THE PROBLEM
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people, including Gen Z students, were forced to isolate themselves from their usual social activities and networks, leading to increased feelings of loneliness and isolation. For many Gen Z students, traditional social activities such as going to parties or attending events were not feasible due to pandemic restrictions.
One study published in the Journal of American College Health in March 2021, surveyed 1,007 college students in the United States about their experiences during the pandemic. The study found that 80% of respondents reported feeling lonely at least once during the pandemic, with 58% reporting feeling lonely often or very often.
One study published in the Journal of American College Health in March 2021, surveyed 1,007 college students in the United States about their experiences during the pandemic. The study found that 80% of respondents reported feeling lonely at least once during the pandemic, with 58% reporting feeling lonely often or very often.
THE TASK
How do we create more laughter, more connection, and promote healthy (and sometimes flirty) interaction for Gen Z students who are feeling alone and isolated?
MY ROLE
1. Improve upon the onboarding sequence, homepage, search, user profile, and post-date flow
2. Create a post-date messaging experience
An interesting part of this project was how messages would integrate within our existing suite of features - which until this point had been centered around only communicating on live video dates. How could we incentivize the daters to “unlock” the messaging feature after going on a live date? What did the locked state look like? How would we notify the user that they had unlocked the ability to chat with their matches after going on a live date?
THE FIRST STEP (MARKET RESEARCH)
Although reluctant at first, I downloaded handfuls of dating apps to see what the competition was doing in regards to their messaging and familiarized myself with the market.
Some key marketing findings I considered when creating
messaging included:
I looked at what other dating apps were doing for messaging as well as looking outside of dating apps for messaging in apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Messages -and and took notes on what to draw inspiration from and how we could improve.
FINDINGS
I liked how both Hinge and Bumble used their empty state to incentivize users to get matches in a CTA.
Tinder, Bumble and Hinge had nice and functional displays of previewing the matches at the top of the screen.
Generally, WhatsApp, FB Messenger and Messages were fairly similar in terms of the actions and locations of elements, where as Tiktok had a more unique layout which was a bit confusing to navigate because I felt as if I had to relearn where elements were.
SUGGESTIONS
How do we create more laughter, more connection, and promote healthy (and sometimes flirty) interaction for Gen Z students who are feeling alone and isolated?
1. Incentivize the user to talk to their messages after their date
2. Organize message by new, read, and archived
3. Have the ability to go on another date with their match directly though the messaging feature
APPROACH
Taking a super collaborative approach, I involved developers and the founder at every opportunity — making sure everything we produced was technically viable according to the engineers, but also checking that the direction was in alignment with the vision and product goals. Working across timezones with the team, a big part of my approach was sketching, prototyping and video presentations via Loom. 
THE FINAL MESSAGING DESIGNS
The great thing about working with Date Night, is that their branding and color guide was already developed. I was able symbols and icons to their already existing design system - I’ve build design systems before and know how time consuming it is to build from scratch.
From the wireframes, clean up, establishing hierarchy, incorporating fonts, colors, and various button, and interaction states was needed. Since Message represented a fresh approach to the product, it was also an opportunity to establish some newer design patterns that we could then roll-out to the rest of the app over time. Patterns involving depth, animation and accessibility were created for this project and later absorbed into the design system.
In this stage I worked closely with the developers to get this across the finish line.
From the wireframes, clean up, establishing hierarchy, incorporating fonts, colors, and various button, and interaction states was needed. Since Message represented a fresh approach to the product, it was also an opportunity to establish some newer design patterns that we could then roll-out to the rest of the app over time. Patterns involving depth, animation and accessibility were created for this project and later absorbed into the design system.
In this stage I worked closely with the developers to get this across the finish line.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Whilst wrangling existing features and figuring out backend compatibility isn’t glamorous — this project required integration and deep understanding of the existing features.
This included the interplay between the messages that I built - and the chat that already existed in the live video dates for the audience & daters, notifications, and post date polls.
USER FEEDBACK & SUMMARY
During my time at Date Night, I was able to see college students attend live dates, and was allowed to watch over some of the dates with our video API - Mux. What I discovered was nothing short of magical - creating interactions that would not likely occur otherwise.
I saw people learning how to improve their english, laughs, and friendships made across rival campuses. Many of these connections would not have been possible without messaging on the app. I am happy to have been part of a team that creates connection in times of need.
I saw people learning how to improve their english, laughs, and friendships made across rival campuses. Many of these connections would not have been possible without messaging on the app. I am happy to have been part of a team that creates connection in times of need.