Slice of Lime created the web strategy, design, and front-end coding for Ignighter. Ignighter is a group dating website. What’s group dating, you ask? It’s a fun and safe way to meet people by going out with your friends to meet other groups of friends.

Ignighter was part of TechStars, a summer program that accepts 10 startup companies to fine-tune their concept and build their idea through the help of excellent mentorship. Slice of Lime sponsors TechStars each year and got to know the Ignighter team early in the process.

Strategy

Identifying High-Level Goals and Target Demographic

We started by bringing Ignighter through a strategy conversation to dig a little bit deeper into their target audience and goals.

Ignighter had clear goals:

1. Create a more intuitive sign-up process
2. Create a better look and feel
3. Attract more women to the website

As well as a clear target audience:

• 21-35 single people
• People tired of typical dating sites
• Targeting women is more important to them than men (men were already dominating the site based on Ignighter’s metrics at the time)

User Chart

To visualize the cross sections of their current users and target users, we created a user chart:

While Ignighter has a broad range of users (18-40), we agreed to focus on their core group of users, which fell into two categories; 21-27 year olds and 28-35 year olds.

Focus Groups

Admittedly, the predominantly male staff at Ignighter and Slice of Lime was not in sync with what a single woman would be interested in when it came to a group dating website. The appropriate next step was to conduct detailed focus groups.

We conducted many focus groups both in Boulder, Colorado and New York City, targeting the two demographic categories identified above. All focus group interviews were done in person and followed a similar line of questions. We were particularly interested in how our subjects communicated with one another, what social media tools were being used, how our subjects felt about dating in general, and how our subjects felt about online dating sites.

We took notes, pictures, and video of each group.

Some of our findings included:

• “Texting” is by far the preferred method of communication
• Calling on a cell phone and then Facebook were runners up to texting
• Dating sites are considered lame, but once “group dating” was explained, they liked the concept
• They didn’t like dynamic pictures on homepage – too off-putting. Preferred staged “real people” pictures.

We were surprised to learn that no one in any of our groups (at the time) used Twitter or owned an iPhone.

Below is a quick clip of how one group of subjects in New York City reacted to a competing website:

Personas

After the focus groups and research was complete, we were ready to compile “personas.” Personas are fictitious representations of people that we expect to use the Ignighter website. By putting a name to a user, we’re able to reference them as we build the structure and design for the website.

Here is a sample persona document that we used with Ignighter:

Information Architecture

Information Architecture is an important step that visually represents the structure of a marketing website and/or web application. In Ignighter’s case, we’d be doing both. The information architecture below shows a “logged-in” view of the Ignighter application. We also created a logged out view and a marketing site/sign-up process view.

Wireframes

After the information architecture was signed off on, we moved into creating “wireframes.” Wireframes help identify the key elements needed for each page. Featured below is a wireframe for the Ignighter “Dashboard”, a key page in the user experience. The smaller images below show some other wireframes used for Ignighter’s initial sign-up process.

Design

After completing the strategy component of the website, we were ready to move on to design. We brought Ignighter through several rounds of design reviews for both the marketing website as well as the user experience of their application. Below are several design approaches for the Ignighter homepage:

Development

After design was approved, we coded the site using XHTML and CSS. Back-end development would be done by Ignighter’s internal team, so we set up a work environment that made it easy for us to provide front-end code and graphics without disrupting their work flow.

Conclusion

Ignighter was a pleasure to work with. One thing we love about their team is that they understand the importance of metrics-based changes. They measure all activity on their site and continuously play with new ways of signing people up, new homepages, and other tweaks to see what resonates best with their audience. By making changes based on audience feedback and participation, they are growing a successful business around a novel idea.

Posted in B2C, Web, Work, Youth

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