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Venus

Most dating apps turn love into a numbers game. Venus helps you find your best matches and plan your dates.

Venus app shown in a phone mockup

Project type

Team project, UX prototyping

My role

Product Designer

Tools

Figma
Framer
FigJam

18+

components in the design system

7

tasks in face-to-face moderated usability tests

22–34

age range of test participants

Endless swiping keeps people chasing better matches while they grow less invested in the ones they already have, and we set out to change that.

Still Life with Silver and Gold Vessels, Fruit, and Flowers at Blanton Museum

We were inspired by Pierre Nicolas Huilliot's Still Life with Silver and Gold Vessels, Fruit, and Flowers at the Blanton Museum of Art. Venus watches over the scene with Cupid beside her, so Venus became the app and Cupid the helper who suggests matches and dates.

Storyboards & story mapping

I sketched a storyboard where Cupid, an AI assistant, matches users and helps plan dates. We interviewed people about current dating apps and mapped their needs into an affinity diagram and a story map.

Venus storyboard
Venus story map Story map

Low-fi & mid-fi prototype

I designed the match flow: how users see Cupid's picks and what they can do with each. The team covered onboarding, edit profile, progress, and the icebreaker game.

  • Match screen Low-fi prototype of the match screen

    No swiping: users open a recommended profile and choose to talk, or unmatch by picking a reason.

  • Progress screen Low-fi prototype of the progress screen

    Current matches and trends in who users like.

All lo-fi and mid-fi screens

Making a design system

No reds or pinks, so the app doesn't feel like “love at first swipe.” Ice blue and Storm feel calm and trustworthy and set us apart from other dating apps. Playwrite US Trad gives the logo a classic feel, with Poppins for readable body text.

Venus design system color palette Venus design system font

Components & the design system

18+ components with consistent radius and spacing, plus color variables for hover and active states from a teammate, kept the hi-fi prototype consistent and fast to build.

Venus design system components
Full design system

First hi-fi iteration

We brought the design system into a hi-fi prototype with microanimations.

  • Onboarding Hi-fi prototype of the onboarding screen

    Profile setup and app mechanics. Testing later showed issues here.

  • Match screen Hi-fi prototype of the match screen

    Match and unmatch, with reasons to pick from.

  • Chat & icebreaker Hi-fi prototype of the chat screen

    Chat, plus an icebreaker game to learn about a match before messaging.

  • Home / progress Hi-fi prototype of the home/progress screen

    Current matches and how they're doing.

Some microanimations we added:

Hi-fi prototype of the message screen with animation Hi-fi prototype of the icebreaker screen with animation Hi-fi prototype of the milestone screen with animation

Usability testing & feedback

We tested with real users in moderated, face-to-face sessions: 7 tasks, 2 participants per teammate, ages 22 to 34. Notes and post-task forms went into a feedback board.

Usability testing feedback and affinity diagram

Key findings we acted on

  1. Most liked ✅ Icebreaker

    It eased first-contact tension: “This is a fun way to interact from the beginning.”

  2. Least liked 🙅 Milestones

    Users didn't see the point: “Don't see the point if the app is meant to make meaningful connections.”

  3. Main confusion 😵‍💫 Onboarding & unmatching

    Tutorials felt overwhelming, and unmatching was hard to find: “Difficult to unmatch — would expect the unmatch button to be in the chat.”

Full logged issues

Iteration & final prototype

With limited time, I prioritized the issues that most affected the experience.

  1. 6.1 Onboarding

    Issue: Too many tooltips at once.

    Fix: One contextual pop-up the first time a user reaches each screen, with a dimmed background and a single message.

Fix on the onboarding screen

  1. 6.2 Milestones & Cupid's recommendations

    Issue: Milestones and match trends were hard to tell apart, and the progress bar said little.

    Fix: Reordered milestones, dropped the progress bar, and added “Cupid's dating ideas” (locations, availability).

Fix on the homepage screen

  1. 6.3 Match trends

    Issue: Trends felt disconnected from real matches.

    Fix: Combined Cupid's notes with trends and added match profiles beside “my match pattern.”

Fix on the trends screen

  1. 6.4 Match profile

    Issue: Tapping a match in chat did nothing, and users couldn't unmatch mid-conversation.

    Fix: Tapping a photo opens their profile, where users can also unmatch.

Fix on the match profile screen Fix on being able to unmatch from the match profile screen

  1. 6.5 Icebreaker

    Issue: Match images had no names, and it was unclear where results went.

    Fix: Names below photos in the “Today's match” style, with the questionnaire visually separate from chat.

Fix on the icebreaker screen

Transition between icebreaker screens:

Icebreaker screen transition

I finalized the hi-fi prototype with conditional logic and microanimations. Try it through the link or the embedded version below.

Final prototype

Future plans & my learnings

Future plans

  • Run broader usability tests with more participants.
  • Integrate Cupid more deeply, with reservations and calendar blocking.
  • Have Cupid suggest safety tips and flag unhealthy conversations.
  • Keep iterating on the design and content.

What I learned

  1. Collaboration is challenging but rewarding

    Clear ownership, good communication, and leaning on each other's strengths made different backgrounds work.

  2. Be open-minded with opinions

    I pushed for dark green, the team preferred ice blue, and users liked it. Letting go was the right call.

  3. Prioritize when time is limited

    We focused on the most important features and iterated from feedback to ship something usable.