Inclusive Dating Apps

introduction

In Spring 2020, I was part of Out in Tech's mentorship program, a youth mentorship program that connects junior LGBTQ+ technologists with senior LGBTQ+ professionals in the field. Each pair worked on a mentorship project aimed at building technical skills. My mentor and I chose to research how the onboarding process of dating apps could be more inclusive to people of different gender and sexual identtiies. The following is the final paper and research results.

Final Paper Transcript

Researching an LGBTQ+ inclusive onboarding experience for dating apps

An accurate representation of gender and sexual identity play a significant role in a dating app. The onboarding experience of a dating app is where this representation is formed. An inclusive process supports individuals to fully communicate who they are to potential matches. It's one of the reasons that Tinder decided to include more gender options when the people in the trans community were being reported or harassed on the app.

The goal of this paper is to highlight interface patterns that help people fully showcase themselves and establish inclusive institutions that represent the broad spectrums of gender and sexuality.

My research should serve as a starting point for making a dating app more inclusive. I took 4 weeks to research what was established in dating apps and what improvement could be made. My process looked like:

Include more gender and sexuality options within the onboarding experience

One strong theme from the user interviews was that the more options that were in the onboarding experience, the more inclusive the process felt. I asked participants to compare the following two prototypes:

more-options.png
The prototype on the right felt more inclusive. There were more options for people to identify with.
"[There are] a lot more communities that are a minority in the LGBTQ space in the community itself. Gay and Lesbian are a top two … and so this [second] option gives more freedom in terms of choosing the options because you have that many options to choose from and to identify with"
–– Alex

The LGBTQ+ community is diverse, with many different identities. It's important to help each individual state who they are. Having more options for gender and sexuality allows everyone to better describe who they are and what they are looking for.

UI practices when there are too many options

A potential shortcoming of including multiple options is having an overwhelming amount to select from. Hick's law suggests that the more options there are, the longer it will take for someone to make a decision. A couple comments on the prototype with more gender options centered on this information overload.

"[The second one is] really overwhelming. I'm dyslexic. So reading through all this, I probably would look at and be like: alright I'm coming back to this later or is there a skip option?"
–– Henry

The goal of an onboarding experience is to timely help the user set up an account, so a plethora of options can seem contradicting. However, there are many interface patterns to support the user while keeping information density low. Consider using autofill, search fields, or typeaheads

search-ui.png
Additional Gender options by Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge.

Consider Using an Open Form field

Even with as many selections for gender and sexuality, there still may be some identities that are excluded. One consideration is to give people the opportunity to self-identify their gender in an open-form field. This self-description may not affect the matching algorithm, but it can be displayed on a profile to help someone tell their full identity.

open-form-field.png
The open form field option shown to participants.
“That's why I like the option before – of having a free form section so that if you were to choose an option that wasn't one of these words. It helps a lot to have that ability to further explain”
–– Kelly

Have a Place for Pronouns

Another important component of gender identity is what pronouns a person uses. It might be seen at the end of email signatures, but pronouns can have a place in dating apps too. Having the option to display someone’s pronouns on their profile is an opportunity for better representation.

pronouns.png
Lex pronoun options
“[response to ‘Tell me about your experience using dating apps’] My experience has actually been pretty supportive because I've had things such as HER and then recently Lex. I only like places where I can like, list lots of identity factors and include multiple pronouns.”
–– Casey

Power to Show What Appears on the profile

There will be cases where it’s better to talk about an identity in a conversation rather than having it openly displayed on a profile. This particularly important for those who may not be fully out and do not want their identity displayed for anyone to see.

“I find [my sexuality] is super personal and like to talk to people once I've actually made a connection. I'll mention it. See if the other party maintains interest after that. It's definitely more personal. It used to be on one of my profiles. I think it was on Bumble a while back. And noticed that I didn't get a ton of matches because of that. And now that I have taken it off, I get a lot more”
–– Kelly

However this will depend on each person. The best way is to give each person the option if gender or sexuality is displayed on their profile. An example can be found below

hidden.png
Option to hide gender in clearly given in Hinge.

Each Part of Profile Expresses Identity

One lesson from the user interviews was how people were able to use other parts of the onboarding process to express their identities. Pictures were an important part when expressing gender identity. It’s an opportunity to showcase a person’s best self – with the clothes, makeup, and filters that represent who they are.

“Presentation for me is important … I definitely spend time on my selfies. Okay, probably 630 on my phone, right now. I spend some time just writing out a little bio and I just try to fill out everything honestly I'm comfortable filling out which is everything really.”
–– Sara

Gender and Sexuality Editable after Onboarding

A final consideration is to make gender and sexaulity editable after the onboarding process. This is an important consideration for those who identify as fluid or who are questioning. People who are gender or sexually fluid have varying genders and sexaulities over time. It’s important to give them the option to show who they are at the current moment.

In addition, people who are questioning might tend to change how they identify as they explore their gender and sexual identities. Dating apps should have clear flows on how people might edit these on their profiles.

Further Research to Explore

Further research should explore supporting individual groups in the LGBTQ+ community. A limitation of my work was that it captured one or two perspectives from a gender and sexual identity. It is the beginning step for future endeavors and captured a broad view of the LGBTQ+ community. However, talking to one or two people from a gender or sexual identity may not accurately reflect the problems for everyone of that identity. Research that delves into supporting one identity at a time can reveal richer insights to make an entire product more inclusive. Future research should take a depth-first approach to understand how to make products more inclusive for different gender and sexual identities.

Final Thoughts

We all deserve to find human connection, and the onboarding experience of a dating app is an initial request: “Here’s who I am and the people I am trying to connect with.” To represent different genders and sexualities, it is important to consider what options we provide to self-identify, how to help people construct profiles, and what power we provide to users in onboarding. Thank you for reading, and I hope you learned a bit more about inclusivity in dating apps.

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