Grapevine.
A twist on vouched dating
A dating platform with a new twist on traditional dating. With Grapevine, you can set up friends romantically with individuals you can vouch for.
Grapevine.
UX RESEARCH + DESIGN
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, people were forced into isolation, not only separating them from friends, co-workers, and loved ones, but also from friendly chit-chat with baristas at coffee shops. As a result, several people flocked to dating apps in attempt to find meaningful connections during these uncertain and difficult times. Fed up with the existing standardizing dating apps as a way to foster meaningful relationships, we wanted to design a more humane, ethical way to forge more authentic connections online.
In an era of rapid change, people are nostalgic for the old-fashioned days when things were a lot simpler. This project is an exploration of using technology to bring back the traditional way of meeting people through the grapevine into the modern era.
TIMELINE
PROCESS SUMMARY
Lead UX Researcher — Sanjanaa Shanmugam
Lead UX Designer — Amy Zhang
Developer Team — Albert Wan
The project research phase began in February 2021 and the design began in the fall of 2021. The project began as a possible start-up idea and an interesting research & design case study.
Grapevine is a collaboration between an experienced UX researcher (Sanjanaa) and an experienced designer (me). We combined our different areas of expertise to create a project that involved extensive research methods including several rounds of user studies to inform our overall UX strategy. My main role was to translate the research we conducted into a minimalistic yet artful design that reflected our design goals.
Grapevine. Matching through friends.
UX RESEARCH PROCESS
Generative Research
​
-
Secondary Research
-
Competitive Analysis
-
User Research
-
Survey
Synthesis
​
-
Affinity Diagram
-
Empathy Mapping
-
Brainstorming
-
Redefining the problem statement
Design
​
-
Business model design
-
Design Implications
-
Brainstorming
-
Initial Ideation
-
UX Strategy
-
User Flows
-
Prototyping
GENERATIVE RESEARCH
What's the problem?
Currently, dating apps don't work for a lot of the population because users don't have accountability, uncertain priorities, and have safety concerns. How can we address these issues in our design and gather more information?
People want to meet romantic partners that they know can be trusted. People also want a platform to connect and message potential romantic partners online.
Yearbook article I wrote featuring user interviews about dating apps (2018).
Secondary research
We’ve always hated using dating apps as a way to find meaningful connections, and we wanted to see if other people felt the same way as us. We scoured several articles and read personal anecdotes on Medium with the goal of learning about how different people use dating apps and how they feel about using them. In this process, we also learned more about the psychology behind dating apps and its effect on people’s wellbeing.
KEY FINDINGS
-
The human brain is literally not equipped to process thousands of profiles → encourages us to develop heuristics and place people into broad categories
-
Technology has encouraged us to adopt the mindset of assigning objective values to potential partners and ourselves
-
Dating apps make people feel frustrated instead of hopeful, pessimistic instead of optimistic, and insecure instead of confident
-
People believe dating apps are a not too or not at all safe way of meeting people
-
People like swiping for their friends, but it feels superficial when they’re swiping for themselves
What did we learn?
Based on these findings and from our own experiences being fed up with dating apps, we came up with an idea for a platform where friends can set each other up within their circle of mutual friends. To validate this idea, we embarked on a journey of lots of research and user interviews to better understand the specific pain points dating app users face.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Who's the competition?
Before diving into user research, I wanted to first understand the landscape of current solutions on the market. I was mainly interested in the target segments they catered to, their value propositions, and their competitive advantages. The biggest takeaway is that the most popular dating app platforms (Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge) were profile and swiping based. Even though Coffee Meet Bagel offers an anti-swiping alternative, it’s not as popular among users within our target segment (college students & early graduates). Inspired by our collectivist upbringing as daughters of immigrant parents, based on our research we came up with this idea of creating a platform where friends could help each other out by setting them up anonymously within their circle of mutual friends. To validate our idea, we embarked on a journey of research rabbit holes and user interviews.
