Team: Alisa Avigan and Jiaqi Li
One Week Design Challenge: Zoosk would like to be more active in helping people during other parts of their relationship journey.
Solution: Introduce the idea of playing matchmaker with your friends.
Highlight: I did the wireframes for this project, click here to view the annotated wireframes that were created for this project
Process Notes
Currently Zoosk profiles are matched by the system with other profiles and you are told by an algorithm who you would or would not be a good match. This lacks a human touch which is why our solution takes the concept of ‘Matchmaking’ where one friend tries to set up another friend. This added benefit to this is that it leverages the safety of going through an online dating site with the personal touch of this not meeting a total random of the internet.
Example: Lets say you go out on a date but do not feel that 'spark' so instead of going your separate ways for an awkward goodbye, what if you had a friend in mind? So instead of saying I think we should be friends (and then never talk again), you could say "you know we do not click, but you know I have someone you should meet.". The system would start by sending invites from Zoosk to Zoosk users, then be evolved to send an invite from Zoosk, to a Facebook friend that is not using Zoosk. This type of invite system would draw more people into the user base.
This project benefited heavily from my previous project "Modern Dating in an Old-Fashioned World." We were able to use card sorting on the survey data previously collected and from that we were able to settle on personas that were used in the story as well as roleplaying for our design ideas. As a team we used each others strengths and had a chance to practice new skills, overall we felt our solution was successful as we accomplished our goal in bringing a human element to online dating.
Personal Contributions
As a team we researched, iterated and developed the story. Individually, I used Sketch to wireframe the site changes as well as bringing my own research about dating to the table (this is an area of great interest to me).
Click here to view the research project that was the catalyst.