Case study: Beam, a dating app ready for the new world.
This is my first article I hope it will reach your standards and would love to hear from you for any advice or constructive criticism.
We live in a world that is becoming more and more instantaneous and accelerating from day to day. New generations have higher standards and a strong desire to have better services or products, and they want it delivered faster without making any sacrifices or concessions. Being successful has never been this close to meaning being fast; if you are waiting for anything, it’s already too late. Finding real-world examples to illustrate this is quite easy, as a matter of fact, let me give you a few.
Watching movies with family and friends has rhymed with movie theatres for decades, listening to music with buying CDs at the town store, sharing meals with going to the restaurant and finally, buying goods with heading to the grocery store. But guess what: not anymore. Obviously, I am not saying that all younger people will never do those activities, but it’s not as natural as it was for previous generations. They have other options, faster, modern and smarter options. Want to watch a movie? You’ve got Netflix. Listening to that new top song? Streaming services. Getting hungry? Food is delivered directly to your door. Need to buy anything? Thinking about going to the store? Nope, you’ve got Amazon.
People want services and products that respond to their needs. They want fast, flawless and modern services. As you can imagine, those were just a few well-known examples taken from our modern world, but there is one area that is deeply affected: the social world. The current social networks are the perfect illustration of this new way of living at lightspeed. The very concept of stories found on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook or even Messenger is the embodiment of this acceleration, people share the present moment which will be, 24 hours later, a distant past. Vine, TikTok, and Twitter are no exception, these networks are increasingly based on spontaneous and ephemeral interactions. You post something, people react, then move on to something else a few hours or days later because the world is already far ahead. More and more sectors are affected by this trend, but soon all will be.
Today I would like to focus on one specific part of our changing society: the way people meet and date using modern technologies such as dating apps.
Dating apps : the perfect match
If there is one area that has been even more affected by these changes, it is dating. We have witnessed the rise of dating applications or sites that promise perfect and fast dates. Tinder, Bumble, Facebook Dating, Happn, there are not enough fingers on our hands to count them all, but they all have something in common: they perfectly match our new world.
By anticipating this trend to accelerate everything, Tinder became the indisputable market leader and even one of its main actor propagating this trend. Launch the app, swipe left or right, and boom, you’re done. You can begin texting with anyone within seconds without even knowing them and what makes them who they are, all you have access to is photos and a tiny description. Looking back at what I wrote just above, Tinder, and all current dating apps are the perfect match to what new generations are looking for: it’s fast, easy, smart, effortless and modern.
Unfortunately, while those apps completely meet their needs and much more, many people have started to step back and think about dating the old way. The world may be accelerating, but social interactions cannot all be fast and superficial, a human needs true deep connection with others. An increasing number of interactions created through social networks are not true connections, they are just people interacting and sending each other texts and media, or reacting to each other posts and no more. I am not saying that all social interactions are like this, but social networks and current dating apps are pushing people that way.
Beam dating: a dating app shaped and made for this new world
Then, what would be the solution? Stop using dating apps and social networks? Slowing down the world?
We need services and products that fit today’s world requirements, services that can be fast, smart and modern without making the world even faster. How could we do that? How a service or product can meet those needs and at the same time change people’s behavior into not being that fast? Well, that is what Beam is trying to do: a dating app created for the new generation, for their needs while giving them the opportunity to slow down and create real and true relationships. Before even starting to design Beam, we knew that the best way to reach our goal would be to combine today’s standards with giving options to meet people differently.
1. Meeting modern needs
First, we wanted to create an app that would feel immediately familiar and easy to use, but what was really important to us, is the way users would use the app. We want people to have the choice between using the app as a typical dating app or using the app differently with our special features.
Launch the app and you will land on the home page featuring all available people within a close range.
Whenever you are on the home page users around you will show up. Those users are not randomly presented to you, they match both your age and distance limit but that is it, there are not any other filters or sorting algorithms used. The only goal here is to show you who is around and match your few criteria. You decide who you engage with, not an algorithm.
