How Bumble dates and user research are similar? đ
After a year of being single, Iâve decided it was time to go back to the âmeat marketâ. After a couple of dates, I realized the conversation was smooth, the interaction was ok, however, the âWe should go for a coffee another timeâ never arrived.
It was a pattern until I saw what was happening. I was doing on my personal life the same thing I do for work. Wait for it⊠User research.
Nerd alert: Yes, the conversation was smooth because the first few minutes I was concentrated on building rapport with my user; I was paying attention, following up the answers, and being empathetic. Do you see? USER RESEARCH!
The word âresearchâ might seem scary when you are starting. What I want to show you, is that something as simple as using a dating app can be your intro to this stage of the design process, which is crucial to create successful solutions.
Ok, how can we start? having dates but more important, learning about research đ
Uncovering business needs
To have a good sense of where to focus your research you must have clarity on the business needs and goals. What are the objectives? How are we going to measure the success of this step? Do we have a budget or a timeline? In this case, Iâm the main stakeholder and my objective? To not end up being a crazy lady cat. Success to me looks like having more than just a date and feel a mental connection with the guy and finally, I like splitting the check đȘđŒâš
Planning and picking the right method.
Once youâve identified the main goals, to ensure a successful project you should know what kind of person you want to date, I mean⊠the user you want to interview. Some of the things to look for while researching are behaviors, likes, needs, pain points (extremely important⊠no one wants to date someone with childhood trauma).
There are multiple research methods you can try; Journaling, Interviews, Shadowing, in my opinion, a little bit intrusive for a first date if you donât want to end up with a restriction order. The most important thing for this stage is 1) to be flexible, and 2) to define the desired outcome. This last point will help you guide the conversation when it is going to tricky places. In this case, we are picking User Interviews.
Screening
âTo recruit study participants, you should ask screening questions which assess their background and characteristicsâ
As most all the stakeholders do, I think I know my Ideal user. On first touchpoints with them, they share information about whom might be their user. With this information, you can start building a proto-persona. This tool will help you as a guide to recruiting dates. Some information you could include is demographics, socioeconomic level, habits.
In my case my criteria to date someone would look like this: A functional adult with a stable job, around 30âs, with interest in art, food, open-minded and not negotiable: no allergies to cats đš. Bumble provides some characteristics to see if the person matches some relevant criteria to people: Scorpion? Sporty? No Children? Looking for something serious or just casual. Swipe until you find the user you want to interview.
Face to face interview
Due to COVID, remote interviews are always a good option, and using tools as MURAL and Hangouts are always helpful. In this case, I decided to schedule some interviews and do ethnographic research. For my UX projects I like to have a semi-structured script to guide the conversation but as tempting as it sounds, I restricted myself to bring that to my date, I guess going with the flow is the thing to do in that case.
Aspects to cover on your script
Introduction: Introduce yourself and share the objectives of the interview. This will help you to set the context.
I find it pretty cool when someone starts the conversation sharing the reason why are they there, on the date⊠Last time it was just because he was planning to visit the city I was born, and I was there cause I wanted to share a matcha cake.
Rapport: Start the conversation with easy questions that help your user to feel confident when talking to you, you might want to build on with a similar story. When dating, I like to start with something we both have in common: How is bumble working for you? that one is easy.
The interview: Avoid bias and try to keep an open mind, donât judge or assume anything and try to ask follow-up questions until you get to the root. Be present and use corporal language to show you are paying attention.
Closing: I like to end my interviews with a simple question to get final thoughts⊠I didnât try this on a date, but it might work. If you had a magic wand, would you change something? If there are no extra comments, you can thank the time and ask if you can reach out again if needed (if you know what I mean đ)
See? A date, so anyone can do it! đ
Next steps
Sensemaking: Just as you call your friends to gossip around your date is a good practice to call your team after an interview for a debrief so you can share your thoughts, quotes, and impressions.
There are multiple ways to analyze the gathered information, my fav: affinity mapping which allows you to group ideas into categories that help you to articulate the findings. As an example, after a first date, I could have an affinity map with clusters as âthings in common that we could do in our free timeâ âattitudes that are attractive to me and might help me to actually want a relationshipâ. These groups help you to identify patterns that lead you to design relevant solutions. Try to be as descriptive as you can with the titles.
After a few interviews, I found the âright userâ just to realize he was about to move to Myanmar, so that was my tiny love story đ
Hopefully, if you are starting on the research world or dating, this blog post can work as a starting point to learn about the steps for planning user research and to let you know that you donât have to be an expert to start, and anyone can do it. Personally, I think Iâm better with the first one than the second one but who knows?
Is there another research tool you want to learn about? Is someone using technical skills in their personal lives? âš
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