USER RESEARCH
Interviewing potential users
For the first round, we conducted 9 user interviews with dating app users from all walks of life between ages 18-35. We interviewed 4 men and 5 women who were either in college, an early college graduate, or a working professional. Some were currently in relationships off of dating apps, and some were looking for partners on dating apps. Here were our top interview goals.
GOALS:
-
Identify people's biggest pain points with dating apps
-
Understand people's motivations for using dating apps, how they perceive dating apps, and how they use dating apps
-
Gain insight into how people like to generally meet other people
-
What is your experience with dating apps?
-
When was the last time you used one?
-
How frequently do you use dating apps? Why do you use them in this manner?
-
How do you assess to move forward with a person on a dating app?
-
Do you feel like you enjoy the time you spend on dating apps?
-
What do you believe are the benefits of dating apps?
-
What are your biggest issues with dating apps? Why?
-
Are you currently in a relationship?
-
If yes, how did you meet?​
-
If off of a dating app, do you think you would have met this person in real life?
-
If not off a dating app, why do you think you weren't able to find someone off of a dating app?
-
-
Have you ever been set up by friends or family?
-
If so, how did that go?​
-
If not, would you ever consider it? Why or why not?
-
-
How invovlved are your friends in your dating life?
-
In what capacity are they involved?​
-
If they aren't involved, why do you choose not to involve them?
-
-
What methods do you usually use to meet romantic partners?
-
Do you prefer any methods compared to others?​
-
-
Do you feel like it's easy or hard to meet potential romantic partners? Why or why not?
ROUND 1 INTERVIEW
-
How do you l ike to meet new people?
-
Do you talk to your friends about your dating life? In what ways?
-
Have you been set up by friends romantically before?
-
If yes, how did that go?​
-
How were you set up?
-
Are you willing to be set up again?
-
-
Have you set up your friends romantically before?
-
If yes, how successful have you been? If not, why not?​
-
Would you be more likely to set people up if you were anonymous?
-
If you've set up your friends before, how involved were you after the initial set up?
-
-
Do you think your friends would set you up with potential partners?
-
If a friend tells you they think you are compatible with someone, how much would you trust their judgment?
-
How likely would you follow up with someone set-up by a friend vs. someone from a dating app? Why?
-
How comfortable would you feel about meeting up with someone 1-1 if you share a mutual friend?
-
Do you think about people that would be good together or think about setting up people you know?
-
Have you set up your friends to make new friends before?
-
How so? And how successful have you been? Why?​
-
ROUND 2 INTERVIEW
Survey creation
We also created and shared our dating app usage survey in 20 Facebook groups that included people of all ages and backgrounds to ensure that we didn’t commit sampling bias with our chosen user population. We sifted through over 1,000 responses to categorize the biggest issues people face on dating apps. The top five categories are conversation, hook-up culture, superficial/mindless, safety/harassment, and fake profiles.
SYNTHESIS
Affinity diagramming
To synthesize my findings from discovery interviews, I created an affinity diagram (below!) to map out qualitative findings. I grouped related notes and created 2 hierarchies based on the following themes:
We found 5 themes related to dating app-specific features:
​
-
Methods of meeting people
-
Profile
-
Conversations
-
Option Paralysis
-
Trust / Safety
We found 4 themes related to dating app usage:
​
-
How people feel about dating apps
-
How people use dating apps
-
How people feel using dating apps
-
Involvement of friends & family
Empathy mapping
I created empathy maps for 4 different users who had vastly different experiences on dating apps to more deeply immerse myself in their shoes. I spent some time thinking about how they think and feel, and what they say and do. Diving deeper into these insights helped me humanize their experiences and connect with them as people rather than just see them as sticky notes on an affinity diagram.
TOP INSIGHTS
To translate these ideas from sticky notes, empathy mappings, and pi-charts to actual findings, my research partner articulated the following 5 insights that spoke to the main pain points facing our users. These insights aligned with our survey insights, which demonstrated that our user population was generalizable to the greater population of people using dating apps.
There are too many people to try to meet on dating apps.
