Improving Dating App Experiences During COVID-19
Introducing enhanced video calling and gaming features to a dating app during the height of COVID-19.
Overview
2-week group project, completed as part of the User Experience Design course at General Assembly.
Brief
Enhancing video calls and introducing mini games onto existing dating app, Hinge.
On March 23rd 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the UK into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Oh boy.
Hinge is a smartphone dating app that’s oriented toward building relationships rather than hookups. It does this by using an algorithm to determine potential matches for its users. When the UK entered lockdown, all real-life dates ceased.
My group of 5 (Myself, Richard, Savia, Romy and Blessing) were given a brief to enhance online dating, by providing better engagement via video calling and introducing mini games.
My role
My role within the team was conducting competitor research, interviewing users of dating apps, creating a persona and finally, producing wireframes.
Tools and Software
I used Google Drive (for sharing documents) Sketch (to create the persona), Miro (for research, affinity mapping and design studio) and Figma (to work collaboratively on wireframes).
Stage 1: Discover
Conducting competitive and user based research.
Who are Hinge competing with?
By looking at strengths and weaknesses of direct (Match.com, Tinder, Bumble etc) and indirect competitors (House Party), I could gain inspiration and evaluate their features. I took on the role of downloading various apps and trialling them. Turned out, it was quite fun!
Research showed that some dating apps had tried to adapt to COVID:
- Match.com included a hotline to dating experts, virtual happy hours and video calling.
- Tinder gave users a free pass to Tinder Passport (put yourself anywhere in the world to chat with others)
- Bumble introduced video calling and expanded distancing filters.
Further research showed that dating app usage had really picked up during lockdown. Hinge saw a 30% increase in messaging, and Tinder had a record 3 billion ‘swipes’ on March 29th. Amazing to know our new features would come in handy.
User Research
A screener survey helped narrow down 61 initial responses to 19 people who use dating apps, bingo!
Key Findings
Interviews with these users provided in-depth insights into people’s usage of apps, the demographics and pain points. Affinity mapping helped find trends from these insights, grouping them into similar categories.
The key points included:
- Generally open to the idea of virtual dates.
- Users typically spent 30 minutes per day on dating apps.
- Many users encountered difficulties in keeping conversations going.
- Games to get to know a ‘matches’ personality would be more fun and engaging.
Stage 2: Define
Persona and Empathy Map
Using the data from the research and user interviews I used Sketch to produce a persona. Everyone, say hello to Claudia!
Her aim is to build a meaningful connection with someone, but a hectic work schedule provides limited time to use Hinge.
An Experience Map to help clarify the problem
An experience map and problem statement for Claudia would help highlight the main pain points suffered many users.
Let’s put ourselves into Claudia’s shoes. It’s Saturday and we’ve had a date cancelled…disaster. We initiate a conversation with a new man, Juan. He’s really cool but sadly the conversation dies off after small talk.
From this, a problem statement was created:
Claudia needs a better way to engage with potential matches on Hinge because she feels like her conversations die out as quickly as they begin.
So…how might we make it easier for a match to engage with Claudia?
Stage 3: Develop
What path would Claudia take to initiate a game on Hinge?
To help understand the path Claudia might take to enhance her online dating experience, two user flows were created. These helped decide where in the online dating process games could be introduced in a seamless way.
User flow 1 shows how Claudia would initiate a game straight from Juan’s profile. User Flow 2 shows how Claudia would re-engage a conversation that has died off.
Design Studio
To consider how to gamify the experience we conducted a design studio. As the majority of users spent just 30 minutes per day on dating apps, we honed in on mini-games.
The Design Studio consisted of team members individually brainstorming ideas to tackle how games could be implemented. We then shared our ideas and used a ‘dotting’ system to choose elements of ideas we liked.
Low to Mid Fidelity
Once ideas had been collated I created low-fidelity, paper wireframes.
Testing these on users gave great feedback:
- Options for “no!” and “play” came across as quite harsh.
- Users wanted the option to “play later”
- The icons at the top of the page were confusing.
Changes were implemented and I moved to mid-fidelity wireframes:
Testing the mid-fidelity wireframes provided more insights:
- The star icon to show the new gaming feature did not align to Hinge’s existing UI.
- Users wanted to be able to send a comment as well as a game invitation.
- Seeing more choice in the games menu was advantageous.
Stage 4: Deliver
High Fidelity
Taking on all the feedback from all the research and testing, we produced the final hi-fidelity wireframes.
Considering onboarding screens and empty space
Part of our brief was to take onboarding and empty space pages into consideration:
Next Steps
With the project complete, we still had some considerations for next steps:
- Enhancing features based on more user testing on high-fi prototypes.
- Looking into incorporating music as another new feature and talking point for users.
- Conducting more research into whether the indicator to tell users whether someone was ‘online’ was a good idea.
Conclusion
Overall, a really great project, working with some truly amazing people. I learned so much during the two weeks, having a lot of fun in the research phase when comparing dating apps, to interviewing users, creating a persona and then being able to produce a number of incredibly well thought out wireframes. I feel many users of dating apps would benefit from a gamified experience.
