CONSUMER MOBILE · DESIGN CO-FOUNDER
A little play. A real connection.
Designing a role-playing experience that gives people a shared starting point for conversation.
The challenge
Starting conversations in dating apps can feel awkward. Dive explored shared role-playing stories as a way to give two people a situation to respond to together. The documented design work took place in September–November 2021.
My role and research
As design co-founder at Half Moon Tech, I designed the iOS app. The team interviewed 10 active dating-app users; I conducted five of those interviews. The research surfaced difficulties around opening messages and being ignored.
A shared story as an icebreaker
The flow moved from entering a room and matching, through preparation and story loading, to taking turns, reaching an ending, and continuing into chat, sharing, or another story. Two-person role-play provided a common topic while keeping development complexity relatively manageable.
Testing the unfamiliar parts
Wireframe testing with five Gen Z participants revealed uncertainty about what to do next, who the characters were, and whose turn it was. Those findings showed where the playful concept needed clearer guidance.
Make the next move understandable
The revisions introduced game tips during matching, character introductions before the story, first-use tutorials, separate matching and preparation steps, and explicit My Turn / Other’s Turn states. Component availability reinforced when an action was possible.
Historical results, with context
The case reports more than 2,000 acquired users in October–December 2021, increased chat-function usage, and an App Store screenshot showing a 4.6/5 rating. These are historical observations, not current product metrics. The material does not establish that any single interface revision caused the reported usage change.