Conversations are difficult to start and maintain, especially when the other person doesn't put as much effort into the conversation.
Because people have to present a certain version of themselves, people end up presenting themselves unfaithfully.
People make split-second decisions on whether to swipe left or right just from a person's first picture or bio.
The conversation feature has led to an acceptance of bad behavior like ghosting, which can lead to cyberstalking and other forms of harassment.
"How might we..."
INTERVIEWEE:
EMMA TING
"My friend said that she wanted to date, but didn't like the insincerity of dating apps. She wanted to be set-up but use a fun and friendly app interface to connect."
DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
Business design
From regenerative research, we validated our business idea. We created a lean business model to compile all of of key insights and information into one place and formulated a high level concept of our idea. This was our north star in guiding our design decisions since after all, good design is good business.
DESIGN IMPLICATIONS
We then spent two hours brainstorming specific criteria that our designs should meet to tackle the main pain points facing our users. Since there were so many directions we could take to design an end product, we created this chart to guide us during iteration and ideation.
INFORMED BRAINSTORMING
After refining our problem statement, analyzing research insights, and developing design criteria, we conducted an informed brainstorming session to generate design solutions that target the users’ biggest pain points. After an hour of brainstorming, we created a creativity vs. value to user matrix to categorize each of our ideas. Then, we narrowed down our essential design features to the ideas with the highest feasibility and highest value to the user. Although we had several interesting, unique ideas that we wanted to include, we didn’t want to build an app with unnecessary features that contributed to mental clutter.
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
-
Less is more: We wanted to reduce our users' operational and cognitive costs.
-
Ethical design: We wanted to make a dating app that allows all people to have a fair chance of being matched and one that isn't detrimental to wellbeing.
-
Hierarchy: As a proponent of organized design, we wanted to design a clear information architecture system that allows users to move through our product easily.
INITIAL IDEATION
Sketching ideas
We spent around thirty minutes sketching ideas, brainstorming the different interfaces while keeping our design criteria chart as a guide to keep the users' pain points at the forefront of our ideations.
Creating a user flow
Because we are a team of high-level thinkers, creating user flows for each of the main features (setting up a profile, matching, and conversing with matches) helped me define a bird’s eye view of what the final product should look and function like. Although these flows aren’t perfect and are still open to iteration, they depicted the main functions we wanted to include that kept our users’ pain points at the forefront of our design.
UX STRATEGY
BRANDING AND MISSION
Mission statement
Although intended to be fun, dating apps have taken the fun out of dating: awkward conversations, objectification, option paralysis, and safety/harassment issues are just a few of the problems users face. We want to bring the fun back to dating apps, while making it safer, easier, and more enjoyable. Grapevine's premise is a dating app where people can match 2 people who would be a good fit within their community of mutual friends, and those who are matched can get to know each other in a chat assisted by conversation starters that actually work. No pictures/profiles, no stress, and no hassle for users. We want to bring the old-fashioned way of meeting people through “friends of friends” into the digital age.
CORE IDENTITY
-
Targets option paralysis on traditional dating apps by presenting the users with a narrower community of mutual friends
-
No swiping — no photos or profile to make snap judgments
-
Takes the stress away from the matched — you don't have to look for matches, you don't have to put effort intotyour profile, come as you are
-
Fun for matchmakers
-
Safety + accountability that comes with being matched with mutual friends
Visual branding
To emphasize this idea of bringing the old-fashioned way back to the modern era, I played around with fusing vintage + modern aesthetics. We were inspired by La La Land, one of my partner's favorite movies, to use colors that were playful and evoked joy, liveliness, and passion. The modern element was encapsulated by my choice of font, Raleway, which is elegantly depicted by clean, straight lines. We made a mood board to guide our visual and type choices.
"STYLE TILE"
LOGO CREATION
To create our logo, we considered Grapevine's name, branding colors, and mission statement, combining them into a simple and repeatable logo that symbolized an individual on "the grapevine".
