Adapting Tinder's swipe-and-photo experience for blind and low-vision users
Company: Tinder
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are a product manager working on Tinder, the dating app where people browse profiles and swipe to say yes or no. Design Tinder for people who are visually impaired: decide which of these users you would serve first, work out where the current experience fails them, propose the product changes you would make, and explain how you would know the design is working.
```hint Walk the core loop without sight
Tinder's loop leans heavily on looking at photos and swiping cards. Go step by step from sign-up to a first date and ask what a person who cannot see the screen, or can see it only partly, has to do at each step.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Does "visually impaired" mean only people who are blind and use a screen reader, or also people with low vision who rely on zoom, large text or high contrast?
- Should the changes be built into the main Tinder app, or is a separate app or mode for visually impaired daters on the table?
- Should visually impaired users match within the same pool as everyone else, or is a dedicated community in scope?
- Is the main aim to bring more visually impaired people onto Tinder, to meet accessibility expectations and regulations, or to make the product more inclusive for people already using it?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A clear goal and a segmentation of visually impaired users, with a reasoned choice of the segment to design for first.
- A step-by-step walk through Tinder's journey that pinpoints where photos, swipe gestures and visual cues shut these users out.
- Features that let these users present themselves and judge other profiles on their own, including how sighted users' profiles become usable to them, prioritized into a focused first version.
- Safety, privacy and disclosure questions particular to these users, and the effect of the changes on the rest of Tinder's users.
- Success metrics with guardrails, the main risks, and how the design would be validated with visually impaired people.
### Follow-up Questions
- Most profile photos come with no description. Would you generate descriptions automatically, and what could go wrong if you did?
- Should a user's blindness, or the fact that they use a screen reader, ever be visible to the people they match with? How would you decide?
- How would you test this design with blind and low-vision users before launch, and what result would make you hold the launch?
Overview: A product design question that asks how Tinder could be adapted so blind and low-vision people can create a profile, judge who interests them, match and chat on their own. It tests segmenting visually impaired users, finding where a photo-led swipe app breaks for screen-reader users, prioritizing accessible features, and setting success metrics and safeguards.