🐈‍⬛ Onboarding project | Hinge

🐈‍⬛

Onboarding project | Hinge

About Hinge:

Hinge is one of the most popular dating apps in India and worldwide, alongside others like Tinder and Bumble. What distinguishes Hinge is its unique marketing approach as “The dating app designed to be deleted,” aiming to help users find long-term relationships by facilitating their “last first date.”

Hinge facilitates finding long-term relationships by encouraging users to have meaningful conversations and express their personalities. Additionally, it is built on a Nobel Prize-winning algorithm that ensures users find their most compatible matches.

Some features that align with this goal are:

Hinge offers detailed profile options, prompts to activate your profile, conversation starters, reply reminders, one free “Rose” (may also be referred to as Superlikes) per week to indicate greater interest in someone, voice prompts, prompt polls, dating intentions information (Ex: whether you are looking for a short- or long-term relationship), limiting unanswered messages and more.

While other dating apps match people based on swipes, Hinge uses a more personalized approach by matching people based on likes, comments and an award-winning algorithm.

User Research:

Given that users might be hesitant to honestly share some aspects of their behavior on Hinge, the surveys included an option to remain anonymous, and the interviews were conducted with cameras off to help respondents feel less judged.

Survey:

Survey questions: https://forms.gle/48x5vMXEM3Bfiwkr5

Survey responses: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bCXGLX1hvF03YXd7XuILGhTWCcvjrgypL0FJ34-i6dg/edit?resourcekey#gid=1578494075

User Interviews:

Number of Interviews: 5

Sample pool: Power users of Hinge (Atleast at some point in the last 3 months if not currently)

Interview Questions: Some or all of these questions were asked based on the direction of the responses and the time available.

Demographics :

Name:

Age

Gender:

Location:

Occupation:

Sexual orientation

Lifestyle:

What do you do in your weekends?:

Apps they spend most of their time on?: Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, OTT?

What are your key interests?

What are you passionate about?

Interaction with Hinge:

Are they a premium member?

Which premium features have you bought?

How often do they use Hinge?

How many dates do they go for in a month?

When was the last time they used it?

When they were last active, how frequently were they using it?

How many months in a year were they active on Hinge?

Features:

How do you find your matches? discover, likes you, messaging, Standouts? What works?

Frequency of using these features

Are there any features they love? How often do they use these?

Are there any other features that they use?

What do they like about the app?

What do they dislike about the app?

Do you use any other dating apps? How does the experience at Hinge compare?

Understanding JTBD:

What do they hope to get out of using Hinge?

Do they have periods when they do not use the app? What holds them back?

When do they find themselves opening the app?

User 1:

Demographics :

Age : 28

Gender: Male

Location: Tiri, Uttarakhand.

Occupation: D2C Toys Brand. Growth Manager.

Sexual orientation: Heterosexual

Relationship status: In a relationship (Now)

Lifestyle:

What do you do in your weekends?: Sports - football, camping, swimming, trekking. Short trips (40 kms)

What are your key interests? : Football, being physically active, Music - drums, and discussing music.

Lifestyle:

Usually on the move to closeby metro cities. He works remotely. Explores the city in his free time to wherever he travels. Moves when he is not able to work from his workplace and so he moves somewhere for a week - with friends who also works remotely or someone that is free.

Interaction with Hinge:

Are they a premium member?: No

How often do they use Hinge? : opened the app 8-10 times a day.

When was the last time they used it? : 30-40 days ago.

Features:

Are there any features they love? How often do they use these?:

Ability to comment/like prompts: On Hinge, it felt like there was more possibility on his hands to connect. Because it wasnt just about looks, it was about how he approached a person. Felt like he was in control.

Are there any features they dislike?:

He doesn't like audio features. It makes him feel insecure about the way his voice sounds.

Are there any other features that they use?:

Prompts polls: serves as an icebreaker.
Age and distance filter. He matches usually with people older than him.

What do they like about the app? :

Algorithm: He moved to hinge because he was tired of using other apps. Found that the profiles on Hinge were a right fit in some sense. Found more people with similar interest.
Detailed profiles: Type of people were better: They put more effort into their profile. Since they put effort into the profile, one can gather that they arent here just to waste time.

