pixels n’ bits:
quit playing games with my heart
Pixels n’ Bits is a dating app that aims to lighten the stress that can be brought on by dating apps. The app is designed in a way that utilized best practices and some of my own philosophy and experience coming from the Game Industry. I came to my thesis.
so what’s the Problem
Looking at Datings Apps and talking to other about them with other people that used them, it began to feel like there was stress and burnt out that came with using them. So I wanted to create an experience that could help quell that. Sometimes the sense of stress seemed to be coming from the app itself, sometimes it was the people that they talked to, or sometimes work or family needed to be a priority.
How do we help
Dating is supposed to be fun, but sometimes that’s not always the case. I believe that we can create a Dating App with an aspect of stress-reducing engagement could be created with a gamified/games experience. Gamification in dating apps does already exist. The way users swipe left or right to match with people is one of the most common. The way we’d look to track success would be to monitor DAU/WAU/MAU and see how/if good levels of engagement are being balanced across the core loop.
my initial findings
1 in 10 people will stop using dating apps after ~90 days
People regularly split screen while using dating apps
People that have used dating apps have likely used more than one and a decent number of those people have more than dating app downloaded on their phone
Studies have shown that games can be a helpful stress reliever
who is this for
After posing out thesis, next we need to determine who this product for and how they’ll use it. In addition, we need to figure out how it might stand up in the market relative to other products that exist in the same space, interviews, and creating personas like these…
Personas can help us determine the kinds of users we might encounter to help us figure out how we might create our app and implement its features. From our personas we look to synthesize what people want to find through using our app.
Looking for
Romantic Relationships
Sexual Relationships
Just moved to a new area or is visiting
Friends (maybe their world feels too small)
Insights from interviews
Some didn’t like the idea of ‘playing games’ with their love life. Can we build towards that?
Some felt that asynchronous play might take too long. If you consider things like the mobile versions of Chess and Scrabble, his might take away too much from getting people to actually meet.
Many communicate with shorthand and emojis. Mixing in some symbolism to convey likes and dislikes can steer screens away from looking like walls of text.
Most interviewed, that played lite mobile games, felt that they did help alleviate stress and help them unwind.
building it out
Utilizing our interviews and competitive analysis I begin to determine what kind of features to include in the product. Whether they’re things that are considered industry standards or a new feature that potential users desire for our Minimum Viable Product. Creating both low fidelity and high fidelity wireframes allowed for creating an outline and then a vision for what the final product could look like.
creating the wireframes
I created sketches, low fidelity, and high fidelity wireframes in order to reflect some features of the application. Based on interviews, we want users to build profiles, match with other users, chat, and looking at other people’s profiles.
Core Loop and MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
The Core Loop helps keeps users engaged with all aspects of the product. The MVP was then built around the Core Loop. Ideally the MVP for Pixels n’ Bits it would have people.
Creating and building out your profile lets other users know more about yourself. We’re going to let people do that through pictures, summaries, and tags
Profiles lets you see what others have to say about themselves. You’ll either be able to view profiles while chatting or trying to match with others.
Messaging is the most common feature in any dating app. The only thing that separates our app from others is giving users a new way to get to know each other with a feature called ‘This or That’.
Games come in the form of ‘This or That?’ a feature presents users with prompts about their preferences, favorites or hated things,‘Would you rather…’, etc. Answers take the form of tags to populate their profile. Clicking on a blank tag lets a user guess and discover more about their match.
Card swiping is a common was to see people on Tinder, Bumble, etc. While Pixels n’ Bits does feature card swiping we also offer users the ability to see profiles in simple games akin to Asteroids, Fruit Ninja, etc. Giving a simple feel to match that isn’t trying to overwhelm them.
how do we measuring success
Putting Pixels n’ Bits product through this kind of life cycle shows us how best to create a product, but its success depends on how our design is received on release. As we put out our product these are things to consider and track through updates, bug fixes, etc.
Does this have a place in the market
Number of single people in the US as of 2022 ~127 million (~40%)
Number of single people that use dating apps ~25 million
Number of Dating apps worldwide ~1500
69% of mobile game players are between 18-55 with 2.1 billion mobile users worldwide and 193 million in the US
What are the risks
People may not use all features of the app
Games could be too gimmicky and a time sink
Poor execution could lead to the application being oversaturated with content and give users a feeling over Cognitive Overload
Market is flooded with apps already and this app could get drowned out
What are our key metrics to track
Daily/Weekly/Monthly Active Users
Dwell Time (Average Session Length)
Average number of sessions per day/week
Churn Rate (week to week)
Number of account activations that convert to profile completions per week
Amount of time to create a profile and session length after creating a profile
product Roadmap
Product roadmap gives us a sense of feasibility. It doesn’t always have definitive timeline, but the roadmap tends to be constructed in a way where our features are rolled out based on importance and ability to implement based on our stakeholders’ capacities.