Hinge Algorithm and User Interface

     The user interface and features of the dating app, Hinge, are well thought out and designed. More specifically, the preferences feature of the app play a very important role in helping the algorithm present more like-minded individuals to you that you can match with. The preference feature includes three different categories of preferences: virtues, vitals, and vices which all significantly help find more compatible matches and more unique conversations (Ellis, 2019). The director of Communications at Hinge stated that “Hinge’s algorithm is specifically designed to introduce you to potential dates who meet your preferences (and whose preferences you meet)” (Mussen, 2020). The hinge app uses a very well-known, Nobel prize winning, algorithm called the Gale-Shapely algorithm. This algorithm takes as input equal numbers of two types of participants and an ordering for each participant giving their preference for whom to be matched to among the participants of the other type.  It pairs people who are likely to mutually like one another. The preferences feature allows for this algorithm to work better and more efficiently and as you provide more information about yourself and interact with more individuals, the more accurate, and improved, the algorithm becomes at suggesting better matches. You can match with people in two ways on Hinge: they initiate the conversation by ‘liking’ either an answer to one of the questions or one of your pictures or you can initiate the conversation by ‘liking’ them in the same fashion