Bumble Wings // 2021
Feature for Bumble (Finding Matches for one’s Friends)
Brief:
I realized recently that something many of my friends did (pre-pandemic) is swipe for one another on dating apps when together. I thought it would be interesting to make this possible even when there’s a pandemic happening. In other words: have a feature that allows friends to swipe for one another and matchmake. I decided to test how this feature would present itself in Bumble as it is one of the most popular dating apps on the market
Context and Disclaimer:
This feature was designed independently from bumble and purely for the purpose of exploration. I do not own any rights to the existing mobile application. I utilized screenshots from the internet and my own phone and put together these wireframes using Figma. The entire process took about 2 working days to complete (brainstorming, user flows and wireframing). This was developed and conceptualized during the covid 19 pandemic.
Objective and Problem Finding
Including friends’ feedback when swiping on dating apps is difficult when it’s not possible to gather. Sharing potential matches via screenshots can take too long at times. Having friends be able to swipe for you makes the process much more interactive, fun and less time consuming.
User Persona
User Flow and Initial Wireframing
I used the user flows as a guideline rather than a strict succession of tasks, seeing as I was going to manipulate and make these flows fit within an existing application. I did not want to overcomplicate them at this stage because I wanted to have room for flexibility and adaptation to the existing user flows of the mobile app
Low Fidelity Wireframing
The low fidelity wireframes and sketches helped me better visualize what kind of features and buttons I need for every page before diving into the final graphics of it. I had a pretty clear idea of what the screen would look seeing as I was building off an existing product and only sketched out some essential parts of the wireframes before building them from the existing bumble interface and wireframes.
Final Screens
Seeing as this is a feature for an existing application, I respected the existing visuals and graphics of bumble, taking inspiration from existing wireframes in the app, such as the beeline wireframe which is repurposed for the Maybees in Queue view.
The Logo for BumbleWings is also reminiscent of bumble’s logos for its various features (bff, date, bizz).
The name BumbleWings came form the word-play of Wingwoman/wingman and the bee theme of the application.
Bumble Wings is accessible from the user Profile.
Wings can swipe to match or classify some profiles as Maybees to allow the user to decide whether or not they want they want to swipe right on them.
Wing privileges can be revoked at any time.
The + button (in yellow) allows the user to add as many Wings as they like.
If a match is done by a Wing, then a small Icon of the Wing who matched the user will appear near the photo of the match. The user can also access the Maybee list- also chosen by Wings.
Maybees are profiles the Wings recommend to the user but leave it up the user to decide if they want to match with them or not. A photo of the Wing is shown near the profile of the Maybee for reference.
Maybees can be viewed in swipe view or in queue view (similar to the existing beeline feature in bumble).
If a Wing sees a profile that might be a match for a friend, they can click on the bee icon to match or Maybee the profile for someone they are winging for.
A search field comes up where the Wing can look up anyone they are winging for and match the profile for them.
Alternatively, they can swipe for a friend directly from BumbleWings as opposed to finding matches from their personal queues. The photo of the person they are winging for is in the upper left hand corner.
Swipe left for no, Right for yes and swipe upwards to Maybee.
Future Iterations to be Considered
It would be interesting to really push the idea of a beehive even further and have two tiers of wings: Queen bees and Worker bees. Both could swipe for the friend and give “Maybee matches”. Queen Bees would be able to comment on the user’s profile and give tips/explanation as to why they chose to match the user with a certain person.