Hinge dating app first time user experience
The good bits:
- The user doesn’t need to swipe through an “intro tour” of Hinge’s various features.
- Hinge provides a lot of information about why they need certain pieces of information via “Why?” links presented inline next to input fields.
- The notification prompt is prefaced by an in-app justification screen.
- The location selection screen does not default to asking for device location permission; the user is only prompted if they choose “Use current location.”
- In the profile setup flow, subjective preferences such as gender and kids do not have a default selection, while factual information like height and location have a default selection the user can change. This shows a carefully balanced consideration about the impact of defaults on an individual (however, see note about gender options in “to be improved”).
- The introduction to Hinge’s liking system is provided in the context of a real profile.
- Hinge uses inline cues to provide users with a range of possible questions and answers, which can lead to more detailed, meaningful profiles for other users.
To be improved:
- A new feature introduction appears as the very first thing a new user sees, which can be confusing and irrelevant for someone who just wants to understand the app as a whole.
- The app consistently reinforces that it’s “the app designed to be deleted,” but this might be more confusing than helpful for new users who want to understand why they should continue with the app. Hinge should consider elevating why an app designed to be deleted is important.
- Non-binary gender options are not available, and this is not made apparent until the user gets through the account creation flow and sees the option on the “gender” screen.
- The division and signposting of account verification, signup, and profile creation can be clunky and confusing, especially because the flows are not labelled. First, users verify their accounts in a 3-step flow; second, they are taken to a 4-step flow that asks for name/age/email/notification permission; and, third, they are shown a 10+ item flow in which they are asked to “create a profile,” however, 4 steps in from the start of the “create profile” flow, an interstitial appears and tells them to start creating their profile…and then another interstitial appears immediately after to let them know they’re going to start viewing other profiles now. The user is dropped into their first profile and introduced to the profile liking system. But, when the user tries to send a like (which the app encourages them to do), they’re told they need to complete the same profile that they were dropped out of by the app. If users choose to “complete profile,” they land on an empty state of their profile screen, instead of the multi-step flow they had during setup. The profile screen indicates that they’ve completed 0% of their profile…yet they’d already provided information about gender, kids, and height. To improve this experience, Hinge should make it clear up front how many steps will be involved; label each major flow; and not interrupt the profile creation flow but instead give users the option to leave it at any time and continue later.
- The app is heavy-handed about getting notification permission from new users. First, in the setup flow, it asks them to enable permissions and then asks them to “be sure” before accepting the declination. However, when the user finally exits setup, the app immediately shows the system-level notification prompt without preface.