Do you use any other dating apps? How does the experience at Hinge compare? : Tinder and Bumble.

Understanding JTBD:

What are they looking for on the app?: Mix of wanting to find someone who was interested in long term relationships but often, it would end up being just a fling.

Do they have periods when they do not use the app? What holds them back? :

When he is travelling, he doesn’t open the app as much. Might do it for casual flings.
He doesn’t open the app in front of friends. This is because users of dating apps are usually seen as people who only want flings. He does not want others, especially his female friends to think that he is that person. Such a person may also be thought of as someone who does not treat females well.
He finds himself opening the app when he was bored.

User 2:

Demographics :

Age : 18-25

Gender: Male

Location: Bangalore

Occupation: Growth Manager and side hustler

Sexual orientation : Heterosexual

Relationship status : In a relationship currently (Not when using the app)

Lifestyle:

What do you do in your weekends?: Goes on dates if he is using Hinge, works, watches something on OTT.

Apps they spend most of their time on?: Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, OTT.: Instagram, Snapchat, Linkedin, OTT

What are your key interests? : Staying physically active, K drama.

Interaction with Hinge:

Are they a premium member? : No

How often do they use Hinge? : Multiple times a day

When was the last time they used it? : Last 90 days

When they used it, how frequently were they using it? : Multiple times a day

Features/Activation metric:

Are there any features they love? How often do they use these? :

Loves that the users can send messages. It gives him control and enables him to impress the woman.

Are there any other features that they use? : Profile Prompts, Sending Likes, Commenting on Photos or Prompts, Discover Section, Match Recommendations, Roses

What do they dislike about the app? :

How expensive it is.

Do you use any other dating apps? How does the experience at Hinge compare? : Loves hinge the most. Uses Bumble and Tinder as well.

Understanding JTBD:

Do they have periods when they do not use the app? What holds them back? : Work holds him back. He can get too busy to use the app. What are they looking for on the app? : Ideally long-term relationships.

When do they find themselves opening the app? : After work, at night.

User 3:

Demographics:

Age : 27

Gender: Male

Location: Tier 3 city

Occupation: Employed

Sexual orientation : Heterosexual

Lifestyle:

What are you passionate about?: Likes non-fiction books - insightful books based on research. Eg Why we sleep, swimming, yoga, meditation, Vipassana.

Interaction with Hinge:

Are they a premium member? : Yes he was.

Which premium features have you bought? : HingeX

When was the last time they used it? : Last week

When they used it, how frequently were they using it? : 3-4 times a week. Throughout the year.

Features:

How do you find your matches? discover, likes you, messaging, Standouts? What works? : Discover and likes Standouts as well.

Are there any features they love? How often do they use these? :

The ability to respond to prompts or pictures.
The premium plan allows him to add more preferences.

What do they like about the app? :

Better quality profiles. Since people on hinge are more serious about finding a match or meeting people.

What do they dislike about the app? :

1. Its expensive.

2. Limited number of compliments.

3. No calling feature: People might not be comfortable with sharing their number initially.

5. Even when a profile is rejected, it keeps showing up again and again.

6. Even when he got premium, he did not see more profiles.

5. Takes a lot of internet capacity.

Do you use any other dating apps? How does the experience at Hinge compare? : Used Bumble and Tinder. He didn't like that there were a lot of fake profiles and low-quality profiles on Tinder. Didn’t like the UI of other apps.

Understanding JTBD:

What are they looking for on the app?: Long term relationships. He says he doesnt have time for casual relationships.

Do they have periods when they do not use the app? What holds them back? :

Since he comes from a tier 3 city, the options were less. And anyone that he wants to meet were 3-4 hours away.

When do they find themselves opening the app? : In the evenings.

User 4:

Demographics :

Age : 18-25

Gender: Female

Location: Heterosexual

Occupation: Employed

Sexual orientation: Heterosexual

Lifestyle:

What do you do in your weekends?: Sleep, reading - non-fiction and autobiographies, indulging in one particular hobby eg. dog walks. Meeting friends. Theatre. Cafe hopping. Gymming.

Interaction with Hinge:

Messages: 20-25 matches for interesting matches. Bad matches 10/15 message exchanges.

