AIRBNB
Content Strategy & Wayfinding Strategy
Working in close partnership with a team of signage designers, I developed naming, wayfinding, and tone of voice strategies for Airbnb’s new Inclusive Signage & Wayfinding Guidelines, informing a newly unified experience at Airbnb’s offices across the world.
LAYING AN
INCLUSIVE FRAMEWORK
This year-long process began with defining both wayfinding and inclusivity, and highlighting the practical ways both show up over the course of an employee’s day at an Airbnb office. This outlook served as a north star for the project, and a critical filter for recommendations ranging from signage placement to written language.
understanding (true)
user journeys
Thorough user research with different types of users revealed the many ways employees and visitors typically move through Airbnb spaces. Understanding these various trajectories—and acknowledging the fact that a user’s journey begins before they even leave home—informed a list of information needs that became a foundation for signage standards.
REINFORCING brand through
language and tone.
Cues from Airbnb’s brand values around exploration, experimentation, and hospitality informed a new tone of voice strategy for both fixed and temporary signage. Additionally, a destination-based naming strategy subtly reinforces Airbnb’s global footprint, and works in tandem with a new numbering system to create an inclusive, multi-modal wayfinding experience.
