UX Crunch: The Future of Love Online

The dating game has changed. But we all know that by now. How many of us can say we haven't used a dating app? Even your grandma seems to have given online dating a try.

But little is known to the user about how these apps work, how they tailor your experience and how they find new and exciting ways to stay relevant in today's cultural climate.

Our panel of experts from Her App, Hatched Dating, and Ex-FRND will share how they deliver an online dating experience that has rivalled (and arguably beaten) the traditional methods our parents would have used back in the day. It's time to uncover the ins and outs of design in this niche industry. Let's get down to business.

Iveta Hajdakova

Iveta is a specialist in economic anthropology and the anthropology of experience. She is interested in understanding how value is created through interactions with people, things, spaces, services and technology. Iveta holds a PhD in Anthropology from Charles University in Prague and was a 2012–13 Fulbright-Masaryk Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in New York.

Since she left academia, she has worked with a range of global technology, retail and hospitality companies, helping them drive strategy, innovation and design. She is working as a Senior Consultant at Stripe Partners in London.

Víctor Moreno Alhambra

Victor Moreno is the Head of Engineering at HER and has been working on software development for the last sixteen years. He has lead engineering teams for the last six years in different countries around Europe and the US. He has specialised in web, mobile and DevOps in different industries from social media to agency and travel. For the last few years, he has been scaling teams and helping developers to grow their careers. 

Piyush Singhania

Piyush Singhania, Ex-FRND, is a designer based out of Bangalore, India. FRND is an audio and avatar-based dating app that has over 2 million monthly active users from small cities and towns in India. FRND’s unique approach to dating by illustrating local and cultural sentiments on mobile has helped millions of young adults learn about and experience dating for the first time.

Piyush's focus was on a design-led strategy to monetise virtual gifting while creating a safe dating experience for many Indian female daters. Prior to this, Piyush was involved with B2C and B2B products at Think Design for a wide range of brands such as Equitas Bank, Deccan Herald, Manorama Year Book, and Oppo India, customising their design to ease user experience and cater to the demands of the applications. One such project went on to receive the CII Design Excellence Award in 2019.

Mitch Alterman

Mitch is the CEO & Co-founder of a new, personality-focused dating app called Hatched. Prior to starting Hatched, Mitch worked in sales and business development and has always been passionate about working with people. Despite meeting his wife on a dating app, Mitch found the typical dating app experience to be extremely superficial and hollow, leading him to found Hatched. Hatched launched in November of 2022 and is live, for now, exclusively in the Atlanta, Georgia, US market.