Shipping a fintech MVP from sketch to App Store
UX DesignUI Design
Case study — Travel
Reworking the host journey for a home-sharing platform
UX DesignUI Design
Overview
- Client
- Wayfare Studio
- Year
- 2014 — 2015
- Role
- UI Designer
- Scope
- Onboarding to first booking
The platform had travellers in abundance — but too few hosts. Signing up to list a home meant forty-odd form fields, opaque pricing and a long silence before the first enquiry. Most prospective hosts never finished.
Working inside Wayfare Studio’s travel team, I redesigned the journey from curious visitor to confident host: a guided listing flow, plain-language pricing help and a first-booking checklist that turned an anxious process into an encouraging one.
The challenge
Hosting feels like paperwork
Interviews with would-be hosts surfaced the same fears: am I pricing right, will strangers respect my home, what if something breaks? The existing flow answered none of them — it asked for the calendar before explaining how hosting worked.
The redesign had to coach, not interrogate: reassure at every step, let people explore pricing before committing, and celebrate the small wins along the way.
The approach
Guide first, forms second
Phase 01
Host interviews
Sat with new and lapsed hosts to map the emotional journey — where confidence dipped and why.
Phase 02
Guided listing flow
Rebuilt onboarding as a conversation: one question per screen, live preview of the listing, pricing help inline.
Phase 03
First-booking checklist
Designed a post-publish companion that walks new hosts to their first confirmed guest.
Outcome
More finished listings
Far fewer prospective hosts abandoned the flow once questions arrived one at a time with a live preview.
Pricing without panic
Inline earnings estimates and neighbour comparisons replaced the most dreaded step with the most explored one.
Hosts who feel hosted
Support tickets from first-time hosts dropped as the checklist answered questions before they were asked.
Keep exploring
Reimagining the storefront of a worldwide retailer
UX DesignUI Design