eHarmony Blog.com

Sometimes, change helps. Sometimes, it doesn’t. Today’s changes to eHarmony’s interface show how software development works.

Step 1: Selective testing

Last December, eHarmony rolled out a new interface for its new registrants: The “Interested/Maybe” tabs and the “How interested are you in _____?” slider. This blog covered the change only briefly, unfortunately, and nobody here got around to making screenshots. SML did describe the new interface though:

The tabs on the matches page are as follow: New, Communicating, Interested, Maybe, and Closed.
When you look at a match there is this box with “How interested are you in ‘insert name’”. There is a slider thing that says not, somewhat and very. You also have the option of in between not & somewhat and somewhat & very.
All your matches stay in new matches until you submit the slider with your interest level. If you select somewhat or between somewhat & not it moves the match to the maybe tab. If you select very or between somewhat & very it moves them to the interested tab. If you choose not interested it gives you the following options:
– Tell us which match settings “insert name” doesn’t fit (if any)
Distance
Height
Religion
Age
– How complete is “insert name’s” profile?
– How attractive do you find “insert name”?
(This two questions you have the slider with the same options as with how interested are you.)
– If the match has a picture it asks about the quality of the picture.
If have not submitted your interest level on a match and they initiate communication it will show up in your communicating tab and also in the new tab. If you respond to the communication it puts them in your interested tab and communicating tab.
Once a match is moved to the interested and maybe tab and you go back to their profile there is another link that says “Tell us why you are interested in ‘insert name’” where the options are:
– How much do you like “insert name’s” profile? (this one has the slider)
– Is there anything you’d like to tell us about Chris? (this one has a box where you can write whatever you want)
– Quality of the picture.
So that’s what’s new with the matches page. I hope all that makes sense. I could probably do screen shots of my matches page if that would help.

The new interface also had a member name search. Also, note that the “All” tab was gone.

Old registrants who retook the questionnaire also got the new interface.

Step 2 and 3: Gather Feedback and Rollout

Since December, the user feedback that was gathered showed that people hated the sliders and the halfway tabs. In other words, the world is better black and white. Though the new interface can potentially collect huge amounts of user preference data, eHarmony had to go back to the drawing board.

Today, eHarmony rolled out the new interface to everyone, to all country sites and to Compatible Partners, MINUS the “Interested” / “Maybe” tabs and MINUS the ratings slider. SingleGuyInNC wrote about it earlier today, with screenshots.

This is an example of how software development works. One design goal was to get more people to ACT UPON the match after reviewing it. (A common member complaint is matches who view but do nothing.) User feedback and user actions showed that the ratings slider and the two tabs helped little in achieving the design goal.

(Incidentally, this blog’s Valentines Day article covered how eHarmony feeds user actions back to the matching system using a datawarehousing technology called Netezza. This “self-learning” technology is also used in Compatible Partners.)