Why this is important?
• More than 80% of the blind population has faced judgment, rejection, weird questions, and hurtful comments over their disability which
is completely out of their control.
• Meeting people outdoors and approaching them has always been a struggle for blind people. They need to have a safe space to take
their time and make a move.
• In the times of online dating, not many dating services are being considerate of making this experience as smooth as others for blind
people.
• Current online dating mainly revolves around physical appearance that is the basic limitation for the visually impaired community.
• People sometimes fail to understand how blind people operate and how normal their life is. They have made themselves extremely
independent that they don't need someone to be their Kane.
Research Strategy
Team
Nick
UI/UX Designer
Thomas Jefferson University
Yahya Khalid
Inclusive Designer at Apple
Mike Begley, Advisor
UI/UX Designer
Professor
Problem Statement
Young people from the age of 20-40 are desperate to find love online nowadays. Dating as a visually impaired person comes with more challenges, and with the rapidly changing situations, the challenges keep evolving. Visually impaired people struggle to get social acceptance and understanding beyond their disability. Even with the advanced technology that we have, the visually impaired community still faces challenges to pursue their social relations.
The existing technology is failing to understand limitations with the vision for visually impaired people and enabling them to use their remaining strong senses to make the online dating experience accessible to them.
Modern online dating services limit their services only to visual accessibility. Even for Visually impaired people, physical appearance is important but that is not the only preference for them for dating. The concept of modern online dating is not accessible to visually impaired people.
They fail to get assistance beyond online dating apps. Current online dating has only made it easy to find people, but it fails to help visually impaired people every step of the way until they feel confident or okay about the situation.
Competitors
Bumble
Hinge
Hinge
Hinge
Tinder
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These apps, however, do not extend to the visually impaired community since these apps are almost unusable for visually impaired users.
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The lack of alternative texts is problematic because the stigma of dating apps becomes unavoidable for people who are blind, and increases their dependency on others.
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During onboarding for Tinder, it takes less than a minute to sign up and begin clicking through the thousands of dating profiles. For Hinge, the process is longer because Hinge had a greater focus on showcasing personality as compared to Tinder however like the previous app, there is no measure for verifying that the user is the same as in the pictures.
SWAT Analysis
Through the SWOT analysis exercise, we have identified the strengths of our product. Moving forward, we need to consider our weaknesses and threats while focusing on the opportunities that lie ahead.
Feature Ideation
Through this exercise, we managed to categorize our features into three groups: Must-have, Should-have, and Could-have. This has provided us with a clear understanding of where our primary focus should be and which features are essential to our user experience.
Site map
Low fidelity wireframes
These wireframes were hand-drawn to understand the functionality and flow of the features. We also conducted a
the first round of user testing on these wireframes.
Brand Identity
Feature Ideation
Hearing Sense:
The study has shown that voice plays a very important role in understanding others.
Hearing somebody’s voice helps to understand their personality and paint a better picture in your head.
This feature allows users to record their bio's with their voice and talk about their hobbies, favorite movies, food places, or anything. This will allow the user to make a better judgment on finding connections.
Taste Sense:
Following are taste buds: sweet, salty, umami, hot, sour, and cool.
We designed a feature that describes human personalities with these taste buds. Users can choose which taste bud describes their personality better and add that to their profile. For example:
Sweet: agreeable, friendly, and compassionate
Salty: opinionated, edgy
umami: Old school, smoky, flavorful
Hot: fiery, enthusiastic, strong-headed
Sour: Moody, grumpy, funny
Cool: Calm, practical, composed
Ice breaker:
This feature was for users to need help with starting the conversation and not have to pressure to say the right thing. This feature has different types of questions that both the users will answer at the same time, that way they can continue the conversation.
Date suggestion:
It is a very stressful process to find a perfect place for your first date. Users hardly know each other, they want to make an impression and they want to have a good time. We designed a feature that would give users date place suggestions according to their location, hobbies, and common interests.
User Testing
Doing 2 rounds of usability testing on both wireframe and final design to study user's navigation ups and downs and evaluate the success of the features.
Following were the tasks that were tested by the users:
1. Login or sign up
2. Record your bio’s
3. Explore a user and send them a “Like”
4. Buy a premium version of the app
5. Chat with one of your matches and use the ice-breaker feature
6. Make a few changes to your profile
Feedback and Suggestions
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Few users thought the onboarding process was too long.
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The functionality of the personality taste feature was confusing and a lot of users struggled to put their personalities in percentage.
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Users did not land upon the premium version/ paid version feature of the app.
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Few users hit delete account by mistake.
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Users thought using language like “reject this profile” sounded harsh and rude.
Next Step
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Introduce new features with Smell and touch senses.
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Testimonials from other connections.
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Add a video gallery where users will upload their talent videos.
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Verified user Profiles.
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Messages of encouragement for users to keep exploring and connecting.
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Send gifts:
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Amazon and other sites integration.
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Design your own profile.
