Highlights
Zines
MiscGeneva ︎︎︎ BFF
Role: product designer
Team: 1 product design lead, 1 product manager, backend, iOS and Android engineers
Timeline: 5 months from design kick-off to initial launch (select cities and existing geneva users)
Team: 1 product design lead, 1 product manager, backend, iOS and Android engineers
Timeline: 5 months from design kick-off to initial launch (select cities and existing geneva users)
After Geneva’s acquisition, Bumble wanted to leverage the powerful tools we had to offer, but maintain the core functionality of BFF, which was 1-on-1 people matching. We were asked to reskin the entire app, as well as build in a matching mechanic on top of our existing tech stack.
From a design perspective, there were a million-and-one problems to solve. Not only did we have to reskin the app, build out robust profiles, and a fully functioning matching mechanic from scratch; we had a pretty tight turnaround. We split the launch into three workflows, and used each to inform the other.
The Reskin
Our goal was to find the most efficient way to transition to new brand colors and fonts as step one. From there, we could be more thoughtful about how we would develop the brand, create a new visual language within the product, and how that would hold hands with the external branding and marketing efforts.
One-on-one matching
Going into this project, BFF had a pretty long history of use, as well as a mixed bag reputation. Everyone has an opinion on dating apps, and if you’ve heard of Bumble BFF, it was the “dating app for friends”. In an effort to develop our own opinion of the product and its goals, we made some pretty sweeping changes in an effort to learn more about what users were really looking for here. We did away with the swipe mechanic and introduced “Says hi” terminology alongside a waving hand icon to distance ourselves from the dating trope. We removed the paywall so users can see who already liked them. We rethought the “yes vote” and “no vote” mechanics.
Robust Profiles
In order to support one-on-one user matching, we needed to rehaul our profiles. Profiles needed to communicate more, so we added multiple profile photos, freeform text tags, categories, basic info, and photo prompts. Along with the profile pages themselves, we had to rethink our onboarding process to include collecting as much profile info as possible up front.
