Love in the City: A design story of in-person dating in NYC Parks.

Opportunity

Not all dates are meant to evolve into a relationship. Not all relationships start with the perfect date. Instead of putting so much pressure on the first date, why don’t we just focus on having an amazing time?

Solution

We took a human-centered design sprint approach to create the best possible in-person dating experience in parks of NYC to bring together people who are looking to date in a more organic manner. Over the course of 2 design sprints, we rapidly developed and prototyped concepts that smooth out the ice-breaking and protect the privacy of daters.

Understanding the current use of parks and pain points of daters

We began our design sprints by gaining an understanding of the typical activities that take place in a park. For our reference, we selected Union Square Park, located at 14th Street in NYC. To do this, I visited Union Square Park three times to identify the different park activities, local businesses surrounding the park, and the layout of the park. With this I was able to observe that park is used for leisure activities like reading books, catching up with friends, walking dogs, playdates, etc.

We also explored the importance of sense in dating by going through research papers and validated them when we conducted user interviews with people actively looking for a partner through online dating apps to understand their struggles while going through the process of matching to going on a date. We learned that

Ideating concepts to facilitate the dating experience

For daters having a good conversation is so important, we wanted to know how to get two strangers talking, We found a viral NYT article that featured 36 questions that could supposedly make any two people fall in love. Our idea was to use a custom-designed deck of cards with the questions as prompts to get people talking.

We also wanted our daters to focus on having an initial conversation without any distractions. Inspired by the Netflix show Love is Blind, we focused on creating a telephone booth experience that allows people to have a genuine conversation in an old-fashioned way.

Illustrating the concept in the storyboard to gain insights from potential daters

We illustrated a storyboard to depict the dating experience we envisioned. This helped us to understand how the experience would unroll for daters and potential improvements to the concept that could help us to design better dating experiences.

Taking a step back and reflecting on the approach

We wanted to make sure that we approach the dating experience with wholesomeness and inclusive so we asked two questions.

• How can we make the experience systematic, so it can be hosted in different public spaces for dating?
• How can we create a dating event that is easy to facilitate for the staff and organic for the daters?

From our primary research, we got to know that among the popular dating apps, the hinge app is considered to be the go-to app for daters if they are looking for a serious relationship. And currently only have online dating experience.

We decide to approach an in-real-life dating experience that takes on the form of speed dating and hinge app as the facilitator of the experience with its new service called HINGE CONNECT.

To answer the above questions, we decided to have different themes for different groups of people with different orientations, interests, and expectations. Each week, we would take over a different park or public space to host the event.

Restrategizing the approach

Based on the feedback gathered from daters on our concept of a telephone booth and physical card game prototype and reflecting on our approach we introduced two major changes to our concept.

1. Digitizing the card deck game powered by AI gives daters a choice about what kind of questions they are comfortable answering.
2. Instead of using a phone booth for daters to talk and check the vibe before matching, allow daters to chat with everyone at the event and use rings associated with QR codes and Near Field Communication chips to connect on the hinge app.

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Delivery of the concept

We crafted a service blueprint that could help us envision the touch point between the daters, staff, and technology.

Enacting a real-life scenario to test the concept

Wireframes and Digital Touchpoints

Want to see detailed process? Check Sprint 1  and  Sprint 2 Presentation

Learning from enactment session

• Participants liked the idea of dating in real life and AI-generated topics to break the ice.
• Participants appreciated the option to not continue the conversation after the event.
• Participants suggested that the fist bump should occur after the card conversation to minimize the possibility of stalking or unwanted communication.
• The fist bump action seemed a bit unnatural for participants, possibly due to differences in cultural greeting.

Thank you for taking the time and going through this case study. Happy Dating !

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