Bumble

About the project

Why not find friends on a dating app?

Role: Project Management, User Research, Persona, Prototypes, Usability Testing, Visual Designs and Presentation

UX Design Case Study

Team: 3 Members

Tool: Figma

Scope: Mobile App

Duration: Two Weeks

Bumble is an online dating application facilitating communication between interested users. It is best known for its female-centered dating app; Bumble is the first of its kind to bring friend-finding and career-building into a single social networking platform. It has a swipe feature like any other dating App. It also offers a premium subscription model for extra features.

Prototype

Interact with wireframe designs.

Check out the new features and new user interaction alternatives. Bumble bff and bumble bhive are integrated in such a way that it potentially increases user engagement and more avenues of monetization for Bumble APP.

The Design Cycle

"I have no friends and no enemies - only competitors."

As we started our design journey with the discovery phase our first step was Competitive Analysis. During the user research a few names popped up like Hinge, Meetup, OkCupid, and Tinder which were most similar to Bumble. Only Meetup and OkCupid had finding a friend feature. Only Meetup had a way to actually find an event and go to the event with new friends.

"We all need a friend who understands what we are not saying!"

Let’s understand the user!

To understand the User’s needs and challenges it was important for me to know how do people actually make friends as an adult and what challenges do they face? I sent out surveys and conducted Interviews with 5 participants who are adults and have tried looking for friends online.

Interview Insights

My best friend's problems are my problems.

Problem Statement: Users need a better way to meet friends so that he can build a community in the new city he just moved to.

HMW:

How might we facilitate an environment where users can meet new friends who share the same interests?

How might we help users find different opportunities to hang out with potential friends?

How might we help users build a safer community so that they feel more comfortable meeting new friends?

Squad goals!

I divided our research insights into three main categories - Build Trust, Compatibility, Meetup. From these three categories - I decided to focus mainly on Meetups because from the user interviews I realized that Meetups will benefit the majority of the user base. It also has the potential to create different avenues to generate more revenue for Bumble.

Possible Solutions

A true friend will always make you a PRIORITY and never an OPTION!

After we decided to focus on the meetups feature, I started working on scoping our design solution. I created the feature inventory and prioritized them based on user Insights, impact analysis, feasibility and user adaptability. While prioritizing the features based on the user insights I also kept in mind what can be done to increase the user engagement ratio for Bumble App. Here is the priority matrix for this design cycle:

Priority Matrix

We need a new Connection!

New logo for Bumble - Bhive

Following Bumble’s brand while maintaining Consistency and Continuity, we created a new connection. Now, we needed a name for our meetup feature. We brainstormed and came up with a name “Bumble Bhive” where users can explore and create new events.

How to use a new Bumble Bhive?

Information Architecture

In our proposed site map, we added “bhive” as a new connection in the main screen with all the other connections (date, bff, bizz).

1. To keep the user interaction cohesive, we transferred bumble bff matched friends to bhive.

2. We also kept the swiping feature (for events) to keep the consistency. Users can swipe on events just how they swipe for friends. They can swipe left to not go to the event, swipe right to add the event in the event queue and swipe up for more information. The main reason behind that was to keep the new connection intuitive and user friendly.

These are the user flows we created that made it easier for users to navigate through new features on the app.

User Flow 1 - To explore/book an event(s) and invite friends

User Flow 2 - To create an event and invite friends

For the style guide, we tried to keep the original U.I. elements as much as possible.

The bhive feature we created is an extension of bumble BFF. The color scheme of Bumble BFF is an ocean blue so we decided to extend that color for bhive. Also, currently the app has 2 warm colors and 1 cold color so adding another cold color will balance out the color scheme.

We also introduced a honeycomb feature. From bhive, users can switch easily to bff and check their matched friend’s profile. While they are on the profile page they can also check a friend's preference/interest for a meetup.

While introducing a new logo for bhive we decided to put flying bees around it to represent friends hanging out at a good event.

My friend is my reflection, an extension of myself!

Design System

For the style guide, we tried to keep the original U.I. elements as much as possible. At the same time, we added some new elements and colors for BHive Connection.

Friendship is like Design Iteration - It gets better with each phase.

After we had an overall idea on information architecture, we created the wireframes and made changes with each design iteration. Three main screens from our low fidelity prototype:

Home Screen - Introducing bhive

Meetup Preference

Event Navigation

Event Page

Event Queue

Proposed Changes:

1. We had the bhive filters as an opening screen to the new feature bhive, but after usability testing we decided there was too much to do before actually getting to swiping. So we added a single screen to set preferences and get users quickly interacting with the app.

2. To collect the user event preference in more subtle way, we added Questions screen to choose ‘what you want to meet for’. This allowed us to gather user preferences while they are swiping for events.

3. We also changed the event pages from 'On drag" to "Swipe" feature.

Two Screens

Single Screen

On Drag

Swipe Feature

Meetup Preference Card

What IS working?

We put our designs to the test in order to validate our assumptions. We conducted usability tests with potential target users. We were testing them on the following areas:

Create a Bhive profile (Choose interests)
Create new events (add pictures and invite others)
Explore Events (Based on preferences)
Find events to attend (with similar interests)
Maintain bumble branding and interaction patterns (swiping for events)

What we learned?

