Love 2.0: How to Build the Next Generation of Relationship Apps

by Stevie Case

This Valentine’s Day, roughly one in five of the couples out on special dates together will have a dating app like Hinge, Hornet, or Tinder to thank for first getting them together. But while relationship apps are a fully accepted part of our single culture, anyone who’s actually used them can tell you there’s still much to be improved: Even when you find an interesting match, connecting with a potential date is awkward and often leads to fractured communication, while frequent harassment and unsolicited sexts cause many to just quit. And even when users finally engage with someone they actually want to meet in real life, they face a communication chasm, generally having to leave the app to finalize last-minute logistics.

I’ve been thinking about these problems for a long time — partly as a former single who once used these apps, but mostly as a former game designer and longtime developer who’s been following new technologies which emerged since dating apps first appeared on our phones five-seven years ago.

Icebreaker Dialog Trees

After dating app users find someone they’re interested in talking with, the first point of contact is the most daunting: An empty message box, demanding they type in something charming to a total stranger. I think this is partly why many men resort to texting something sexual right off the bat: Not just poor social skills, but simply not knowing what to otherwise say. I also believe this is a problem that can be addressed through better design:

In roleplaying/adventure games, players often interact with characters in the game through a dialog tree — typically, 3–7 different lines of dialog you can choose from, each of them expressing different aspects of your own character’s personality or interests. Why not apply this feature in dating apps, with a pre-set list of interesting icebreaker questions, any time a chat is initiated? Instead of the usual bland or crude “Hey” or “Ur hot” opener, questions like, “What’s the most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten?” or “Why do you live where you live now?” Starting an actual conversation with a dialog tree not only prevents Spammy or offensive opening lines, but subtly sets a tone and expectation for the real dialog to follow.

In roleplaying games, different opening dialog choices often lead to different consequences; say something offensive to an alien in a spacebar and get attacked, choose a wisecrack, and get a free drink. This is another principle that dating apps should consider. Why not give a user the option to choose her own set of opening questions, and designate how she wants to filter them? So for instance, automatically block anyone who chooses to reply to, “Down to hookup this weekend?”, but put any reply to the question, “Who are you voting for this year, and why?” to the top of the inbox queue.

However, text-based messaging shouldn’t be the only frame of reference for dating, which takes me to my next point:

Live, Interactive, Engagement-Rich Context

When we meet people in real life, it’s usually around a broader context — at a raucous bar at the jukebox and arcade games, say, or in a local park bench while greeting passing dogs. Attraction is sparked not just by physical appearance, but by shared activities where we learn something about who they are by how they express themselves.

For that reason, I think the next generation of dating apps will leverage new web hooks and APIs to create more interactive, media-rich communication contexts: Bots which launch text-based mini-games to play together, an option to share the clips of a favorite song, or listen to the same music stream at the same time. (Who besides me fondly remembers late night phone calls as a teenager, holding up your phone to the radio to share a favorite new song?)

In the same way read receipt and typing indicators increase our rate of texting, new technologies should be leveraged to create new varieties of live co-presence.

Appifying the First Date Experience

Most popular dating apps excel at creating seamless, engaging user experiences — except, ironically enough, when it come to the very most important stage of all: Agreeing and setting up a first date. Somewhere been finding a mutually agreeable meeting time then actually getting there, many app-based dates fall apart. Lacking reliable communication channels, most people quit the app entirely, switching to e-mail, SMS, or (particularly difficult for the shy) an actual cold phone call. For many consumers, this jump from the relative security of the dating app can be jarring. Do you really want someone you’ve never met and may never want to see again still have your phone number or e-mail address after your first, only date?

This is where bots and other applets can assist: A little pop-up calendar to select and choose a meeting time, say, connected with a bot that displays pre-selected bars and restaurants in a given neighborhood. Even more crucial, in-app audio chat, so users never have to leave the app or need a pre-meeting phone call. I hope to see more rich interactions like these in future apps, giving their developers more analytics and revenue opportunities — and more convenience and security to their users.

The Rise of Non-Romantic/Non-Traditional Social Apps

I’ve been talking about relationship apps in terms of romantic dating, but I should close by pointing out another trend: The rapid growth of non-traditional relationship apps, and apps architected for group-based or fluid/open relationships, used by hundreds of thousands of people every day. I know of one app still in development that’s solely designed for women to find platonic female friends — in days, its site was deluged by tens of thousands of women putting their names on the waitlist. Much of this activity reflects some Millennials’’ move away from traditional monogamous couplings and a more transitory lifestyle as they leave college or home to establish new friends in new cities. But I’d argue it’s indicative of an even larger trend:

Call it the appification of our entire social fabric — an inevitable outgrowth of social networks and the pervasiveness of on-demand platforms. The cultural implications of that trend are definitely controversial, but it’s something developers of dating apps need to consider now: The future of their industry may not be based around the idea of creating one-to-one romances, but creating new Venn diagrams of socialization, where hot dates are just one of many possibilities.

Stevie “KillCreek” Case is Vice President of Growth at Layer, the fabric for building any messaging experience on mobile and web.