SNAPMATCH
Helping millenials meet online, authentically.
Mobile App Design (2016)
Currently, dating apps allow users to misrepresent
themselves through images and words to facilitate
their best possible chances of meeting people.
This proof of concept is to explore how Snapchat can enter the online dating market by leveraging
their reputation for providing a realtime experience while addressing the safety and privacy concerns
of their users. I worked along another UX designer. In addition to contributing to UX, I also acted as
the visual design lead.
ROLES
VISUAL DESIGN
INTERACTION DESIGN
USER RESEARCH
PROTOTYPING
RESEARCHING OTHER
DATING APPS
We surveyed the landscape of top dating apps out there to see how they tackled key concerns such as privacy, verification, and age restrictions.
• A majority of apps focus on a different matching mechanism, but they don’t have a solution for users misrepresenting themselve through images or bios
• Some apps encourage users to start conversations through timed matches and loyalty programs
• Facebook is the main API for log in when it comes to verifying user identities
INTERVIEWING USERS OF
ONLINE DATING APPS
We surveyed 72 people ages 16–43 to help us find interviewees that were avid Snapchat users and avid online daters. Through the interviews we were able to spot key trends to guide our design solutions.
Users are looking for:
8/9 users — An experience that resembles meeting someone in real life.
7/9 users — To see personality & interests through content not through what they describe in bios.
7/9 users — They like to share and see things that are not curated and edited but rather captured as they happen to feel as if they are experiencing it first hand.
JOURNEY OF ONLINE DATERS
The journey map helped guide us to better understand main frustrations and emotions users had with different stages of using dating apps. We found it useful to keep the needs of the users alive during the design process.
AFFINITY MAPPING & PERSONAS
We used affinity mapping to synthesize our interviews and create three distinct personas and user stories of how the app would be used.
Primary Persona: Danny cares about Personality, Common Interests
Secondary Persona: Tina cares about Up to date photos, Credibility, Validation
Tertiary Persona: Fiona cares about Credibility, Unaltered photos
FEATURE PRIORITIZATION
In order to best cater to the needs of our personas, we prioritized our features using the MOSCOW method to help focus our scope and develop the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that would best satisfy all three personas.
Features we MUST include:
• We felt it was important to add identity verification through Facebook to provide additional security
• Option to add to dating story from the camera screen
• Provide users with visibility to age, location, and occupation on the match screen
• Allow preferences to set by distance, sexual preference, and age
• View instant matches as they occur
• Users can have direct conversation with matches
POSITIONING STRATEGY
In order to determine whether the online dating platform would best function as an in-app feature (such as Discover) or a companion app, we created an integration flow and listed out the benefits of both versions.
Based on the limitations of screen space and navigation hierarchy, building a companion app would best showcase the entire app’s functionality as a stand alone product, that could also function in conjunction with the main Snapchat app.
SKETCHING INTERFACES
We utilized design charrette and timeboxing to sketch out possible ideas for each individual screen state required to carry out the user’s main tasks. This enabled us to finalize the designs we wireframed to test with our users.
USABILITY TESTING
& ITERATIONS
Having built out the 1st version of the app to test through InVision, we conducted the usability test by having each user walk through our primary persona — Danny’s user story which uncovered great insights to guide iterations.
SNAPCHAT INTEGRATION
By integrating both apps, Snapchat users can
choose to add snaps to their dating story,
which acts as a "live" profile in Snapmatch.
NOTIFICATIONS
Snapmatch users are alerted by new matches,
which they can choose to chat with or
to keep discovering new potential matches.
TIMED MATCHES
Conversations need to be started by
new matches within 24 hours to initiate
conversation while the thought of why the
users swiped right on someone is still fresh.
DEMO
Video of Danny's user journey where he transitions from Snapchat to Snapmatch.