I don’t know how our parents managed to meet

Match.com recently launched a new personality test and since curiosity is one of my more prominent traits, I could not resist giving it a go. I’ve been following the online dating industry since early 2000 and have taken numerous variants of these tests, ranging from the lengthy e-harmony questionnaire to the crazy “physical attraction” test from Match.com (early 2004), nicknamed “Evil” by some users.

One of my more memorable moments taking this test was being asked to click on photos of other women’s breasts similar to mine so it could indicate my cup size and shape (…) to help bring men better matches (we all know what’s really important to men, right!).

Believe it or not, the test was quickly (and very, very quietly) deleted from the Match site with no warning to the users and never mentioned again. For us who took it, it went down in history as a remarkable example of disastrous interaction design. If you’d like to know more, read some blogs from the past here and here (with screenshots) – or download a pdf from IAC here (p.22-24).

Although it didn’t quite  work, the “physical attraction” test took on some really interesting ideas – they were just badly designed and executed. It was a bold and daring move from Match which had potential to innovate the dating industry if it had been introduced in a more subtle, useful way. If Match.com had listened to us users and made improvements, something really great could have come from this.

Now years later, Match is taking a safer approach with this new personality test and it makes me sad. It’s similar to e-harmony’s personality test, although obviously based on a different matching algorithm and philosophy and therefore might work better (or not at all!). I don’t mean to dismiss any of these tests. But stacking up personality tests on dating sites is pretty useless. In my experience, they’re good for teaching us more about who we are but fail to bring us particularly interesting matches. Why is this? I think it’s because falling in love is not really about being “compatible personalities”. It’s not going to make anyone consider/reconsider a match they aren’t  attracted to in the first place. It can only add value to a match you’re interested in for other reasons.

Another problem is that online dating sites don’t incorporate the results of these tests very well with other tools on their sites. For instance, Match.com’s test categorizes us into four different kind of personalities – the Explorer, the Builder, the Negotiator, the Director. Since we’re never really 100% this or that, test results show mixed results with a dominant part (explorer/builder, builder/negotiator etc). After taking the test, you’ll get a little “sticker” stamp on your profile to show your results.

 

“Elin is a EXPLORER/negotiator” my sticker says – but as a user,  I’m really not too sure what it means in terms of compatibility. Match does not provide a breakdown/explanation of the types that fit mine, nor any tools to help me search for the gods. How can this test then possibly be useful?

Even worse, when I browse around to look at the profiles of others who have taken the test, Match never tells me that I’m NOT compatible with someone – they just tell me the good stuff! So the personality test has not ruled out any one in particular – and I’m still faced with this giant, dreaded job of searching and sifting through profile after profile. Since I am always told about the ways I AM compatible with someone, I’m now forced to “read between the lines” to figure out if I am not.

Perhaps as an attempt to help minimize that workload, Match does promise to deliver me five “insightful” matches a day. I assumed this was the way I’d be introduced to personality types that match mine…. but to my surprise, I learned that most of these “insightful” matches actually haven’t taken the test! How are they then “insightful” I wonder, and discover that they’re not at all. Via other trivial profile information, we’re matched on things we’ve got in common such as “he’s also a night owl”, “you both love playing sports”, “he’s athletic and toned” (well, yay for the last one!).

Having been on/off dating sites since their start, I’m rather doubtful that any of them have reached their full potential yet. I don’t think they’ll get much better until we’ve got a new version of Match’s early attraction test to run together with the personality test, and efficient tools to manage the results ourselves.

In the meantime, the best sites are those that focus on providing a great user experience – i.e. they’re also fun to be on! Seduction not only from your new partner but also from the site itself is key… One of the more addictive ones I used way back made little hearts fall softly off the top of the browser window and down the screen whenever someone winked at you. So while you were browsing through your heaps of matches, these little hearts would let you know  that behind another screen, someone was looking at you and who knows… it might just be love at first sight…