UX RESEARCH
Online Dating Applications
Role: UX Researcher within a team of 5, Poster Design
Background
The advent of online dating has had a profound impact on society. It has changed how romantic relationships develop and has become a social norm with fewer barriers to entry than face-to-face dating. In this regard, online mobile dating apps have emerged as the primary vehicle for this form of interaction. The purpose of the research is to uncover potential areas of improvement for the current mobile dating applications.
Target Audience
Our research will focus on how to improve the user-experience of mobile dating apps, specifically with young adults(18-24 years and 25-34 years) as we believe that these two age groups are important to look at in regards to demographic use and age.
Research Questions
We have arrived at our 3 main research questions focusing on the attitudes and behaviors of mobile dating application users, these questions could as a theme conceivably inform a mobile app design team on improving the next generation of dating applications:
3.1 What drives people to use mobile dating apps?
This question attempted to explore on the motivations behind usage of the mobile dating applications. Results from the findings could be used to fulfill expectations, add desirable features and to improve the overall application experience.
3.2 What are the primary challenges that users face in finding a potential match on an mobile dating platform?
This question attempted to find out the pain points of users when employing a dating application. In this way, it gave a window into issues or concerns users may have (e.g. safety, privacy, UI problems, ease of use). Answers to these questions allowed a design team to possibly solve some of these issues. In our research we did not only glean information on what not to design. We also focused on the pain points and challenges that users faced to influence attributes that could be designed into an app.
3.3 What are the most important features or tools for users attempting to find a potential match on a mobile dating platform?
This question examined whether users had appropriate tools within a dating app to find a potential romantic match (e.g. selection criteria). This also influenced the analysis of UI features allowing users to define themselves (e.g. profile information, pictures and even gifts).
Participant Selection and Recruitment process
Based upon our project scope, we selected our participants ranged from 18 years old to 34 years old with a variety of relationship types, from single to being in a monogamous relationship. Most of them were college/university students and young professionals. A total of 108 participants were interested in doing our screener with survey attached. Only 79 of these participants passed the screener portion. A total of 10 participants were accepted to the do the semi-structured interviews - five males and five females.
Personas
Having studied the different goals of our user groups, we defined two sets of representative users with generally mutually exclusive goals and sets of behaviours:
The perfect-catch users: They are typically end goal-oriented users who use mobile dating apps to seek a monogamous (long-term or short-term) romantic relationship . Often they have a specific criteria of attributes they are looking for in their match. Once these users find that ‘perfect catch’ or end goal, they will usually stop using the app to focus on their relationship. Under these conditions, these users may not return to using the app. Based on this usage pattern. They are therefore unreliable as returning customers - their return only a possibility if they were to look for a new relationship. This group could provide insight on aspects of mobile dating apps which were successful in helping them find a relationship.
The lobster-trapping users: They are typically non-end goal-oriented users who use mobile dating apps, unsure of what kind of relationship they are looking for. These users are may have various reasons for their mobile dating usage - such as for fun, to meet new people or get dating experience. Therefore, they are willing to meet and take whoever walks into their ‘trap’. Unlike perfect-catch users, this group will form a large base of recurring users since they do not have an end-goal.
At a glance, our overall data collection procedure were performed in the following order:
Participant selection - Pilot surveys - Semi-structured surveys (open and closed questions )- Pilot interviews - Semi-structured interviews (open and closed questions)
Data Analysis
We conducted most of our interviews online over Skype and Google Hangouts and recorded our findings in a combined word document.
We met as a group to interpret our data via the affinity diagrams. We summarized on the sticky notes the most pertinent points and mounted them on the wall to form the affinity diagram. We then sorted out the affinity diagram into three sections: motivations of participants to use the dating apps, challenges to using the dating apps and the most important features or tools in using a mobile dating app. In sorting the different sections for the affinity diagrams, we then organized and parsed the information by moving sticky notes to the appropriate primary sections (e.g. motivations) and kept a running total of specific points (e.g. nine users stated they would prefer not to pay under any scheme for mobile dating apps).
The quantitative questionnaire data were analyzed based on frequency and recorded inside a table within the excel sheet. From the tables we also also able to create pie charts and graphs to analyse the overall trends (mean, median, mode, etc). Overall, we made use of most of the data collected, ignoring any personal stories or answers that were off-topic shared during the process or not related to the research itself.
Summary of Results
What drives people to use mobile dating apps?
The top three criteria for a potential romantic match are personality, interest, and location and religion tied for third. It is worth noting to reflect these factors in our design recommendations.
Also, most users are comfortable dating someone they met online from outside of their social circle and half of the users use a mobile dating application because they expressed difficulty meeting someone new in person. This surfaced a relation between the willingness to date and the degree of separation between people.
What are the primary challenges that users face in finding a potential match on a mobile dating platform?
The most challenging issues stated by participants in the surveys were with regard to time consumption (44.3%), followed by people lying (20.3%), and then harassment (10.1%).
What are the most important features or tools for users attempting to find a potential match on a mobile dating platform?
It is also important to note that some of the more often suggested improvements to the UX/UI of the applications are higher quality matches, more feedbacks, personalization, future goal matching and removing inactive users. Users also do not have a preference for user-led or system based filtering but they did prefer higher quality matches to a greater raw number. They also complained about some applications not having a ‘last online’ feature for prospective matches and most female users desired prior consent before being randomly messaged on the application(eg. Okcupid).