Other behaviour: Would screenshot the profiles on standout that she liked thinking she could message them on their socials. Would rather do this than pay for a rose. However, she never reached out to them on social media.

Features:

How do you find your matches? discover, likes you, messaging, Standouts? What works? : Depends on her mood. When she feels like chatting she uses the Likes you tab or to clear out the pending profiles.

However, on dating apps, she says you get used to swiping more and she likes the activity of swiping more.

Are there any features they love? How often do they use these? : Standouts feature.

What do they dislike about the app? :

Limited likes: because she would have to be super choosy. She forgets the likes are limited. And regrets being less selective.
Can put the exact location but women dont feel safe putting that up.
Hinge puts a lot of things behind paid plans. You should be able to add preferences rather than just age and location.

Do you use any other dating apps? How does the experience at Hinge compare? : Bumble. She often deletes the apps very soon. However, on Hinge, she had a better retention rate. She often deletes the app. She finds it difficult to have interesting conversations on dating app. Hinge is slightly better but not so much.

Understanding JTBD:

What are they looking for on the app?: She doesn't hope to find a boyfriend or the love of her life out of the app. However, there is an element of hope and also uses it for networking.

Do they have periods when they do not use the app? What holds them back? :

Has not been a consistent user. She deletes the app very soon after installing it. She deleted bumble after a few hours and paused her profile on Hinge after a week.

She feels like she has explored all the features and there is predictability in the conversation flow. She can categorise men and she can predict the conversation based on the category. Usual questions are where are you from? What are you looking for?

‘Basic and boring questions’

She can get busy.

What motivates her to go on dates?: Only when she finds that there are mutual friends of a match.

What motivates her to download the app? :

Hope of finding someone.
She uses dating apps for networking. Especially in college. She knew one person in every college through Tinder and Bumble.
When she needs a distraction when she is having a bad mental health day.
Checking the kind of men that are out there currently.

User 5:

Demographics :

Age : 25

Gender: Female

Location: Chennai

Occupation: Growth and Product

Sexual orientation : Heterosexual

Relationship status : Single

Lifestyle:

What do you do on your weekends?: Meet friends, go for events, read - mostly non-fiction.

What are your key interests? : Behavioural Science, Psychology, Neurology, Veganism.

Interaction with Hinge:

Are they a premium member? : No

How often do they use Hinge? : About 3-4 days a week. Say 3 months in a year.

When was the last time they used it? : Today

Features:

How do you find your matches? discover, likes you, messaging, Standouts? What works? : She feels that the people that she finds on ‘Likes you’ arent as great as the people she finds on discover. There might be a bias in her mind about the quality of profiles that come in the ‘Likes You’ section. She loves the quality of matches on standouts and wished they did not refresh so often.

Are there any features they love? How often do they use these? : Standouts.

What do they like about the app? : 1. The quality of the profiles: They help her understand the personality of the person.

2. The UI. Feels simple and premium.

3. The conversations on Hinge are more interesting.

What do they dislike about the app? : Nothing in particular.

Do you use any other dating apps? How does the experience at Hinge compare? Bumble. She likes the UI of hinge better and the quality of the matches.

Understanding JTBD:

Do they have periods when they do not use the app? What holds them back? :

Sometimes she feels like she is done with dating apps and would like to find men organically.
They are a lot of effort with high uncertainty. Too many steps: Text the person for a while, go on a few dates to figure out if you like them.

What are they looking for on the app?: Long term relationship, and she goes with the flow.

When do they find themselves opening the app? : When she feels lonely or when she is bored.

Noteworthy findings from the research:

Feature use:

The males predictably used the ‘Discover’ tab more than the ‘Liked You’ tab. This is because males typically need to work harder to find a match.
Males typically appreciate the option to comment on a prompt or picture, as it gives them a sense of having a higher chance of getting a match. They feel more in control because the likelihood of success depends on the creativity and effort they put into their comments.
The females enjoyed using the ‘Discover tab more than the ‘liked you’ tab. Typically because .1 there is a significantly large volume of matches on the Liked you tab. 2. The Discover tab is more enjoyable to use and in sync with what is done in most dating apps. 3. A bias that makes them believe that the profiles on likes you may not be as great as the profiles on Discover.
Most men found the premium very expensive. Some men have tried the subscription atleast once regardless.
Standouts was a feature that most users appreciated.

