Delusional by Design: Redesigning Hinge's AI in 15 mins

Let's get creatively delusional!

Have you watched Black Mirror’s Hang The DJ episode? I remember when the show came out years ago, long before AI news became the reality that we see in headlines every single day. The show is surprisingly accurate about how AI is evolving to change our daily lives and routines…including our dating lives.

While most Black Mirror episodes tend to have sad endings, Hang The DJ had a happy ending (spoiler alert, they found true love). The AI in the show simulated hundreds of matches and scenarios to match profiles with 98% accuracy. If you haven’t watched this episode, it is definitely worth checking out…plus you get the darkness of Black Mirror with a Hallmark worthy ending :)

But what does that have to do with redesigning Hinge’s AI features? It’s pretty obvious that Hinge is a newcomer when it comes to applying AI features to dating and matching. We could say that Hinge’s AI features are pretty basic at this stage, and continue to stay true to letting daters do the bulk of the chatting and flirting and date planning.

So what AI features does Hinge leverage today? Hinge provides AI-generated recommendations when writing profile prompts. Hinge’s Top Picture feature also analyzes profile photos that are uploaded to prioritize the best picture at the top of each user’s profile, giving them their best “shot” at attracting great dating partners.

While Hinge’s AI features, and other dating app AI might lag in the background for now, this is a strategy that a lot of dating apps are using to keep their platforms safe. Safety is a HUGE concern in the dating world, and dating apps today are doing more to verify user identities and prevent frauds or catfishing.

The long-term consequences of dating apps seem to have taken a toll on all of us- it’s harder to meet people in person or in-real-life. Dating online also promotes quick choices and moving fast, creating a toxic hookup culture that permeates modern-day dating today. Dating online via apps like Tinder and Hinge might have also reduced our ability to communicate well, and communicate for long-term friendships, relationships or partnerships. In-app messaging makes it easy to be unintentional about how and what and when to communicate, leading to text strings that often go nowhere…

Daters online believe they have lots of choices, when in reality they might not. Dating apps keep daters playing and entertained with constant swiping. It’s nice to see Hinge set some limits on swiping and pushing the focus towards meaningful conversations online.

And yet, there is still SO MUCH opportunity to expand and improve the dating space and online dating experiences today. We still think there is much more than can be done to make dating LGBTQ+ friendly and polyamory-friendly. We also think there is so much opportunity to redesign online dating to focus on in-person dates, as opposed to getting stuck texting on the app. In fact, apps like TimeLeft encourage group dinners and dating dynamics in a more casual manner, focusing on meeting up rather than chit-chatting.

So are you ready to redesign Hinge in 15 minutes to consider modern-dating nuances? Let’s dive into it.

BTW, if you want to dive deeper into AI design heuristics while coming up with your own ideas for redesigning Spotify’s AI, we include our AI design heuristics FigJam toolkit to help you design AI features and products. Get access by subscribing to the UX Woman Substack ($6.67/month). Once you subscribe, you will gain access to all templates, FigJam boards, and case studies that we only include for VIP subscribers at the bottom of each email.

Our AI Design heuristics FigJam template includes:

• Principles to design and communicate AI features and elements

• Setting user expectations about the scope of AI functionality

• Examples of AI design, both good and bad

As always, rooting for your success!

Samaya, your UX woman.

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