According to Vrbo's 2023 travel trend report, the demand for food amenities (think air fryer, coffee machine, etc.) is on the rise. A survey indicates that 65% of travelers consider amenities to be just as important as the travel destination itself. In fact, at Airbnb, “kitchen” ranks as the 3rd most searched amenity.

While using a vacation rental kitchen is popular, it can be quite time-consuming and divert time from other activities. From meal planning and grocery shopping to navigating an unfamiliar kitchen for equipment and spices, the process can be cumbersome for most travelers.

I aimed for an idea that would integrate seamlessly with the current Airbnb experience. As a new feature, it needed to stand out but also remain subtle, allowing choice.

I examined different services that utilized an "add-on" experience to analyze their strengths and weaknesses.

I found that the best experiences facilitated 'two-way door decisions', enabling users to easily add or remove selections without disrupting their current checkout experience.

With the above in mind, I created two options for meal services that could easily be added or removed during booking.

1. Ingredient delivery service
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Travelers can select ingredients for recipes that are tailored specially for their rental, which prevents the frustration that comes with realizing a recipe calls for an item that is the Airbnb does not have.

These ingredients are then delivered during check-in time, which saves time on pre-trip grocery shopping and ultimately frees up more time for other activities.

2. Preprepared meal delivery service
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On busy days, travelers can choose to heat up a prepackaged meal and have food ready in under 10 minutes. This saves the effort of preparing, cooking, and cleaning up. In addition, it eliminates the need to search for cooking ware, addressing a common pain point from my research.

I conducted usability tests with three participants who have utilized Airbnb in the past. The following are iterations I made based on the results.

Some of my participants suggested having an itemized list so they can quickly verify their selected meals. To address this, I incorporated a dropdown in the price breakdown on the right. In addition, based on feedback from 2/3 of my participants, I added information about a delivery fee.

Two participants suggested adding an aggregated list of the ingredients, where, for instance, if three recipes require one onion each, the list would specify three onions. However, this approach resembles services like Instacart, focusing on shopping for individual items. I opted against this, as my research revealed that user pain points were centered around meals rather than individual items (such as the distinction between ‘chicken noodle soup’ and just ‘chicken’).
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As a happy medium, I made it more clear that the recipe/meal selection cards were clickable. In the original design, clicking on the card would open up a detail page, providing users with a comprehensive view of the ingredients to be delivered.
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With the redesign, I offer more affordance to these cards by introducing an ‘Edit’ button. And particularly for the ingredient delivery service, I added a dynamic subheading that displays the number of selected ingredients. This serves as a cue  that clicking on the box will allow users to view and edit their chosen ingredients.