Points related to the JTBD:

Boredom was a common motivation to use the app.
Most people use the app in the evenings, typically after work.
Most users said they liked the algorithm and the quality of the profiles on Hinge more than other apps.
A common blocker for using the app was getting busy with work.

Pain points that Hinge solves for:

It is difficult to find dates offline.
Unsure how serious people are on other dating apps.
People on other dating apps are usually just looking for hookups.
Many dating apps focus on quick, superficial swiping based primarily on appearance.
Men find it difficult to find matches on other dating apps.

ICPs:

Some statistics to back the ICPs of Hinge, as found on: https://wifitalents.com/statistic/hinge-user/#:~:text=%22The%20majority%20of%20Hinge%20users,%25%20of%20the%20user%20base.%22

Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/essentials/hinge-dating-app-review/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20app%20itself,app%20for%20meeting%20new%20people.

The research revealed distinct differences in the intentions and engagement of men and women on the app. Therefore, the two Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) will be classified by gender. To account for other major charecteristics of the users on Hinge, the classifications will also be based on age.

The first ICP is a Young Professional Female, and the second is a Millennial Male.

The following format will be used to understand the JTBD:

‘When ____’ (focuses on the situation), ‘I want to ____’ (focuses on the motivation), and ‘So I can ____’ (focuses on the outcome).

ICP 1: Young Professional Female

Demographics:

Age: 23-35

Gender: Female

Occupation: White collar working professional

Location: Tier 1 city

Salary: Middle class to upper middle class

Education: Bachelors degree or higher

Lifestyle and Interests:

Interests: Reading, meeting friends and family, travel, dining out,

Values: Values meaningful connections/her friends and family, focused on career and personal growth.

Personality Traits: Driven, sociable, empathetic, organized.

Other apps/products she purchases: Instagram, Linkedin, OTT.

Other dating apps: Bumble

Dating Life:

Likes to go on dates. May find men offline as well. Slightly disappointed with the hookup culture. Had some situations and casual dates. Looking for something serious right now.

Interaction with the app:

Intention: Uses Hinge primarily with the hope of finding a serious relationship but is also open to going with the flow.

Frequency of use: Inconsistent with her use of the app. She uses it more on some months vs the others. Depends on how she is feeling about dating. When active she opens the app a couple of times a day.

Features that she likes: Standouts, prompts enable more interesting conversations as compared to other apps, Information on dating intentions.

What does she like about the app in general?: She likes the quality of the algorithm, she likes that she can make out a bit more about the personality of the man through the profile since it is more than just photos or texts.

What does she dislike: Women aren’t used to paying on dating apps, so having limited likes feels annoying.

Other behaviour: Usually concerned about her safety and worried about catfishers.

Enablers of using the app: Boredom, Pressure to get married or find a partner, comparison with peers, unfulfilled emotional needs.

Blockers: Choice overload, High effort, Safety, work pressure.

Jobs to be done:

Want / Need: Could be either. She is looking for a serious partner but is also open to go with the flow.

When I feel lonely, I want to find a partner so I can

JTBD:

When I have a desire for companionship, I want to connect with others who have similar relationship goals, so I can potentially get married to the person/ feel happy and secure.

Goals:

Primary Goal: Personal: The user is trying to find a long term partner.
Secondary Goal: Emotional: The user is trying to fulfil an emotional need of companionship (either by meeting a potential long term match or just a engaging conversation and a good time)

[Did not find the secondary goal in the list but thought it didn’t fit any other]

ICP 2: Millennial Male

Demographics:

Age: 30-43

Gender: Male

Occupation: Mid Senior to senior working professional

Location: Tier 1 city

Salary: Middle class to upper middle class

Education: Bachelors degree or higher

Lifestyle and Interests:

Interests: Fitness, Technology, Sports, Financial Planning, Entrepreneurship, Health.

Values: Financial Stability, Personal growth

Personality Traits: Could be both shy or sociable, ambitious.

Other apps/products he purchases: Linkedin, OTT.

