The inception of Tinder has undoubtedly given us unprecedented freedom and accessibility to meet people easily through its innovative swiping interface, changing the entire landscape of dating. However, in recent times, sentiments towards dating app hasn’t been the best. People are saying that this is “the Dating Apocalypse”.
Over the years, Tinder has also built up a reputation as a hookup app among the young adults, attracting people who are looking for casual relationship and one night stands. Such perspective of Tinder is eroding its brand value as we saw Bumble, Tinder’s close rival that was founded in 2014, gaining market share steadily over the past few years while Tinder began to lose grip ever so slightly as the market leader.
& stagnating revenue growth rate
We thought it is a good time to how we could look at improvements the Tinder Experience so that Tinder continues to have a strong foothold on the mobile dating scene.
With the awareness and openness in our mindset when approaching the problem, we broke down the problems to different areas that we would like to explore to have a deeper understanding of how we can improve the Tinder Experience.
For the first round of the research, we approached the problem from three different angles - Users, App, Business.
The decision was made to proceed with the business analysis first so that we have a better idea of the holistic view of how Tinder is doing from a business perspective. Having these findings on hand before conducting the User Research and App Evaulation will be helpful as we will require certain degree of exposure to Tinder’s business model, competition and an overview of the dating app scene to be able to craft the right questions to get insightful responses from the interviewees and participants.
Social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok allows content creation from users, which means users get to easily get to know other users’ personalities and preferences through the photos or videos that were posted. This allows the users to develop a greater sense of connection between each other even before any contact is made.
This level of connection before chatting is lacking on dating apps where users start chats based purely on limited profile descriptions and profile photos.
FINDING 01
FINDING 02
According to 68.8% of the research participants
FINDING 03
According to research participants, they are looking beyond physical attraction. They are looking for engaging conversations and hoping to meet matches with shared interests.
FINDING 04
More than 70% of the users finds that people who uses Superlike are weird.
More than 60% of the users would never pay to undo likes/dislikes no matter what.
The results from heuristic evaluation and uasbility testing showed that the features on Tinder are well-developed and has little flaws.
Also, the features are similar to other dating apps and doesn’t do much in changing the behaviours of users on Tinder. For more impactful changes, we will need to look deeper into the deeper moviations of users.
We want to create more opportunities for users to match with other like-minded users for a better chance of engaging conversations and more meaningful connections.
At the same time, we are looking at affordances that we can tap on to seamlessly weave in Tinder into activities that users are comfortable with and are used to doing. Since the pandemic happened, the consumption of entertainment have shifted back home.
While the subscription business model has been lucrative for Tinder, as they see record revenue in recent years, the features that are implemented due to the subscriptions has left a bad taste in the mouth of the users. A lot of such features, for example, Super Likes, actually worsen the overall experience on Tinder.
A dilemma of prioritising pleasant user experiences against business goals.
& it is continuing to grow.
The influence and reach of Tinder cannot be undermined.
Tinder currently have 75 million monthly active users across the world. The conversations that users have on Tinder indirectly determine the places that users dine at, the events that users attend, the shows that the users watch. The many aspect of the users' lives are directly affected by their interaction on Tinder. And that puts Tinder in a unique position of influence in culture and societal norms.
The opportunities that comes with this position that Tinder occupies in the lives of their users is boundless.
From the opportunities of Tinder's cultural influence
Solving dilemma between pleasant user experience & business goals
The marriage of Tinder and Netflix has been long time coming.
The term “Netflix and Chill” has been synonymous with the culture of Tinder and coincides with Netflix’s status as a cultural phenomenon.
So why not put these two platforms together?
The result is an ultimate immersive experience where users could watch shows while connecting with other users who watches similar shows on Tinder. At a go, users are able to bond over common topics about the shows as well as have a shared experience while watching the shows together at the same time.
A browser plugin for Tinder.
TinderConnect will allow users to connect with various on-demand video platforms such as Netflix so that users could swipe and match with people who are watching the same show. Also, there will be a feature where users could watch the same shows at the same timing so that they could have a shared experience with each other from the comfort of their homes where it could be a testing phase for both parties before committing on actual dates.
By collaborating with Tinder, these streaming platforms are tapping into the 75 million monthly active users that Tinder has on its platform. With majority of the users aged 18-34, the streaming companies will have access to the people who are more influential culturally which is beneficial for media businesses. Furthermore, the collaboration could mean that only users with registered accounts could use TinderConnect. This will reduce the amount of users who are sharing accounts.
& assuming 10% of its users sign up for a premium Netflix account
*this is an example based on US subscription rates.
The percentage of users that will sign up will gradually increase through the years as more young users are more likely to get on Tinder first before getting on Netflix as Tinder is free to use while Netflix requires a subscription.
TinderConnect need not be restricted to Netflix only.
With the shift from traditional media to online video platforms, there is a plethora of on-demand video platform that emerged. Every one of these platforms is an possibility for Tinder to expand the TinderConnect experience for more users and an opportunity for another stream of revenue for the business.
TinderConnect is more than a dating app.
It is cultural phenomenon that influences almost all aspects of a young adult's life. From the places that users eat, to the places that users go, to the clothes users wear and the activities that users do together, a huge part of everything begins with Tinder.
Being clear with the UX process helps when you need to adjust the process based on the problem that you need to work on. Sometimes, choosing what findings to work on is just as important as collecting the insights and findings in the first place. In this project, the results from the Heuristic Evaluation and Usability Testings weren’t significant and it takes good knowledge of the entire UX process to decide whether it should be considered in the final ideation process.
Trust the process. In the field of UX design, understanding the wants and needs of the user is utmost important for us to create enjoyable experiences with our products. But sometimes, there might not be clarity till a later stage in the process. As long as we dig deep into the motivations and fundamental needs of the user, the answer will slowly emerge from the fog.
Only then, can we design solutions that are intuitive and natural for the user.
We have to always think further. Sometimes we can be lured into working on specifics parts of the app or the website that does not give you the perspective you require to think out of the box. The answer to our problem in this project cannot be easily found from the functions or features on the app. We need to understand our problem well so that we could think of a solution that solves the actual problem.
Looking back on this project, selecting Tinder as the topic to work on was rather bold.
If not done right, the project outcome will offer little value. But I am glad that my team and I took on the challenge as it forced us to really understand the problem from the user’s perspective and trained us to think deeper and be bolder with our approach. We set off wanting to improve not just the features of Tinder but completely reimagine the possibilities that Tinder could offer society.
We are glad we were able to come out with a solution that solves user’s needs, novel and exciting at the same time. I believe it has broaden our perspective and refine our approach to future projects that we will be working on.