Everything you need to know about Airbnb's Apple Watch app

 

Airbnb has finally released the long-anticipated Apple Watch app, and we’ve got the breakdown:

What are the app’s main aims?

Its centred around easy, rapid communication between hosts and guests throughout the “whole trip.”

Which new features meet these aims?

Hosts and guests can use the app to receive notifications as well as read messages and respond to messages. Hosts can also accept booking requests straight from the watch. “The new app features Airbnb messaging, which hosts and travellers can use to communicate with each other instantaneously. Hosts can receive a new booking request complete with the traveler’s name and photo, requested dates, and personal message, and decide whether to accept or decline on the spot. Hosts can also initiate and respond to messages, as well as create and save quick, pre-recorded responses to help maintain a healthy response rate”, says the app’s description on iTunes.

How did Airbnb design the app?

“We drew on strips of paper and wrapped them around our wrist,” Airbnb experience design lead Keenan Cummings told Techcrunch. “You have to do whatever you can do to simulate it when the tool’s not quite there yet. You are not on the watch yet, you can’t build a fully interactive prototype and put it on the watch. We had to be scrappy about uploading images, using paper and interviewing hosts and guests.”

“One of this company’s strengths is that discipline and simplification, and another one of those company’s core values is to be a host,” he contined. “That comes up in our design — are we being a good host to our users, are we doing what’s best for them, are they comfortable with the tone of the product? When it’s more abstract and harder to translate, you start to feel in your gut when you’re straying away from what’s best for the user.”