Swiping, Prompts and The Ick: Has design changed how we date forever?

It’s my fifth conversation about Jonah Hill in a week and I’m beginning to question my purpose on Hinge. Newly polyamorous, fresh to the dating app scene, and grappling with Prompts for the first time, this is the moment I realised how Groundhog Day-boring dating apps can be. That, and the fact I have altogether zero interests beyond my favourite celebrities.

Despite my own earth-shatteringly dry conversations I have shared on these apps, anyone who follows @beam_me_up_softboi can confirm that online dating today is an absolute shitshow. So much so that there is a dictionary of lingo explaining the bizarre set of behaviours that have emerged since dating became chronically online – ‘ghosting’, ‘greyrocking’, ‘cookie jarring’, and the more Hansel and Gretel ‘breadcrumbing’. But how much of this is down to the way these dating apps are designed? And what does the experience look like for users still sticking it out on dating apps for love?

Today, if you want to meet someone online, you’ll likely head to one of the biggest players first. Badoo, Bumble, Grindr, Hinge, Plenty of Fish, Tantan and Tinder are among the most well-known, though there are hundreds, all with different and often overlapping approaches to design. Your “average” dating app tends to put a particular emphasis on user pictures, for example, but each does it differently. Where Grindr, the pioneering gay dating app, features a three-across grid of scrollable profiles, apps like Tinder and Bumble – an app where women “make the first move” – tend to show one profile at a time, like cards stacking on top of each other.

What makes a successful dating app is hard to pin down, but it often comes from a mixture of finding an untapped gap in the market, and luck. The most successful and enduring apps also have a knack for design, which we can see by tracing the evolution of the market. Every few years, one player will introduce a design feature that not only cements its place in the industry, but feeds into the way we socialise.

The feature went viral. TikTok and Instagram was inundated with screenrecordings of 30-second Prompts of a user offering ‘background music as you scroll” or their best celebrity impression. Its success was seen by others and duplicated widely. For Hinge, it had been about moving away from the selfie towards new forms of self-expression, spurred on by data revealing that 64 per cent of singles feel voice is an important factor in determining a connection. The feature did foster vulnerability, with some very specific effects. Because of Voice Prompts we now reveal what we sound like, not just look like, before a match even messages us. And occasionally, if you are very funny, this could end up being heard by thousands on TikTok. In 2023, dating is a public affair, which means the face users put forward is often an extension of a personal brand.

The adoption of Voice Prompts also turned sound into something that can rule out a relationship. “When Hinge updated and it had audio notes, I was like: ‘It’s so cringey’,” says Sophie. “But also, it is a really good way of listening to people’s voices and being like: ‘Okay, that is not a voice I could spend the rest of my life with’.” Voice recording more generally in dating UX has contributed to an odd nervousness in hearing how we, and our potential matches, sound. Sophie recollects a time when a person she had been speaking to sent her voice note for the first time. “I was like: ‘Oh my god, I’m scared because this is either gonna make or break this’. So I waited until I got home and I was in a place where I was ready to be broken or ready to be made.”

Luckily, it seems those spaces might become more commonplace. There is a new wave of dating apps that are intentionally designed differently, growing in popularity just as more progressive relationship influencers are blowing up on Instagram and TikTok. Feeld is one of these apps, though it actually launched back in 2014. “When Feeld was founded, the world was not as open to the ideas it represents for the world of dating and relationships,” explains a brand spokesperson. Founded by Ana Kirova, who began her career as a designer and illustrator, Feeld is a sex positive dating app for “exploration, curiosity and pleasure”. Its design is built around making people, particularly queer people, feel welcome and at ease, with expressive 2D illustrations from Joey Yu integrated into the app.

While apps like Lex and Feeld offer space for new kinds of connections, perhaps it’s too soon to tell if they will tangibly result in more respect and awareness within our interactions. For Alina, there is still much apps can do to foster better, healthier relationships. “Height and job titles are rarely good predictors of a successful relationship,” Alina says. “I would like to see dating apps incorporating filters that are more relevant to a long-lasting relationship, such as communication and conflict resolution styles, values and how we handle stress.”

Even the perfect app, however, is unlikely to remove the awkwardness of first meetings. Unfortunately, at least in the blind date category, it seems it’s still as dull and painful as ever out there. One contributor shares with us a story in which they met an online match for the first time; it offers possibly the most damning indictment of dating apps yet. “Our conversation was dry – I asked if she liked cheese, she replied no, but said she didn’t mind mild cheese. She asked me what my dad did for a job, I said he was a civil servant, she asked if he liked it, I said I think he did.”

No matter what these apps do or don’t do, you can’t force a spark.