The pandemic has changed online dating whether it is something liked or not. Many users spend time video- calling a match before they decide to meet up in person but often the interaction can be a little awkward at first. This can often leave the user feeling discouraged and at the worst, unwilling to try virtual dating again. How might we make the experience more positive?
01. Researching the Background
Understanding the other guys
Hinge's main competitors are Tinder, Bumble and Match who have also implemented features due to the pandemic such as:
- In-app video calls
- Audio notes
- Tinder removed the "location lock" to essentially match with people anywhere in the world
- Bumble allows user to post a virtual dating badge to let others know they are open to virtual dates
User dating habits in the pandemic
I interviewed 6 participants who have dated or are currently dating during the pandemic and asked them about their experience. Most participants had a virtual call or used a new feature implemented due to the pandemic but found it to be awkward with even one participant not willing to try virtual dating at all.
First 3 minutes of dating are awk and then it's fine...conversations center around 'how is your day' or 'how's it going'
Had done enough Zoom meetings at work but it was weird since it wasn't like there were other people on the call to fill in the silence so it was strange
Not something I want to do, I feel like the person could act like a robot and is a different experience
Who is the main user?
Overall from the research, I found that people have become more intentional with their dating and that with the ongoing isolation and safety precautions, there is high need for human connection. Virtual dating normally errs on being awkward for the first few minutes but there is still an interest in trying again as it is often the first step to suss someone out before meeting in-person.
02. Laying Out a Structure
How Might We Make Virtual Dating Less Awkward
To make the actual virtual date more effortless, the solution points to making the users more comfortable so that they are both willing to continue the conversation. Therefore, I designed an optional icebreaker game feature for users to play to help soften the first few minutes of their virtual date.
Bare bones of the new feature
The new feature existing inside of Hinge would consist of a few new screens before the users would choose to go back to the call:
- Button on the existing video chat screen to indicate to users how to get to the new feature
- Game menu screen to choose from a few different games
- Game screen
- Confirmation to end game (if users cancel)
- Score screen (if users play thru the game)
- Activity displayed in conversation
03. Designing Upon the Structure
So how does it look like?
I wanted to focus more on the UI Design, so after putting together a few sketches on detailing out the new feature screens, I designed the preliminary Hi-Fi UI Design.
04. Testing and Final Iteration
I conducted usability testing with a 90% success rate with the feedback received organized into an Affinity Map in order to prioritize the Key Takeaways for the final round of iteration.
Understanding key iterations from testing
Takeaway No. 1
Madlibs Game Format
Format of game was not recognized by half of the users. Changed format where the full sentence with a blank is displayed
Takeaway No. 2
Madlibs Categories
The Random category was a point of contention; to make it clearer a different color was used to differentiate it from the other categories
Takeaway No. 3
Game Button
Not immediately clear as to go back to the video call, another icon is used to make it clearer
Final Thoughts & Final UI Design
The overall lesson and idea I had to keep in mind was to not overcomplicate the added feature. I needed to ensure that this icebreaker game idea was easy to understand for the user and the user flow was intuitive.
