has a very strong mobile app experience designed to facilitate flow. Here are Csikszentmihaly’s 8 principles applied to Airbnb in a product context:
- Clear goals and immediate feedback
Make it clear what a user can do to solve her unmet need in your product. Inform your user on how well she is doing on her path to get there. The Airbnb app experience guides and inform a user on what are the best actions to take to fulfill the goal of “living local”. From the starting point of the app, the experience is guiding me to the search field. Underneath are 3 more ways to find local experiences through finding vacation rentals, activities, and restaurants. In the profile section, highlighted with a notification, I see a progress indicator for tasks I should complete that speed up booking for later. Providing this information ahead of booking my first stay reduces friction down the road.
2. Complete concentration on the task
Clear the path from distractions — the product must allow for “the zone” and concentration. Remove all unnecessary distractions and irrelevant stimuli that don’t support actions that move a user towards her goal. Airbnb succeeds again here with a good clean content hierarchy that’s based on user needs. The content is ordered by which actions are the most relevant for me to live local (and stay in the flow).
- Search for accommodations
- Explore other travel types
- Finish booking a trip
- Become a host*
- Get inspired by unique lodging types (treehouses!)
- Get inspired by unique experiences
Also, note there are not ads
Note: In between when I started this article and published it, Airbnb released a whole new product line — Adventures. Now the app home screen features their new offering in position 3. I like this content strategy choice because it allows for the series of high value actions 1–3 but still prominently educates what Adventures are all about.
3. Loss of Self-consciousness
Reinforce the actions that help the user get there with positive messaging that’s she’s on the right track. Leave no doubt. In each listing, community-based superlatives support key concerns in booking vacation rentals — is it in a good location? how clean is it? is it easy to check in? These reassurances invite me to scroll and consider the listing. The booking flow is clear and easy to use with a progress indicator, assurance messaging, and clear breakdown of fees boost confidence in booking.
4. Sense of control over the task
Allow for safe ways for users to recover and get back on the right track when they make mistakes. Airbnb has a great cancellation policy that’s clearly illustrated with a timeline metaphor simplifying the full details available one click in. Further, being able to message back and forth with the host once booked provides additional support.
5. Transformation of Time
Give your user a way to pick back up into flow where she left off. Multiple activities compete for a user’s time and attention and the product must ramp her restart the flow easily. The app pushes a notification of a property I viewed the next day. A tab for Saved rentals allows users to collect and compare multiple options, share and collaborate with co-planners, and restart easily when I return from interruption.
6. Balance between challenge and skills
Empower the user with all the ability and tools she needs to succeed in your product. Don’t fatigue user with tasks or steps that don’t reinforce that user’s path towards their goal. Amenities vary wildly in vacation rentals — is there a kitchen? is there a travel crib? is there a pool? will i need to bring an iron? Airbnb not only provides granular options in the filters (iron, shampoo), but a simplified set of filters that are popular for traveling to that particular destination.
7. Effortlessness and ease
Make your product intuitive and effortless. There is no faster way to disrupt a user’s flow than a product that isn’t usable and performant. Airbnb loads fast and navigation matches expectations — I had a hard time capturing a screenshot! One area of the customer journey that very flow-centered is reading reviews. These narratives tell a story about the stay a user might enjoy there. Reviews are easy to find and scroll through, so she can compare the potential experiences across options.
8. Intrinsically rewarding experience
Reward the user in the experience. At the core, the user problem must feel like one worthy of solving and the user must feel accomplished for getting there. Airbnb’s app makes a user feel like she’s got a deal and that she’s going to get a genuine, local experience. They enrich the curated experiences listings with photography in an authentic style.
Putting it all together
Of course, these are just features, copy-able in their own right. To make your flow-forward products great, build those features atop a strong foundation of product systems and user science — that’s what human-centered product management is all about. In this blog, I’ll explore more topics like these, so I hope you’ll follow along: product systems, product evaluations, behavior design, team structure, user empathy. Let me know what kinds of topics you’d like to hear about!