After the usability tests on HiFi prototypes, we observed that we definitely improved on the user experience but some users still struggled to swipe because the tests were done on the computer screen and not on a phone. Even after the second Usability Test, 5 out of 5 people said they would highly likely use and recommend bhive. This number gave us more confirmation and backed our user research that bhive will affect majority of the user base. This new connection also has the potential to create different avenues to generate more revenue for Bumble.

Outcome

Final FIGMA Prototype

Conclusion

A best friend is like a four leaf clover, hard to find, lucky to have!

I found that dating apps are a fascinating research topic. Users were eager to share their experiences and frustrations. For me, the most challenging part was finding a way to translate all the data I gathered in my research and conversation with users to a better design solution. Making the user experience cohesive between bumble bff and bhive was important design decision because that reduced the user frustration and increased interactions. I am happy with the final usability test results, because it gave me assurance that I was leading the research in the right direction. And, most importantly, during the design this project I found amazing friends in my teammates!

Next Steps

Let's Connect

For PROJECT enquiries or just a fellow creative seeking to collaborate,

I am just an e-mail away!

Resume

Linked In

Instagram

"How beautiful it is to have a friend who asks for nothing but your company?"

We based our affinity map findings on the insights we received from our User interviews. There were many categories that reflected users' sentiments. After a long brainstorming session within our team, one user persona emerged from the affinity map.

Bumble

About the project

Why not find friends on a dating app?

UX Design Case Study

Prototype

The Design Cycle

"I have no friends and no enemies - only competitors."

"We all need a friend who understands what we are not saying!"

Let’s understand the user!

To understand the User’s needs and challenges it was important for me to know how do people actually make friends as an adult and what challenges do they face? I sent out surveys and conducted Interviews with 5 participants who are adults and have tried looking for friends online.

Interview Insights

My best friend's problems are my problems.

Problem Statement: Users need a better way to meet friends so that he can build a community in the new city he just moved to.

​

HMW:

How might we facilitate an environment where users can meet new friends who share the same interests?

​

How might we help users find different opportunities to hang out with potential friends?

​

How might we help users build a safer community so that they feel more comfortable meeting new friends?

Squad goals!

Possible Solutions

A true friend will always make you a PRIORITY and never an OPTION!

Priority Matrix

We need a new Connection!

New logo for Bumble - Bhive

Following Bumble’s brand while maintaining Consistency and Continuity, we created a new connection. Now, we needed a name for our meetup feature. We brainstormed and came up with a name “Bumble Bhive” where users can explore and create new events.

How to use a new Bumble Bhive?

Information Architecture

In our proposed site map, we added “bhive” as a new connection in the main screen with all the other connections (date, bff, bizz).

1. To keep the user interaction cohesive, we transferred bumble bff matched friends to bhive.

These are the user flows we created that made it easier for users to navigate through new features on the app.

User Flow 1 - To explore/book an event(s) and invite friends

User Flow 2 - To create an event and invite friends

For the style guide, we tried to keep the original U.I. elements as much as possible.

The bhive feature we created is an extension of bumble BFF. The color scheme of Bumble BFF is an ocean blue so we decided to extend that color for bhive. Also, currently the app has 2 warm colors and 1 cold color so adding another cold color will balance out the color scheme.

We also introduced a honeycomb feature. From bhive, users can switch easily to bff and check their matched friend’s profile. While they are on the profile page they can also check a friend's preference/interest for a meetup.

While introducing a new logo for bhive we decided to put flying bees around it to represent friends hanging out at a good event.

My friend is my reflection, an extension of myself!

Design System

For the style guide, we tried to keep the original U.I. elements as much as possible. At the same time, we added some new elements and colors for BHive Connection.

Friendship is like Design Iteration - It gets better with each phase.

After we had an overall idea on information architecture, we created the wireframes and made changes with each design iteration. Three main screens from our low fidelity prototype:

Home Screen - Introducing bhive

Meetup Preference

Event Navigation

Event Page

Event Queue

Proposed Changes:

1. We had the bhive filters as an opening screen to the new feature bhive, but after usability testing we decided there was too much to do before actually getting to swiping. So we added a single screen to set preferences and get users quickly interacting with the app.

2. To collect the user event preference in more subtle way, we added Questions screen to choose ‘what you want to meet for’. This allowed us to gather user preferences while they are swiping for events.

3. We also changed the event pages from 'On drag" to "Swipe" feature.

Two Screens

​

Single Screen

On Drag

Swipe Feature

Meetup Preference Card

Meetup Preference Card

What IS working?

We put our designs to the test in order to validate our assumptions. We conducted usability tests with potential target users. We were testing them on the following areas:

Create a Bhive profile (Choose interests)

Create new events (add pictures and invite others)

Explore Events (Based on preferences)

Find events to attend (with similar interests)

Maintain bumble branding and interaction patterns (swiping for events)

What we learned?

Outcome

Final FIGMA Prototype

Conclusion

A best friend is like a four leaf clover, hard to find, lucky to have!

Next Steps

Let's Connect

Resume

Linked In

Instagram

"How beautiful it is to have a friend who asks for nothing but your company?"

We based our affinity map findings on the insights we received from our User interviews. There were many categories that reflected users' sentiments. After a long brainstorming session within our team, one user persona emerged from the affinity map.