ZInnia | Brooke

Project Title: Zinna

Project duration: 17 weeks

Problem:

Dating apps are becoming more and more common. On most dating apps, you match with a person based on each other's photos and bio, and then conversate via text. Holding a conversation over text alone can easily become prolonged and mundane. You could meet up with your match without chatting first, but that poses a safety hazard.

My role: Facilitator/Innovator

My contributions:

- Introduced video call idea

- Named "Zinnia"

- Created brand color pallet

- Designed the personas

- Designed the service blueprint

- conducted research on safety

Solution:

Zinnia is a dating application that specializes in video conversations. This way people are able to talk “face to face” without the risks of meeting in person.

Dating apps have your location since the app wants to connect you to people nearby. But this becomes a safety concern since nearby users can see your approximate location, many apps of which showing a user’s location down to the mile. There is a dilemma where the dating service must connect users to people in their area while simultaneously not exposing their location and putting their customers at risk. Zinnia aims to find this balance. Basic app safety precautions also must be integrated into Zinnia.

The videochat aspect of Zinnia allows users to talk to a potential match without meeting them in person or putting themselves at immediate risk. Our solution to safety includes photo-verification, an option to report and ban, safety tips, and confidential location. Unlike other dating apps which show how many miles away you are from another profile, Zinnia will track a 10 mile radius backstage and not give others the ability to see your location. This way users can talk to people nearby but it doesn’t put them at high risk.

Why it matters:

Addressing this problem can help users feel safe. Additionally, it aims to mitigate potential problems such as stalking or other dangerous encounters.

Research:

• I discussed ideas with my group mates and searched online.

• The following research is from websites/journals:

•Tinder and Safety Policy Center & Photo Verification

Tinder’s website has specific information on their safety policy and how the photo verification works. We took our

favorite qualities and integrated them into Zinnia.

• Online dating and security

This website says Tinder, Bumble, Happn and Her all require mandatory geolocation access. If a user allows the app to share their proximity, in most services it is not hard to calculate their position by means of triangulation and

location-spoofing programs.

• What are dating apps doing to protect their users?

This website discusses how an app called AdultFriendFinder reported a breach of nearly 4 million subscribers, which

was leaked on a darknet forum, exposing usernames, email addresses, dates of birth, and postal codes. This gave

insight to new possible threats I hadn’t originally thought of.

• Online Dating and and Dating Safety Tips

This website simply gives people tips on how to safely date, such as not relying on your date for transportation or

giving vague answers to specific questions. Studying both how the service can help and precautions the user can take

helped me strengthen my research. Zinnia can share these tips with users before going on a date.

Exploratory Research Phase:

During this phase of our research we put together stakeholder maps, territory maps, personas, and journey maps to better understand who is involved in our service. This is also the time when we began to notice pain points that could be turned into opportunities for our service.