People are familiar with the concept of match, so we implemented it too. When you find someone that you might be interested in just double-tap the profile to like it. If the user likes you back, it’s a match, you can then begin a conversation and access their full profile. If not, you can still look at their profile by just tapping once on their picture; but in that case, you won’t have access to their most personal information such as their Instagram or social usernames.
Because we wanted to reach today’s standards, a lot of features of Beam are pretty basic such as messaging, sending emojis, receiving notifications and so on. The goal was to make users familiar with the app before even opening it, we want Beam to have what they are looking for, to be what they are looking for. Beam is fast, effortless, easy to use, modern, and so much more.
Here are some images illustrating Beam basic features combined with a gorgeous design.
As you can see just above, other than basic features, Beam also relies on a tag system. When filling up your profile you are asked to enter some tags that best describe you (some random words that describe who you are). Those tags are used for our special feature (detailed below) and for users to learn more about someone’s personality with just a few words.
A profile consists of many things, your photos, a headline (like a quote that describes you or one that you like), a description text, tags, your social media and the music or songs that you like the most.
Balloons are everywhere to enhance Beam experience making it fun, easy to use, smart and beautiful. The premium membership is only here because we wanted to think about Beam as a real app that could make its way to the App Store.
Notice that when having a conversation with anyone, Beam offers multiple options to diversify the relationship, but as you can see it is impossible to send any picture or images. Even though it could be considered as a basic feature we chose not to implement it for a simple reason: we want discussions to be as much as possible oriented on anything but physical traits, that is why you can send audio recordings, location, or set up a date but cannot send pictures.
Sending a date allows users to set a day and time for a date and then accept or decline it. The only goal here is to encourage people to meet in the real world where real connections are created.
Now that our first goal was achieved, we had to design what would make Beam different and allow its users to slow down and create real relationships.
2. Giving an opportunity to slow down
What we deeply wanted was to make people focus less on physical traits and more on personality, so we added a feature that fits perfectly that goal. The main issue of what you saw just above relies on the fact that the only way to start a conversation with anyone using Beam is to like each other, but that action is purely based on physical traits.
As you may have noticed, at the bottom of the main screen stands a special button with a balloon represented on it. Here comes our unique feature, mystery discovery also called a Beam Date, when you tap that special button a random profile shows up (that still matches your few criteria such as distance and age) and here is what you can see :
What is a Beam Date ?
When you see the profile after tapping on the balloon button, it differs from a standard profile because you cannot see any pictures or personal details, and mostly because you can engage a conversation without having liked each other before.
From the moment you start the conversation you have 24 hours to speak and get to know this person. At the end of this time, you and the mystery person will have to make a choice: continue the conversation or stop everything. If one of you chooses to stop then everything disappears, but if you both choose to continue the conversation, you have then access to the complete profile like a standard conversation.
The goal is to push people to have a conversation and get to know each other without being focused on physical traits. To go even further and to give people the opportunity to diversify topics during a conversation started through Beam Date, they have access to much more options such as sending quotes, sending gifs, starting games, sending music or movie trailers and even sending drawings. Beam Date is focused on taking the Beam experience further.
The entire Beam experience is made to influence users to behave differently, to engage differently. Combining Beam Date with all other little details such as not being able to send pictures, the tag system, the headline, the description, and the incredible user experience, takes this dating app to an all-new level. Beam had to offer some features every dating app should have, but we did it in a way that is compatible with our goal. We combined an experience that meets today’s standards with incredible new features. Anyone is free to use Beam as a typical dating app but when used to its full potential, Beam takes you way beyond just conversations and dates, it takes you to the real world.
The art of fitting in this new society
Nowadays progress means being fast. More and more industries are changing themselves to face that new reality. Some major companies have even become actors of those evolutions, pushing the world further and further. Beam is a dating app concept trying to figure out how to fit in this new society while giving new opportunities and an alternative to typical dating apps and websites.
I am extremely thankful if you read everything to this point, it really means a lot to me. Feel free to leave a comment to help me get better. Here is my website baptiste-faure.com where you can learn more about me and my projects. And here are my social media contact information: LinkedIn, Instagram.
