Bumble Bff
A feature redesign that echos the experience of meeting new friends IRL via a digital platform.
The Brief
Bumble was founded in 2014 with the initial aim of challenging the antiquated gender dynamics of dating and romance, making it not only acceptable but also necessary for women to make the first move and send the first message to a match. Since then Bumble has expanded into a broader social network that prioritizes kindness and respect with the goal of empowering users to build new relationships, including non-romantic relationships.
In its move to transition from a dating app to a networking platform, Bumble developed Bumble Bff to be “a simplified way to create meaningful friendships.” But the current version of Bumble Bff is essentially a clone of their dating platform - users can only search for friends of the same gender and must make a binary decision about whether to pursue a friendship with them - match or no match.
The Challenge
As searching for a friendship is a uniquely different venture than searching for a romantic partner, our team was tasked to assess the effectiveness of Bumble’s current approach to friend-matching. We set out to determine how to best design simple and engaging ways to make the friendship search more effective and to differentiate the Bff user experience from the dating version of the app.
The Solution
To enhance the user’s ability to personalize their experience with Bumble Bff and implement effective ways for users to connect with one another digitally that mimic the ways they would connect with each other in person.
The Process
Timeline: 2 weeks
Team: Anant Panchal, Kelsey Brown, Ricky Brockamp
Role: Researcher, Assistant UI Designer
Tools: Figma, Sketch, InVision, Whimsical
Skills: User Interviews, User Survey, Affinity Mapping, Persona Development, Task Analysis, Journey Mapping, Comparative & Competitive Analysis, User Flow Construction, Wireframing, High Fidelity Mockups, Usability Testing, Usable Prototype
Comparative & Competitive Analysis
Before reaching out to potential users, the team conducted research on other social networking platforms to gather information on the types of features and matching schemes competitors implemented. It was essential that we learned what other apps did well, so that we could explore which new and effective features to incorporate into our redesign.
The friend-matching apps we explored in-depth included:
A friend finding app that helps users meet new people by matching new friends according to their listed interests.
An app that connects people in real-time based on interests and physical location, such as a coffee shop or bookstore.
A friend finding app exclusively for women, where users can swipe to meet new friends, join communities, take quizzes, and host and attend local meetups and events.
User Research
In preparation for user interviews, we constructed a set of questions to help us examine the various ways in which users meet people in their day to day lives, the factors that influenced how users navigate those interactions, and how users used digital platforms such as social media to connect with others virtually and in person. We also wanted to investigate users’ impressions of Bumble Bff as they interacted with the app.
In addition to conducting eight user interviews and observing user interactions with Bumble Bff, we surveyed fifty-four participants in order to understand the broader scope of thoughts and feelings that users have regarding digital social networking platforms that aim to facilitate the building of friendships.
Meet Celeste & Weston
Personas answer the question “Who are we designing for?” Based on the research and insights gleaned from the user interviews, we developed Celeste and Weston - our Bumble Bff personas.
Celeste
Celeste has recently relocated from NYC to Seattle for work. Before moving, she had a very active social life. Adjusting to her new life in a new city where she hardly knows anyone has been especially difficult. Since moving to Seattle she hasn’t had too much time or energy to connect with anyone at work or to meet new people due to the stressful demands of her new job, though she really wants to make meaningful connections with people who share her values and interests. The loneliness of being the new kid on the block is starting to get to her.
How might we help Jasmine meet new friends based on common interests and reassure her that they are real connections?
Weston
Weston is a self-described socially awkward introvert who has a hard time meeting new people. He feels most comfortable meeting people through friends he has already. He’s a one-on-one kind of guy. In situations where he is doing something alone or in a large group of people, he is much more insecure and nervous about meeting new people and finds it challenging to interact. Once he gets to know someone though, he emerges from his shell.
How might we help Weston confidently make new friends who are interested in attending the same activities and events as him?
UI Elements & Copy Guide
Though it was an important part of the process to differentiate Bumble Bff as a separate and unique experience from the dating version of the Bumble app, it was critical that we maintained the integrity of Bumble’s brand - concise, kind, respectful and community-oriented. In order to do this, we carefully adhered to the design and copy guidelines articulated by Bumble.
Key Feature Development
Personality Quiz
We chose to include an option to take a personality quiz to the onboarding process for new users in order to assess certain aspects of their social behaviors and give users the opportunity to personalize their profiles in depth.
Interest & Activity Tags
As part of the redesign of the onboarding process for new users, we decided that prompting the user to further personalize their profile by indicating a minimum of five interests is key to helping users establish connections with others in a similar way they would likely do in person, which is often based on a similarity of interests as demonstrated in our initial user interviews.
Usability Testing
Based on our first round of usability tests with our mid-fidelity wireframes, it became clear that providing context and incorporating more of Bumble’s warm friendly tone was key to building a connection with the app before building a connection with people through the app. Following the second round of usability testing, we improved the copy by making it sweet and to the point.
We incorporated Bumble’s warm and friendly tone into the copy.
Added more information on the importance of building a profile.
Clarified the purpose of certain previously vague UI elements.
Gave users an option to add an event to their profile.
Meet Bumble Bff 2.0
Next Steps & Recommendations
There are a number of additional facets that are worth exploring that could facilitate digital connections and the flourishing of friendships for those using Bumble Bff if more time had been permitted to further develop, refine, and implement those features.
Since Bumble currently has a thriving ambassador program in which individuals develop marketing skills whilst representing Bumble’s mission and hosting networking events to build Bumble’s presence and user-base, establishing partnerships with local community businesses to host Bumble Bff meetups could be an effective extension for the “Places” feature that our team implemented in our redesign of the app. User interviews and testing shed light upon this idea when people expressed considerable interest in the idea of specific locations being suggested as a meetup opportunity to meet new friends. Since we decided to exclude Bumble Boost - a premium subscription feature that allows users to rematch with expired connections and search with unlimited filters - in our redesign, this kind of feature extension could be a great way to promote local businesses as well as provide an alternative way to monetize the app.
In order to ease the possible anxiety of reaching out for a one on one connection, designing a group messaging and video chat option for users with similar interests for instance could be a worthwhile prospect. This type of feature could also potentially mitigate the current limitations to in-person meetups and hangouts brought about by a global pandemic.
Another recommended feature that could be researched and examined would be to give users the ability to create and host events for those in their “hive'“ networks. Such a feature could empower Bumble Bff users to organize activities to which they can extend invites to their “hives”, building connections and community, especially for users who may have niche interests that are not always taken into account by mainstream social networks.