Master’s Capstone Project
Dating App Messaging Aid
UX Research, UX/UI Design, Iterative Approach
In an ideal world, a dating app would help you tailor your message to your match in hopes of sparking a connection. In reality, dating apps cater to a game-like format of finding someone by swiping with minimal information provided. This lack of information makes messaging even more difficult and can feel fake or scripted.
This research aimed to improve dating app conversations by providing digital context. I explored potential messaging aids through rapid prototyping and usability testing to collect users’ thoughts and opinions on new features for dating app messaging.
Identifying dating app users’ problem
According to Pew Research Center, almost half of 18 to 29-year-olds reported using online dating applications . With this shift in how relationships are formed comes the need for research on the user experience of online dating.
Messaging is cited as one of the largest pain points in dating apps. The interface lacks the context that is presented when meeting someone face-to-face. Messaging is vital to making a connection and can be improved to better assist users.
Taking an iterative approach
I looked to validate that messaging is a key pain-point for users through research and design a solution that prioritized users’ goals, needs, and motivations.
Survey
Carefully written to collect general thoughts and opinions on dating apps and dating app messaging.
Interview
Follow-up interviews to the survey to collect more detailed information on users' goals, needs, and motivations.
Prototyping
Created paper and low fidelity prototypes to iterate the messaging aid interface quickly and efficiently.
Testing
Prototypes were tested remotely over five sessions with representative users to collect feedback on concepts and designs.
Using survey to validate general assumptions
About 90% of participants in the survey said they maybe or do not prefer to start conversations on dating apps.
Starting a conversation was cited as one of the most difficult parts of dating app messaging in open response questions.
These findings are consistent with peer-reviewed research and more detail about messaging pain-points will be uncovered in user interviews.
Do you prefer to start a conversations on dating apps?
Thematic analysis of qualitative interview results
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with active dating app users to take a deeper dive into their experience and challenges. Interview results reflect the needs of dating app users while messaging.
Three major themes and eight sub-themes were found:
Surfacing commonality between matches
Humanizing the match with context
More information on interests
Limited bios hinder conversation
Creating a positive messaging environment
Relaxing the chat with things to do or say
Encouraging meaningful conversation
Mitigating the risks of dating app messaging
Discouraging toxic or sensitive content
Reducing the social risk of messaging
Focus on information privacy
Surfacing commonality between matches
To meet users’ needs, new features would need to humanize matches with context, give more information on interests, and correct for limited profile information.
The In Common Feature was created to do all of that. It was iterated several times with representative users to include multiple sections with up-to-date content that was visible during their conversation.
Above: Many locations were considered for the In Common Feature. Through usability testing a submenu with an “In Common” Tab outperformed the others.
Above: An example of an in-app pop up question to provide content for the In Common Feature. These would be quick and easy to answer. How many questions per app visit would require further research to determine.
Left: Dating app users wanted a variety of information to pick from when selecting a conversation starter. It was determined that an ideal feature would pull from users social media, past dating conversations, and in-app pop up questions to present an ever changing reference of a persons interests and hobbies.
The final prototype
This video displays the final prototype developed from the project.
Limitations
Covid-19, time constraints, and available funds limited the scope of this project. Adjustments were made to fit the needs or participants and conduct the entire project remotely. Connecting with participants with on phone calls and Facetime for interviews, rapid prototyping, and usability testing produced successful results.
Future Work
The next steps for this design would be to develop a functional prototype to test with users that, ideally could be integrated into any existing dating app. Communication with the business and development teams would also be required to understand the feasibility and viability of implementing these features.