Other dating apps: Bumble

Dating Life:

Looking to find something serious. Is clear about the his likes and dislikes and non-negotiables. Finds it difficult to find dates offline.

Interaction with the app:

Intention: Uses Hinge primarily with the hope of finding a serious relationship.

Frequency of use: Uses it atleast 4 months in a year. When active he uses it multiple times a day.

Features that he likes: 1. The option to comment on prompts gives him more control over making a match successful. 2. Most compatible recommendations.

What does she like about the app in general?: 1. Depth of the profile as on other dating apps women do not put as much effort as they have an upper hand. 2. Algorithm quality

What does he dislike: The price of the premium.

Other Behaviour: Finds it difficult to get many matches and feels a pressure to keep the conversation interesting.

Jobs to be done:

Want / Need: Need: Looking for a long term partner.

JTBD:

When I have a desire for companionship, I want to connect with others who have similar relationship goals, so I can potentially get married to the person/ feel happy and secure.

Goals:

Primary Goal: Personal: The user is trying to find a long term partner.

Onboarding Flow Teardown:

Hinge (2).pdf

Onboarding flow Overview:

What was good:

The welcome screen begins with a video that effectively showcases what the app has to offer through engaging visuals.
The app consistently uses priming in almost all screens to prepare the users for the next steps.
The copies are great and offers valuable motivation for users to complete the upcoming steps.
Ensured the users felt like the brand cared about their identity and dating experience.
Progressive disclosure while asking for their information as well as when introducing them to the features.
Nudges to get users to start using features like sending likes or voice prompts.

What could be better?:

Multiple pop-ups disrupted the flow of profile creation.
The communication/copies could focus more on the core value proposition and the JTBD.
User calls revealed that the main pain points for men in dating are difficulty in getting matches and challenges in maintaining conversations without being ghosted. Hinge has a feature called "What Works" in the profile section. Guiding men to this feature during onboarding could enhance their experience with the app and increase their motivation to keep using it.
Sending voice prompts is an unlikely activation metric. It could be beneficial to nudge users to complete activation metrics instead.

Activation metric:

Some data as found on:

https://wifitalents.com/statistic/hinge-user/#:~:text=%22The%20majority%20of%20Hinge%20users,%25%20of%20the%20user%20base.%22

Possible Activation metric 1: 15 messages exchanged with any match.

Hypothesis:

To find a partner, the essential first step is to initiate a conversation and get to know them. On Hinge, a typical Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) engages by sending messages to establish a connection and typically meet them. Research from user calls indicates that an OK match usually involves sending 10-15 messages, while a good match requires 20-25 messages. Therefore, sending at least 15 messages should lead to activation.

Possible Activation Metric 2: Time spent on the Standouts Tab

Hypothesis: User research revealed that many users liked the Standouts feature. A typical ICP would spend time browsing profiles on the standouts tab and deciding which one to send their weekly rose to.

Possible Activation Metric 4: Number of app opens in a week / time spent on the app in a week

Hypothesis: A user that is likely to retain is also a user that might open the app at least a few number of times in a week to either find matches or engage with existing matches. With this metric, the activity that the user does on the app will not matter. Moreover, from user research it was discovered that men may not find any match for a while. Thus, this metric accounts for that as well.

Defining different activation metric for each gender:

It was found that the behaviour of men and women are very different on the app. Both genders may have very different activation metrics.

Possible Activation Metric 4 (For Men): Number of matches

Hypothesis: A higher number of matches on Hinge is likely to increase Retention and LTV and maybe WOM as well for males. This may be a testament to the quality of the algorithm as well. However, this may not be in control of the user and thus a proxy metric to track could be the number of likes sent by the user.

Possible Activation Metric 5 (For Women): Number of messages sent to a ‘Most Compatible’ Match

Hypothesis: If the algorithm of Hinge works, conversing with a ‘Most Compatible’ match may increase retention, LTV and likely WOM as well.

Possible Activation Metric 6 (For Women): Number of profiles browsed under the ‘Liked You’ Tab:

Hypothesis: During user research, it was found that females may browse through the ‘Liked You’ tab to “Clear the backlog”. A higher number of profiles browsed through the tab may also result in more matches and thus more Engagement and Retention.