tindersafety

A short senior UX and UI project to investigate a problem space for Tinder and propose a solution using high fidelity mockup.

Project Length

3 weeks

Team

Karishma

Role

User research, Content Strategy, UI Design and Interaction Flow

Contribution

Conducted user interviews and synthesized data to propose the feature design. Then created interaction flows, wireframes and high fidelity mockup.

Tools

Figma

Feature Proposal

Share Your Date

Inspired by Facebook Dating’s online feature, “Share your Date" allows you to forward your date information to a close friend or family member to track your location and inform them of urgent updates. Using the tindersafety app, users are able to meet up with individuals feeling secure knowing their location and date’s profile is accessible to a trusted individual.

Skip to Final Project

Mockup of Tindersafety

Target Audience

The Problem Space

Tinder originally took a heteronormative approach to dating apps, and now presents itself as a universal dating app.

Only in 2019, they added a variety of sexualities and genders for the LGBTQIA+ community to identify themselves. However there is still room for improvement, thus we narrowed our scope of research to understand LGBTQIA+ individuals on Tinder.

How might we make queer users feel more comfortable when meeting other users online?

Research

Gathering Qualitative Data

To gain insight about the queer community on Tinder, my partner and I conducted virtual one-on-one interviews with five queer TInder users via Discord for approximately 40 minutes. The interview consisted of a series of personal questions to Tinder specific questions regarding their sexual identity and dating preferences. During this phase, I mainly took on developing the interview questions and conducting 2 of the final interviews.

Synthesizing Data

Affinity Mapping

To gain a holistic understanding of our research, I used the affinity mapping technique to organize our secondary research and interview notes into higher level themes, such as user goals and frustrations.

Affinity Grouping of interview and secondary notes

Key Insights

Through the session, we narrowed down 4 main themes/trends to prioritize and drive our project.

Making Queer Connections

Meet other LGBTQIA+ individuals outside of the people they already know

Important to freely express their identity without the fear of being "outed"

Finding a Partner

Looking for a long term relationship outside of a platonic connection

Safety concerns about potential matches due to fear of discrimination

Personas

Using Scenarios to Drive Solutions

Using the key insights and details from the affinity mapping, I synthesized our data into an intended user and potential user. This included a short summary to understand their situation and feelings. Then a list of goals the user wants to achieve and list of barrier that are preventing them from achieving the goal.

Persona of Kat (Intented User) and Jas (Potential User)

Ideating

Potential Solutions

In this phase, my partner and I began to ideate multiple solutions for our problem statement. For each solution, we focused on a persona and tried to solve exclusively for them before narrowing down to our final idea. We chose our final concept, "Share Your Date," as it can be beneficial to all Tinder users and its potential for various micro-features.

Discarded Feature Idea

Watch Out for Red Flags!

TinderQueer: Expanding Modes

“Watch out for Red Flags” is a toggle feature that allows users to know prior to matching if the other user has a history of being reported for inappropriate or harmful behavior. It strives to prevent Kat from being placed in uncomfortable and discriminatory situations and to hold users accountable for their actions.

This feature plans to expand Tinder user’s intentions by adding a “TinderQueer” mode for users to connect with local queers. This would allow Jas to expand their queer community and expand to make Tinder’s existing feature more inclusive.

Watch Out for Red Flags Wireframes

TinderQueer: Expanding Modes Wireframes

User-flows

To ensure a well-planned feature, the two of us explored various scenarios and brainstormed ideas to create multiple cohesive flows. We designed and presented 5 major flows to pitch our feature idea. Out of these 5, I was responsible for overseeing flow 2, 3, and 5. While doing these flows, I had to be considerate of how to share information such as location to ensure we are transparent and respectful to user's privacy. As well, ideate alternative ways the user may want to get to one task, such as sending a check-in message.

Keyword detection for date request
Being notified that Kat has shared the date location
Check-in’s from emergency contact
Sending a date request
Kat is on a date

Figjam screenshot of different user-flows and the series of interaction necessary to complete it

Wireframes

Medium-Fidelity Wireframes

Once the flows were finalized, we converted our low fidelity sketches into medium-fidelity wireframes, where I was specifically in-charge of the flows involving the newly proposed app, Tindersafety. I had to utilize our personas to understand, what were the crucial information Kat would want their emergency contact to be aware of and simplify this information on the home interface. Afterwards, we critiqued each others wireframes and made iterations for the final version.

Screenshot of medium-fidelity wireframes of the Tindersafety application.

High-Fidelity Wireframes

Detailed Breakdown of Mockup

Below is a detailed breakdown of the final mockup highlighting the flow and intentions of each decision. I was in charge implementing our style guide of the UI flows for the seperate app, TinderSaftey.

Sending a Date Request

The chat AI will identify date-related keywords and prompt the user to either send a date request or manually select it. Any available information from the chat will be automatically filled in by the AI.

Final mockups for the "Sending a Date Request" user-flow.

Sharing your Date

The chat will detect relevant keywords related to a date and prompt the user to share the details. The AI will automatically input any necessary information, and the user can then send the information to an emergency contact from their contact list

Final mockups for the "Sharing your Date" user-flow.

Emergency Contact Interface

TinderSafety is a mobile app designed for Tinder users and their emergency contacts to track their friends and family during a date. The app includes a map with the date's details and the user's status, and allows for check-in messages to be sent through both the main and notification interfaces. The app also features a built-in messaging system that uses AI to suggest prompts for emergency contacts to respond.

Final mockups for the "Emergency Contact Interface" which is in the separate app, Tindersafety.

Privacy Mode

Alert System

Kat can activate privacy mode during her date to hide her location temporarily. This is indicated by a grayed-out icon on the map and a status update showing that privacy mode is on. The emergency contact will also receive a notification informing them of this status.

If there is no response to a safety check-in within 15 minutes, the emergency contact will receive a notification reminding them to check on the user. The contact can choose to call immediately or receive another notification.

Final Mockups of the "Privacy Mode" feature.

Final Mockups of the "Alert System" feature.

Next Steps

Reflection

During the project, I gained a better understanding of the importance of qualitative research and its differences from quantitative and secondary research. I also learned how to create interview questions that don't lead the interviewee and encourage them to provide detailed responses.

If I were to repeat the project, I would aim to distribute my efforts more evenly to allow us more time to incorporate the various features we had planned. Specifically, we wanted to add features that would enable users to extricate themselves from dangerous situations if their emergency contact fails to respond. Additionally, we planned to utilize motion tracking to alert the emergency contact if the user is intoxicated and unable to make informed decisions about their safety. Then conduct user-testing with a functional prototype to gain user feedback of our feature.