I Love You, I Love You Not

Abstract

Nat King Cole once sang “the greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return” in the song “Nature Boy” written in 1947. Four years prior to its release, the psychologist Abraham Maslow published his book “A Theory of Human Motivation” in which the hierarchy of needs is explored (Clark, 2010). Above our physical needs and below the esoteric lies our need for love and belonging- the need to love and be loved in return (Robinson, 2021).

The search and devotion for romance is an agonizingly difficult experience from which a few of us have been spared. Online dating services aim to address the excruciatingly tedious process of finding a mate by offering a space-less platform in which a date can be planned in a matter of minutes (and from the comfort of one’s toilet seat if one wishes). In such services, however, drastic differences in activities between their cisgendered male and female users have been identified. In fact, the female demographic has a relatively high dislike-rate of profiles, often leading to the question: why are women so picky?

Mate selection is a gender-specific decision making process, where males and females showcase different parameters for assessing and selecting a potential partner. Instead of questioning the level of selectivity of female users, this research acted as a probe for exploring the extent to which online dating services address the female mate selection needs online through their digital translations of offline mate assessment factors. With this said, the following research question was formulated: How can needs for an offline interaction be met online to encourage Breeze’s young urban professional female users to like profiles?

A culturally-sensitive approach was used to uncover the archeological state of the female scope and their relationship to this modern mode of love pursuit. Breeze, an online dating app, was used as a case for the investigation as the service similarly faces the aforementioned problem of gender-imbalanced like-rate activity. The goal of the research was therefore to propose a design that would enhance the female online dating experience on Breeze, ultimately increasing their like-rate.

As Breeze offers an online mate assessment experience for an offline interaction, the research revealed that the content of the gap between the current and the desired female online activity consisted of behavioral factors as mate selection needs that were best digested through a visual language. As a result, four concepts for Breeze were created and positioned on a scale of present to future implementation. Each prototype provided behavioral information through different degrees of visual-orientation, exemplified by the proposed visual languages. The concepts are a response to the internal and external research, allowing for Breeze to stay future-proof and congruent with behavioral change in both the online and offline domains. The concepts were assessed and evaluated by the female scope and the Breeze company, leading to suggestions for design iterations and recommendations for future research.