What are the most common mistakes people make looking for love online - and how do apps try to solve them? In this episode, host Kristen Berman talks with Jin Chua and Matt Gray, a pair of product leaders working at Match, one of the largest dating platforms in the US. They both share fundamental product design decisions to increase engagement between users, as well as the company’s philosophy on attraction and the hard work from their team of dating experts giving super useful insight. Listen and discover the science behind opening the conversation by just being yourself!

Jump straight into:

(01:09) - Profile Engineering: How does Match’s team of dating experts know the type of information that increases feelings of connection between strangers?

(07:57) - Getting Started: The platform’s onboarding process and the need for interaction to achieve a sense of compatibility.

(16:37) - Overcoming the ‘shopping mindset': The most common mistakes that people make when looking for a match.

(22:23) - The ‘Ghostbuster’ feature: Fundamental product design decisions to increase engagement with messaging and gender differences in the dating world.

(28:30) - The 37% rules, opening line alternatives, and features that make it easier to decide if it’s better to keep meeting new people or settle down.

(34:28) - Addressing the adoption rate of video calls inside the app and how dating apps will work in the future.

Episode resources

Match

Follow Jin Chua on LinkedIn

Follow Matt Gray on LinkedIn

Thank you for listening to The Science of Change. Reach out to Kristen through LinkedIn and visit The Irrational Labs website for more information on behavioral science.

This show is presented by SetSail (follow on LinkedIn) and produced by Irrational Labs and Studio Pod Media. Our executive producer is Rachael Roberts, all episodes are written by Kristen Berman and Ying Lin with expert script editing by Jack Buehrer. Special thanks Lydia Trupe for fact checking and citations.

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