MEDIUM-FI PROTOTYPE
Interface layouts
The initial goal of the medium-fi prototype was to implement a number of our visual branding elements into a functional layout that follows our user flow diagram. We connected these interfaces in Figma to create a working prototype to test on users before developing a more high-fidelity model.
Usability testing
We conducted a Think Aloud usability test on 5 college students who are infrequent users of dating apps. To simulate constraints, we gave ourselves one day to recruit and conduct testing. They verbalized their thoughts as they flowed through the dating app. This gave me insight into what was working well and what areas we could improve upon in future iterations. It was clear that the app met our simplicity goals, but we would like to investigate more engaging ways of chatting on the app and create a more identifiable design aesthetic.
ANONYMOUS
INTERVIEWEE
(USER 2)
"I appreciate the minimalist design of the app — I feel like other apps always bombard me with notifications and have too many complex features."
HI-FI PROTOTYPE
Shaping the identity
To start thinking about a cohesive and playful design aesthetic / identity of the project, I wanted to first focus on the font, colors, and iconography of the splash screen, where users log-in or make an account. The approach I took with the splash page informed the rest of my design.
OPTION 1
OPTION 2
OPTION 3
Option 1 focuses on a matte look, contrasting the warmer logo color with a cooler background tone.
Option 2 uses a loose gradient in a warm purple tone, playing with a more dynamic background.
Option 3 has a simple gradient from top to bottom.
New user pathway
For new users, creating an account can be a tedious and slow process. When designing for Grapevine, I wanted account creation to be fun and easy, complete with informative icons and a clear progress bar.
STEP 1
This initial interface introduces the user to the Grapevine platform with a quick explanation and animation.
STEP 2
Each step of the account creation process has only one focal question and easy input fields or buttons.
STEP 3
Adding friends to match is an important feature on the app, so we allow users to import from social media and their contacts.
STEP 4
After completing your account creation, this interface displays a pleasing animation and an encouraging message.
Matching for friends
Matchmaking is half the experience on Grapevine, so we had to make it fun and interactive. Friends not only have the ability to match their mutual friends, but also see match potential, send a matchmaker message, and see match status as time goes on.
HISTORY
Here, matchmakers can see their previous matches that they made, search and sort by characteristics, and see match statuses.
MATCHING
Users can look through their list of imported friends and choose two at a time to match. Under match potential, they can see each friend's values and mutual friend count.
MESSAGE
After matching two friends, the user has the option to send a message to their friends to explain why they were matched.
Matches for you
The matches that your friends made for you appear on the middle tab in the navigation bar. Future iterations of the design will include a way to request more matches from your friends, your match's updated location, and a way to update your matchmaker on your status with each match.
SUMMARY
Impact and reflection
Grapevine is an incredible project that combined my interests in research, design, and business into a problem space that I was very interested in, which allowed me to produce a design that I am incredibly proud of. I loved working with a research partner to develop objectives and strategy, synthesize insights, and test prototypes, and I believe that we brought out the best ideas in one another during this process.
LESSONS LEARNED:
-
Teamwork makes the dream work: Having a team mate that shared the same ambitions and passions in making a cohesive and validated product made the difference between a good project and a great project.
-
The value of ethics: The problem with other competitive products is that gamification has been used unethically, and one of our main goals was to prioritize the mental wellbeing of the people using our app.
-
Diverse representation in interviews: From talking to people of different backgrounds, genders, ages, and ethnicities, I learned so much more about the awful problems that people face on dating apps that are so different from my own. It encouraged us to think outside of the box to create a solution that maximizes impact for every audience.
-
Never stop questioning: The more we asked people "why", the more real their responses were. I learned so much about research methods during this project, especially in relation to user testing. I learned a great amount about the value of research and the necessity of validating my design decisions.
Grapevine.
A dating platform with a new twist on traditional dating. With Grapevine, you can set up friends romantically with individuals you can vouch for.
Congrats! You made it to the end of this page.
Hope you enjoyed coming along for the ride, and I truly appreciate you taking the time to check out my work! You can reach me at amyzh425@gmail.com — I'd love to chat with you.
