Work in Progress: Service Design at Airbnb
Summary
At Airbnb, we're in the midst of integrating service thinking into a product-minded culture, aiming to harmonize our high digital standards with the realities of operational service delivery. This collaborative, iterative effort involves partnerships with product, policy, customer support, and more. In this talk, Airbnb Service Design leader Rebecca Gimenez shares learnings from this ongoing journey, offering insight on the practice of service design within a complex organizational system.
Key Insights
-
•
Airbnb’s service design must address a two-sided marketplace balancing hosts and guests simultaneously.
-
•
The original 2012 Snow White journey frames, illustrated by a Pixar artist, set a foundational holistic framework for Airbnb’s service.
-
•
Rapid growth led to an 'analog transformation' where operational functions had to scale quickly alongside digital systems.
-
•
The shift from multi-divisional to a single functional organization changed how cross-team collaboration and roadmaps operate at Airbnb.
-
•
Service design is still new and undefined in Silicon Valley; Airbnb focuses on creating a durable, adaptable capability rather than a fully mature function.
-
•
Airbnb’s culture is highly oral and networked, valuing conversations and relationships more than extensive documentation.
-
•
Artifacts like journey maps and blueprints are treated as temporary and conversational tools, not sources of absolute truth.
-
•
Airbnb has a 'process allergy' due to constant ambiguity and change, causing service designers to adapt flexibly rather than enforce rigid processes.
-
•
Having a dedicated job code and career framework for service designers was a significant milestone, signaling the function’s integration into the company.
-
•
Service design aims to foster internal harmony, improve business legibility, enhance creativity through iterative cycles, and inspire alignment with Airbnb’s mission.
Notable Quotes
"Service design is still so new that no one really knows what maturity looks like."
"People are the interface at Airbnb; it’s an oral culture rather than documentation forward."
"We position our maps and blueprints as temporary snapshots, not definitive sources of truth."
"If you ask our partners what we do, they might say I’m not totally sure, but I know that we need it."
"Ambiguity is totally normalized here and there’s a baseline acceptance that the business is kind of unknowable."
"Design is a very powerful role and at Airbnb people are ready to engage in it as a collective practice."
"The challenge is to design the space for tension and debate, not always to resolve it immediately."
"Brian Chesky does what Brian Chesky wants — he tweeted our blueprint, and we had nothing to do with that."
"Our work helps create space to zoom out and have conversations about the future vision."
"Cycles of successive approximation help us get closer and closer to great design through iteration."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Sometimes leaders focus so much on scanning the river they’re not observing the surroundings—the banks tell you if the river is deep or shallow."
John CutlerOxbows, Rivers, and Estuaries: How to navigate the currents of change (without burning out)
December 3, 2024
"Taking responsibility for our behaviors starts with an apology and continues with regular feedback and action."
Darian DavisLessons from a Toxic Work Relationship
January 8, 2024
"We’re all in this together and figuring it out — making it up as we go along."
Dave GrayGroup Activity: Making Sense of DesignOps
November 7, 2017
"The subtle art of taking care of yourself and giving a f in ways that generally encourage coherent behaviors."
John CutlerThe Alignment Trap
November 29, 2023
"Providing alternative content is often a kinder gesture than any lengthy alternative text could be."
Abby CovertStuck? Diagrams Help
October 27, 2022
"You can see our organization through the homepage of our site — we each owned a rectangle."
Mark InterranteCollaboration Flows in Product Development
June 9, 2017
"The future will be struggle; we need to face that forward, not deny it."
Devon PowersImagining Better Futures
March 9, 2022
"You should not be struggling with best practices, recruitment, or documentation when conducting your own research as a designer."
Prayag NarulaHow to Empower Your Designers to Do Good Research – And Why You Want To
June 10, 2022
"You can’t just be a designer adapting UX workflows assuming everybody else’s workflow stays the same; everything is changing with AI."
Peter Van DijckHands on AI #3: Claude Code for UX people
October 22, 2025
