A Study on Usability: Coffee Meets Bagel, a Dating App for Young Professionals

Patricia Zhang
7 min readNov 10, 2016

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Coffee Meets Bagel. I’m a product designer who aims to improve the matchmaking process on Coffee Meets Bagel.

Improving the dating experience

Enter dating in 2016: a series of swipes and digital nods to one another. As someone who’s surrounded by young adults who predominately date via mobile apps, my mission is improve the dating experience on one of my favorite apps: Coffee Meets Bagel.

Introducing Coffee Meets Bagel, a modern approach to dating

We live in an amazing ecosystem, yet we find ourselves increasingly consumed by work culture. Trash cans overflowing with coffee cups are a badge of pride and normalcy. Lunch breaks are replaced with extra work sessions. We have an innate desire to find companionship, but we’re constrained by our growing responsibilities.

Co-founders and sisters Arum, Dawoon, and Soo Kang started Coffee Meets Bagel to remedy the hustle and bustle of everyday life, providing a casual environment for people to meet up. Currently, the niche dating market is valued at $2B, filled with competitors like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge. With an emphasis on elements such as education and occupation, Coffee Meets Bagel aims to bring young professionals together over a cup of coffee.

“Coffee Meets Bagel, which has raised $7.8 million in external funding and has more than doubled its user base since appearing on “Shark Tank” in January, markets itself as an alternative for those fed up with over-sexualized dates the sisters say are on other dating services. Instead it fixes up people up with matches that focus on quality over quantity.”

Source: ABC News

How the app works

Every day at noon, male users receive up to 21 matches, also known as “bagels”. Males can either choose to “pass” or “like”, then it’s the female’s turn. Female users will receive matches from males that have already “liked” them. Once they hit “like” back, a match is created and either side will have 24 hours to send a message before the chat disappears. Names are confidential until a match is initiated.

Research Process

I used the following process to analyze Coffee Meets Bagel:

Step 1: Research

Usability Testing

I conducted guerrilla usability tests in the Yerba Buena Garden and Metreon shopping area in San Francisco, California. To determine pain points, I created a unique profile for each user, along with a list of tasks:

  • Update preferences
  • Find a compatible partner (this varied depending on users’ preferences)
  • Upon matching, initiate a conversation with a Bagel

I organized my results with sticky notes. Each color denotes a different user, and each sticky represents a different pain point.

Each color denotes a different user, and each sticky note represents a pain point.

After surveying 7 different users, I annotated my findings:

Bulleted list of annotations:

  • 6 out of 7 users cared about the interests of their Bagel when determining if their Bagel was a suitable partner
  • 5 out of 7 users were confused with the Account page layout and navigation, due to the nested settings
  • 4 out of 7 users could not find the Preferences page, a critical function for determining compatibility
  • Users didn’t like the profile terminology (“I like…”)
  • Users weren’t able to easily view time left in a 24-hour conversation window

Affinity Mapping

I used an affinity mapping process to group user feedback into themes:

Affinity mapping to group feedback into themes.

The affinity mapping process helped me extract a few main pain points:

  • All else equal, most users valued mutual interests but weren’t able to find a compatible Bagel most of the time, since interests are structured as three sentence blocks under the “I like…” section
  • Users were frustrated with the task of finding preferences
  • Users struggled to see how time was left in a conversation

Step 2: Synthesize

[Coffee Meets Bagel] is simple because we don’t inundate our members with low quality matches. We do the work for them, and keep the work on their part to a minute per day.

Source: Startupbeat

Prioritizing Needs

Coffee Meets Bagel’s promise to deliver high quality matches is the core of its business value. Using an affinity mapping process, I evaluated the following objectives to maximize business value and user value:

The most important problems were related to compatibility:

  1. Locating preferences: creating a filter for users to view mutual interests to increase compatibility
  2. Account navigation: cleaning up the Account page navigation so users could locate and adjust Preferences more easily

Smaller fixes:

  1. Bio is too cluttered: so that elements such as age and location would be instantly visible
  2. Time left in chat: revamping the “Chats” page so users could clearly see how much time was left in a conversation

Personas

I created two distinct personas to embody the problems that users were experiencing.

Meet Adam and Beth. They’re small fish in a bumbling city, and dating becomes a challenging prospect with the stringent routine of daily life.

Task Flow

To visualize all the possible actions a user could take, I created a task flow. My research showed that 4 out of 7 users had problems locating preferences, which meant that they were unlikely to find a compatible counterpart. The ability to adjust preferences is the crux of matching, determining elements such as age, height, and proximity.

Most users weren’t able to locate preferences.

Step 3: Prototype

Low Fidelity Mockups

To improve the process of finding a Bagel with mutual interests, navigating the Account page with ease, and increasing transparency on the chat page, I went through a few rounds of lo-fi ideation:

One round of lo-fi ideation.

High Fidelity Mockups

This case study follows a fictional heterosexual user, although Coffee Meets Bagel is open to homo or bisexual preferences as well.

After deciding on the elements I wanted to include, I created a series of hi-fi mockups:

Step 4: Validate

Validation Testing

I can find someone who likes pizza as much as I do!

To determine how useful and usable my redesign was, I tested 5 different users with the same tasks from Step 1. All 5 users were able to complete the tasks. Explore the interactive prototype here.

Feedback

From validation testing, I also received some feedback for future iterations:

  • The user’s picture on the Profile tab is taking up too much real estate and the space could be used for other features
  • There seems to be some overlap between “Bio” and “Interests” on the Details page, but users can use “Interests” for more casual tags (pizza, soccer) whereas “Bio” can provide a deeper insights about a user (personality type, passions)
  • The bottom navigation should be labeled
Coffee Meets Bagel 2.0

CONCLUSION

If you didn’t read this entire article:

tl;dr: it’s hard to meet people nowadays. My 4 step research process aims to improve modern day dating through a redesign of Coffee Meets Bagel.

Through my four step process, I was able to gain a better understanding of how users interact with Coffee Meets Bagel. Rounds of testing and iteration led me to focus on increasing compatibility, but with more rounds of usability testing, there are endless possibilities for the direction of the app.

Overall, Coffee Meets Bagel is a fun, casual way for young professionals to meet up over a cup of coffee without the pressure of a standard date. Though this app is fantastic as is, I enjoyed thinking of ways to expand its potential.

Again, thanks for reading! If you’d like to talk shop or provide any feedback, I’d love to chat via email at patriciayzhang@gmail.com or in the comments section below.

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