When I first heard of Couchsurfing in 2010, I was immediately drawn to the concept of a community of global travelers meeting and befriending locals in foreign cities; it was a beautiful intersection between the internet, community, and travelling. Couchsurfing has grown since then, and much of the original dynamics have evolved over the decade. In response, a competing organization, Couchers, teamed up with me to help understand the current dynamics and envision the next phase of global hospitality.

Our goals were to explain how current users think of Couchsurfing as a brand, what aspect of Couchsurfing is causing the most burden, and how are they solving said burden.

“We envision a world made better by travel and travel made richer by connection. Couchsurfers share their lives with the people they encounter, fostering cultural exchange and mutual respect.” - Couchsurfing

Couchsurfing is a global hospitality and cultural exchange service. After setting up user profiles, members can post reviews and request lodging publicly or directly from other members. Couchsurfing members can also use a "hangout" feature, where members can connect with others nearby without prior planning. In addition, members can also create & participate in events. Collectively, these features facilitate the meetings of native inhabitants and visiting members.

I conducted a competitive audit between the main competitors of Couchsurfing, all of which facilitates hospitality exchange. Overall, Couchsurfing catches over 98% of the market share, making them an important competitor to observe and understand.

For methodology, I decided on a combination of participant observation and 1-1 interviewing. My rationale:

1. If you want to understand your user, you become your user.
2. Given the complexitity of the scenario (aka inviting an online stranger for an overnight stay), it was especially important to understand how the users communicated and behaved with one another.
3. I wanted to probe into the users thought about the platform by having them recounting prior & current experience with the Couchsurfing community.

To better understand the mental models of Couchsurfer users, I conducted marginal and full participation research by immersing myself over the course of two weeks in the core Couchsurfing experience; namely, hosting, surfing, and attending events.

I first followed a Couchsurfing interaction as a marginal particant to observe the dynamics of the host/surfer. I then became a full participant by hosting and making special notes of my own decision process during the rituals of requesting a couch & accepting/denying request and the dynamics & behavior of the Couchsurfing host/surfers interactions over the duration of the stay.

To better grasp the communities' opinion and pain-point of Couchsurfing, I interviewed 20 people that matches the following criterias:

• Between 20 - 45 years old, equally distributed in gender
• Must have more than 3 references with either hosting, surfing, or both
• Have logged-in in the last two calendar years (accounting for lack of activity due to covid-19)
• Predominantly uses the mobile application
• Tech-savvy (Ex: can independently demonstrate use of complicated feature outside of core user flow)

Interviews are then conducted either through phone, video call, or in the participant's home. Each interview took approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour.

I used a combination of affinity diagram and dilemma-driven analysis to prioritize and create a narrative around the pain points causing the greatest burden on average users.

Dilemma-driven analysis relies on three ways to identify:

1. Whether users displayed mixed emotions to the choices and behavior
2. Whether these choices are mutually exclusive from one another and cannot be pursued at the same time
3. Whether these choices causes conflicting concerns

Because there are limited hosts to surfer ratios, one surfer usually sends multiple requests to several hosts. To get as many requests out in hopes of finding at least one accepting host, many surfers employ a copy-pasting strategy, where a surfer will send the same written message and request to multiple hosts.

Hosts complain that these copy-paste requests are “bad” requests (i.e. non-personal and prescriptive) and associate these messages to members who are only looking for free accomodation and have no interest in interacting personably with the host.

In addition, a host in a popular metropolitan area can spend up to a cumulative hour a day reading and responding to requests and messages. This has been described as a “draining” process.

What are the work-around strategies to solve or reduce these burdens?

To mediate this, many hosts employed the following strategies:

• Placing a hidden word within the profile to check that potential surfers have read the profile (i.e. “send a request with “fishy burrito” so I know you read my profile”).
• Stating specific conditions on the top-fold of their profile (ex: “I only accept surfers that are verified and have at least one reference'').

Members mentioned that they are occasionally concerned about physical safety, and while they’ve had an overwhelmingly positive experience interacting with most members of Couchsurfing, 80% of those I spoke to had at least one instance in which their safety felt compromised.

Most are aware of this contentious dynamic and image of Couchsurfing. One interviewee mentioned that they often take in at-risk users, as to protect them from potential harm. Another interviewee has personally “saved a surfer from a bad situation” on several occasions.

“When I see a late-night message from a Couchsurfing who feels their current host makes them uncomfortable, I immediately offer them my home.”

What are the work-around strategies to solve or reduce these burdens?

Some of the existing strategies used by members to avoid dangerous situations include:

• Indicating on personal profile that they are only interested in platonic relations
• Surfing/Hosting only with same-gender hosts
• Surfing/Hosting in pairs (as couples or with friend/roommates)
• Avoiding hosts with only single genders in their reviews

I presented my research results to the stakeholders, which included main user dilemmas and the psychological, social, cultural, and anthropological phenomena affecting these dilemmas. By also providing specific recommendations on reducing these dilemmas, stakeholders gained insights on improving in-app safety and community accountability.

• While participatory observation is a highly valuable method of gathering and immersing into subcultures, it was challenging to balance my presence as a researcher with authentic interactions. In the future, I would better acclimate my subjects by building rapport before implementing research.
• In response to perceived confusion, I had to change a few interview questions between interviewees, which highlights the importance of conducting cognitive interviewing during the preparation phase.
• Dilemma-driven analysis not only assisted in my understanding of Couchsurfer's users, but it was an especially wonderful technique for helping the stakeholders grasp user conflicts better.
• Next steps: once the stakeholders deliberate on findings, a design team will incorporate these insights into an initial design. These designs will go out to stakeholders and the users for general feedback to be further iterated.