Supporting Women in Online Dating with a Messaging Interface that Improves their Face-to-Face Meeting Decisions

Abstract

This paper presents a study of a messaging interface prototype for online dating intended to improve women's face-to-face meeting decisions, and therefore the capacity to manage the gendered risks involved with such meetings. The interface prompts users with discussion topics that are potentially more valuable for user evaluation than the impression management-motivated topics often chosen by men. These topics come in the form of first-date scenarios that messaging partners either agree or disagree on. Through a mixed-methods study utilizing speed dating events, daters used the interface to interact before meeting face-to-face. Results indicate that women's face-to-face meeting decisions improve when the interface prompts them to discuss scenarios involving agreement of opinion. Men's decisions are worsened by the same interface variant, potentially due to the displayed agreement being misinterpreted as a signal of compatibility. The study ultimately stresses that designs intended for women, and at-risk groups more broadly, must also be assessed with other user demographics-namely those that pose a risk-to identify unforeseen implications.

Computer-Mediated Consent to Sex

“…Ultimately, users have expressed frustration over their capacity to make informed face-to-face meeting decisions [41,120], which could lead to unnecessary exposure to physical risk. This has motivated prototypical interfaces such as the prompted discussion interface [123] and virtual dates [41] to better support impression formation.…”

Online Dating Meets Artificial Intelligence: How the Perception of Algorithmically Generated Profile Text Impacts Attractiveness and Trust

“…If designers aim to use AI to improve attractiveness without impacting trust, there is potential to lead to (inadvertent) deception and the inability of users to assess the risk of meeting face-to-face. Increasing attractiveness using AI may therefore be beneficial to the self-presenter but less so to the evaluator, and this could significantly impact the experience of groups who are already victimised on dating services [48].…”

"Hey Beautiful"; Race and Gender on Tinder

“…Online dating extends the sociotechnical evolution of romantic partnering, mate-seeking, and marriage in the digital age [3]. However, dating platforms do not benefit everyone equally [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13], and scholars acknowledge the prevalence of racial preferences in online dating [3,[13][14][15][16]. The presence of racialized dating behavior is especially significant for the study of racial demography [17], racism [18][19][20][21], and the intersectional study of gendered experiences with dating technologies [22][23][24].…”