Tinder + Linkedin… Could it be a match ? Introducing Tinder’in
At this point Tinder doesn’t really need to be explained. It is an application that helps matching people who are looking to date or else(…).
The missions are pretty simple :
- Tinder makes being single more fun and rewarding by connecting people who may not have otherwise met in real life.
- Tinder celebrates that being single is a journey. And a great one. Being single isn’t the thing you do, unhappily, before you settle down.
- Tinder stands up for how a whole generation chooses to live their lives.
If you ask around, you will find out that most people have used Tinder at some point in their life for various reasons.
The challenge & the brief
The challenge for this case study lasted 7 days and the brief was pretty simple :
How do you use Tinder to hit on someone in your professional field ?
Research
Tinder was launched in 2012 and gained popularity quite fast. In fact within two years, the app was registering about one billion “swipes” per day. Today we count 57 million users spread over 190 countries.
It is accessible through a mobile app or a computers and simply requires a facebook account or a phone number to register. Tinder uses location to help users find potential matches and anonymously swipe to like or dislike other profiles based on their photos, a small bio, and common interests. Once two users have matched, they can exchange messages.
Tinder is very popular with the Generation Z aka the first generation of true digital natives. Through subscription and advertising, Tinder generated 1.2 billion dollars of revenues in 2019.
Who are the competitors ?
Regarding its competitor for this case, we only focused on three :
Launched in 2014 by an ex Tinder employee, Bumble just passed 100 million users. The application is available in 150 countries and is very popular with the Generation Y (aka the Millenials) which gives it the reputation of being the relationship app when tinder is considered the hook up app. Bumble is a location-based application just like Tinder people have to match but the difference is that the woman has to make the first contact.
Happn is a french application available in 40 countries and which now counts 50 million Users. Happn only shows users profiles based on locations where they’ve crossed paths. It is also very popular with the Generation Y.
According to some studies, flirting on Linkedin is becoming a real trend. People are trying to reconnect with old office crushes or meet new people for more than just network. Some might even say that it is more efficient than Tinder.
Linkedin is available in 200 countries and now counts 675 million users who are mostly within the the 30–49 yo age range.
Users
Then I needed to understand why and how people used Tinder.
To do so, I interviewed five frequent or past users all aged between 32 and 36 years old.
What I found out is that Tinder had a bad reputation. It is seen as the hook up app, full of people who swipe just to swipe or to boost their confidence. According to the interviewees, people on Tinder are not honest.
They mainly use it when they are bored in the train or before bed.
Regarding the application in itself, they found it straight forward and very user friendly.
In terms of their dating life, many of them said that it was hard to find someone who understands their schedule, working in retail or as entrepreneurs.
I work just like I breath so it is hard to find someone who understand my work schedule
Because of that they feel like people are mostly dating in their work environment.
Ideation
Reading the brief, I must admit that I was doubtful. We know that people have concerns regarding their privacy and sharing informations on Tinder and on the current application, you have no way to know in which field they evolve.
But the interviews showed that there was a need for people who work a lot or who have demanding jobs, so now it was time to think.
I started a worst idea process and came up with a few options :
- Ask people to fill in personal information and upload their payslip to prove their work status ?
- Match according to salary?
- Love interview system?
- Adding a “booty call” button, because if you are going to be seen as the hook up app, you might as well own it.
- Integrate Linkedin info to Tinder ?
After another round of quick users interviews, I ended up focusing on Tinder’in, a feature that would integrate a selected amount of information from Linkedin’s information to Tinder.
To help understand how the feature would work, I created a user flow to show how the feature would integrate.
Wireframes
Though the application remains the same, the goal was to create a feature that would integrate well in the current design while using some of Linkedin’s codes like the color.
For this project, I decided to go straight from low-fi to hi-fi.
My first idea was to use Linkedin’s logo, but the users found it confusing.
The “in” made people think that all their Linkedin information would be available or that they were matching for actual job interviews.
The flame with the bag was too small to be seen and understood on mobile. So I ended up focusing on a briefcase.
Then for the feature in itself, I imagined a pop-up introducing it to people when they open their application.
Usability testing
I submitted the prototype to 5 users and they for the most part gave me mixed feedbacks.
- Get to kill two birds with one stone, network and find love.
- Good for career oriented people.
- Common topic that will facilitate the first conversation.
- Good to have more informations on people.
- Proof that the person is not lying about his job.
- Means that the person is serious and looking for a real relationship.
- The app still needs more filters (religion, salary bracket, origins, kids…).
- Prefers to meet people from various horizons.
- Don’t want to mix professional image and personal.
- Discriminatory feature.
- Briefcase is a bit confusing/ not clear.
- Pop up looks like an ad.
- “What do you do when you have kids and you both work the same crazy hours ?”
The biggest point was that they need more filters on the application to refine their search.
Next steps
Following these feedbacks, I decided that it was best to pivot
Because Tinder’in was seen as discriminatory, I decided to completely remove the feature. The point was to help people connect with users working in the same field, not make other user feel rejected from the start.
Now using the users feedback, one of the first step would be to add more filters to the settings, it could be a free or paid option.
We could also think of a way to efficiently provide certified profils to avoid people (and mostly woman) feeling unsafe on the application.
Learnings
What I learned working on this project, is that usability tests are very important to take your design to the next level and make sure that you completely understand the users needs.
I would love to continue working on this project and improve the Tinder’s usability.
Thanks for reading, please do not hesitate to leave comments. ;)
