June - September 2019
Tinder Intern Hackathon 2019 - Tinder Pets
Tinder Pets are fun, customizable creatures that live on Tinder profiles and can be used to interact with matches to strike up conversation.
Background
Tinder Pets was created as part of a hackathon during my internship at Tinder. I partnered with three other interns on this project over the course of my internship.
My Role
In this project, I lead product design, took the team through various design thinking activities. I collaborated with the rest of the team on ideation, brainstorming. We also consulted other full time employees to help practice our pitch and better understand the user pain points.
The Problem
We began brainstorming for project ideas by identifying common pain points faced by users, with the help of the product and data teams, we were able to narrow down the main pain points and focus on one: Low Response Rate.
Low Response Rate
In comparison to the number of matches made on Tinder everyday, the response rate to conversations is incredibly low. Around 54% of messages on Tinder go unanswered.
Nothing to talk about…
Users report having difficulty starting conversations with their matches, when there is no context, or simply “nothing to talk about”. Even when conversations have started, they die out at one point, interest is lost or users run out of things to talk about.
Our Solution: Deepening the Complexity of Chat
As a team, we made the hypothesis that dying conversations can be attributed to the limitations for emotional expression when conveyed with simple text. To overcome that, we came up with the idea of digital pets as an addition to spark joy in conversations.
Working Through the Problem
Over the three months of our internship at Tinder, we spent our free time outside of daily work to collaborate on this project.
After deciding to tackle low response rates, we gathered together to note down any idea we had, ranging from Bachelor in Paradise on Tinder, to online speed dating.
We came up with the idea of digital pets after attending a company-wide meeting where the product and data teams that analyzed keywords. References to the users’ pets in their photos was one of the most commonly conversation starters within the app.
This gave us inspiration to relate back to meet cues in real life: before the age of online dating, pets often brought people together. We decided to use
Introducing Tinder Pets
Customization
Pets are an extension of your personality. You can give them unique names and customize their appearance. Subtly show your personality and likes through customizing your pet without looking like you’re “Trying too hard”!
Part of your profile
Pets are featured on your profile, along with all the other things that make you you, like Anthem or Instagram. As you click through tappy you’ll find your potential match’s pet, along with its happiness indicator, and to get a closer look or see more details you can view it on your potential match’s profile as well.
There’s a frenzy of experimentation going on with the future of messaging, with new ways of communicating on mobile that go beyond typing something and hitting ‘send’.
— Benedict Evans, New York Times
Reinventing the Tinder Messaging Experience with Stickers
Growing Market for Stickers
Messaging apps like WeChat, Line that have rich, interactive features spark up conversations with friends. Sticker messaging already has an established presence in messaging apps in Asia, and are experiencing growth in popularity in social media platforms in the US.
Guiding Emotion-focused Communication
The four initial pet stickers offered in chat are: happy, sad, heart, and hello, based on the four most used emojis in messaging. Pet stickers provide a fun and interactive way of flirting. Stickers are a way to express emotions without having to say anything, and gives users an excuse to talk to someone.
Keyword Reminders
Whenever the term “pet" is mentioned in chat, they will receive a small reminder that their pet is there for them. It inspires users to send their pets to add some spark into the conversation.
Future Expansion and Revenue
For revenue considerations, gamification of Tinder Pets can serve as a revenue stream by offering in-app purchases on either specialty sticker packs or intractable elements for the pets themselves. With 97% of Tinder revenue coming from in-app purchases, specifically in the form of Boosts and Superlikes, we knew that a good number of users were welling to spend money within the app to make themselves appear more desirable.
Gamification
Interaction
You can show affection for your matches by interacting with their pets. Give their pets treats like ice cream, rose and tennis ball. Similar to iMessage, Facebook Messenger, this action is carried out by adding reactions to a pet sent in chat.
Happiness Indicator
Once your pet is interacted with, its happiness meter will increase. The happiness Indicator provides the incentives to interact with other pets and send your own pet to people. Gamification is introduced into interactions to keep the chat active. Plus, seeing a happy pet will also put a smile on your face :)
Prototype Demo
For our presentation to wrap up the hackathon event. We worked together on writing a script to show how two users can start start a conversation and get to know each other better through the use of Tinder Pets. We incorporated the story into our prototype and presented to the whole company.
Illustration Design
A large part of this project relied on creating playful and fun assets that enhanced the game-like roulette experience that Tinder already holds. When designing the pets and related assets, I made them cartoon-like and colorful to further enhance the game experience.
