ZOOSK | Product design

Building an experience for 40 million singles

ROLE

Design Lead

TEAM

Engineering
API
Marketing

Overview

Another challenge was that Zoosk serves a broad demographic (18-80), so our design decisions must consider that when experimenting with the idea to change the platform or introduce a new feature set. We initially started with a wishlist of features for the redesign. However, we quickly realized that that was not the best approach, so sitting with our stakeholders, we rallied behind the idea that everyone is unique and then developed concepts around the challenge of fostering better connections and celebrating that uniqueness. This  conversation evolved into "What makes a compelling dating profile" and "What makes a user want to engage with another."


Initial research

40m + spoke. We replied.

Zoosk, an almost 10-year-old dating app, needed an upgrade to fit the demand of 41 million worldwide users. At the time of the creative brief, the profile experience of the product hadn't been optimized significantly in about seven years. Immediately jumping in and thinking of solutions Based on the results of this exercise, we built our journey around achieving these things. I began to look at our competitors and companies outside of the dating space for inspiration. I went through many rounds of iteration and discussions with stakeholders before we arrived at our MVP pitch.

The main idea was to engage the user to focus on the main profile screen. Once approved by the board, we began to flesh out the idea and test mockups with users before passing the concept onto development. Once launched, we saw a significant increase in interactions, add-on purchases, and subscriptions. Although this was just the beginning, these were exciting results and validated our exploration. Following the launch, My project teammate Jessica and I gave a presentation on the process at SF design week.

It was a risk! A huge one! We introduced several changes such as profile navigation, messaging experience, and how one digested a profile. Upon the initial rollout of this theory, we received feedback that varied from client to client. This feedback allowed us to plan for continued optimizations, but ultimately the numbers looked great. Profile views and interactions were up week after week - a trend we tracked for six months. Finally, after another round of optimization, we saw a significant increase in profile interactions and message initiations.

The positive trend allowed us to roll out the update to all platforms easily. The new profile rollout was just the beginning of our product overhaul. Still, it was a significant leap to set the stage for our latest initiatives following the release. Jessica and I hosted a design week talk at Zoosk HQ. We discussed the challenges, solutions, and exciting findings. While this was an extremely challenging project that took over a year, I think it was at least equally rewarding.

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