How Hinge plays with your psychology to get you a match
Side note 1: If you want to sponsor my London trip, please to DM :D
Side note 2: The last few lines are the traits of someone in my life I already brag about. A LOT. :)
(3) Hinge also doesn’t let you get bored. Or ignore them! Each profile isn’t just a mixed layout of answers + pictures but also a different set of questions answered. Hinge does it all to keep you invested AND interested in their product.
(4) Unlike Tinder, Hinge doesn’t let you do a left or right swipe. You either show disinterest in a profile by tapping a ‘X’ icon OR you can like specific things in a profile (an image or an answer) which is then followed by a prompt to write them a message. Hinge makes you put an effort into your proposal — the traditional way it’s done. And the way it can lead to higher conversions! (Imagine swiping random profiles v/s getting some thoughtful messages for a proposal)
(5) The fourth, and the bit that I loved the most, is the fact that you don’t just like or dislike a profile on Hinge. You can choose to like a picture OR an answer on someone’s profile. Soon after you press the *heart* button you’re also prompted to write a message along with that super specific like. Talk about conversation starters? And more so, super contextual conversation starters. Hinge has it all baked in their UX! See this:
(6) Like the good product it is, Hinge shows you who all sent you likes. But doesn’t store any history of who all you sent likes to. Hinge doesn’t want you to know if you’re rejected. Good products don’t break your heart. ;)
Till so far, I’ve shown you how you’re investing your time in sending likes to the people you’d potentially want to date after learning some fun things about them. You also get to like specific things about people. And start a very contextual conversation with them. The recipe of getting a like back and possibly even kick-starting a conversation. Now let’s come to the other side. The way Hinge shows you people who have liked you or sent you a proposal is super interesting too!
(7) Here’s how you get a proposal on Hinge.
Notice how someone has replied to something I wrote and is giving me an opportunity to skim through their profile in a different light altogether. I got my narcissistic kick from the fact that the person who approached me took the pain to go through my profile, liked something interesting about me, and took time to comment on it. The least I could now do is look at their profile in a more invested manner too. And maybe send back an interesting reply myself too?
And best of all, the product’s UX is making me do all of this. All so naturally.
(8) In the best previous image, did you notice that I have 50+ such likes (perks of being a woman, yeah!)? Narcissistic me takes a hot seat and jumps in to see who all liked me, what specifically they liked — was it a picture or one of my clever answers, and what did they have to say to me! But I don’t want to do it one profile at a time. I have a pot of gold and I don’t want to take out one coin at a time. What I want is load up my arms fully. Hinge understands that. And how beautifully it solves that!
Notice the screenshot below
You’ll see an icon for a grid view where I can access all the profiles of whoever liked me, all at once. And so I do, but Hinge being a smart product and having just enough enough psychology understanding allows me to see all the 50+ likes that I got BUT all greyed out. ;) It asks me to upgrade if I want to see all the likes in one go.
That’s not all! The thing I found even smarter was that as I scroll further, I can see the first few words of the messages people have sent me. Ouch! The narcissistic me is now jumping up and down on the chair! How do I not upgrade and read all the cute things these men wrote about me?! Again, it’s all in the UX baby — it has shown me enough, and obscured enough to make me curious about what lies behind the upgrade! And like a good product, Hinge is playing with my mind to make me things it wants me to do
Reserved the best for the last. And that’s Hinge’s chat section.
(9) Have you ever had the anxiety to read a message ASAP on WhatsApp but you don’t want to reply to it right away? What makes you scared about doing that? The blue tick? You don’t want someone to know that you read their message but didn’t reply choice-fully.
Hinge also solves this by not giving a read feedback to your senders. So you can safely read and not reply instantly, without letting the other person know. But Hinge takes this a step further and shows a bright blue “your turn” label on each chat to continuously remind you that it’s your turn to reply — to keep the message on your radar. So a 2 second glance on the screen tells you whether it’s your turn to reply to them or yours was the last message.
Also bonus points for the “Your Turn” copy. It sends out a message that the other person made an effort to say something and now it’s your turn to reply to them.
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