Time & Place

While 79% of Americans aged 18–29 use dating apps, most platforms today gamify the experience to prioritise engagement metrics over actual relationship success. This led me to completely rethink how modern dating works.

My North Star was simple: Help users move from profile to real date fast, but in a way that builds trust. This thesis became our team's guiding principle. If the feature didn't help people feel ready for real date, we didn't build it. It became our differentiation strategy.

I also framed this as a system. Every journey, every feature had to either build trust or help move further. That's how we kept the experience focused and designed for future growth, enabling potential new verticals in the app.

New design system

Rather than pushing for a complete redesign, I focused on building the foundation that would allow the product to evolve quickly and consistently. I introduced a scalable design system built around reusable components, design tokens, and variables, transforming design from a collection of screens into product infra. This shifted how the team worked, enabling faster iteration, higher-quality execution, and tighter collaboration between design and engineering.

The impact became especially clear when the company decided to rebrand. Instead of requiring weeks of manual updates, the entire visual language of the app was updated in a matter of days. The system reduced design-to-dev handoff effort, accelerated experimentation, and made it easier to test and launch new features as the product continued to evolve.

Registration

I designed the registration experience to collect meaningful information without overwhelming users. Instead of presenting a series of forms, the onboarding guided people through a simple and approachable flow that gradually introduced profile details, preferences, and personal context. Every step reinforced the app's focus on genuine, offline connections while building trust and encouraging thoughtful participation. The result was a smoother onboarding experience that laid the foundation for more meaningful matches.

Date Planning Experience

I designed the dating experience to remove the friction that often prevents online conversations from turning into real-world meetings. Instead of leaving users to negotiate plans through endless messaging, the flow made it easy to select a venue, choose a time, and propose a date in just a few steps. By simplifying the planning process and providing clear structure, the experience encouraged users to move from matching to meeting faster, supporting the app's mission of creating meaningful offline connections.