Blog 001 - Starting Feeld Redesign

Date: Aug 16th 2020

This will be the start of a fairly odd project, but one that I've been wanting to do for a long time. So why not document the process 😄. The problem starts with a dating app called Feeld. The basic premise is that this is a dating app for couples or those interested more in polyamorour or alternative relationships. This is a super interesting concept, especially from a UX perspective, but unfortunately the app comes no where near its own potential.

What I'm hoping to acheive in this series is to first go in an examine whats wrong with the app currently and then re-envision it as something more true to the core user. This will be partly design and partly code as I'd like to make a basic MVP of my concept that could be used to test the user experiance. Lets jump right in!

Users

From my experiance using the app I've noticed four distinct groups of users based on their intent with the app. From these four there are multiple combinations of gender, orientation and sexual preference. But lets start with breaking down these user stories.

There are of course many many other types of users, and part of that is the pure USP of this app that it allows such a scope of different users with different desires and needs. Without diving into the gender diversity on the app, I think its best to understand why people are there as opposed to other dating apps, and what they get from Feeld that other apps don't provide.

The Current App

As the app currently stands there are two main functionalities when using regularly. The first is the search functionality, where you set preferences for what you are looking for and then have a typical Like/Dislike way of searching for matches. The second is the chat functionality where you can view matches, start conversations with them and create group chats.

Search Function

Chat Function

Some things to notice when using the app:

• Primary actions such as Like/Dislike and Super Like are places at the bottom for quick access
• Profiles are not always indicative of the user, depends on how they set up their account.
• Chats always start with just 1-on-1 and the group chat feature is an extra step.
• There is a lot of focus on paid features such as the Like You sections and the heart in the Menu
• There is no way to organize the chat or know more about each Chat appart from remembering.

Usability Issues

• Pictures and Profiles require vertical and horizontal swipe motions. These are regularly confused, resulting in it being hard to view pictures.
• Matches appear out of order so it is hard to find someone you has recently matched.
• 25% of the buttons on Menu are for paid features resulting dead space for non paying users.
• Profiles for couples are sometimes created by a single person resulting in them being incorrectly labeled
• Search preferences are very narrow and result in a lot of incorrect pairing
• The focus is on finding new people, not in chatting with the people you already matches. Results in stale connections.

Customer Feedback

Looking at the Google Play and App Store there are some real gems of user feedback. On average the Google Play has 2.4/5 stars (7,548 reviews) and the App Store has 4.3/5 stars (12k reviews).

What is of particular notice when reading through the reviews is that several themes come up. Leaving out those who were just frustrated they didn't get more matches, there seems to three main greavances:

• The app is too glitchy and has too many technical issues.
• The concept is great, but the execution doesn't live up to the idea.
• The paid features do not add value to the experiance.

I'm also quite interested in the massive difference in rating between the android and apple version. Whether this means that there are two versions or if android users are just more honest? Certainly there seems to be more feedback from the developers on the App Store, but at the same time most of the reviewers do not give their name and give star rating quite different from the text review.