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Ameli:
Introducing “relationship wellness” to UK muslim millennials.

ameli app development
We designed and develop Android and iOS app for young muslims looking for a partner.
About Ameli

About Ameli

Ameli was founded in 2021 by two healthcare professionals who saw the benefit of promoting relationship wellness, but identified the current matchmaking apps focus on the exact opposite – endless swiping and fast shallow dating. Ameli, which translates to ‘my hope’ in Arabic, incorporates a totally new approach to matchmaking, using only the most relevant data to achieve true compatibility between users and allowing users to spend more time getting to truly know their potential life partner.

 

Objective

The Ameli team has approached us at very early stage with few low fidelity sketches and a prototype of their personality test they wished to incorporate to the matching algorithm. But as they started showing their prototype to potential users, the founding team realised they need something more polished and started looking for a design & tech partner to bring the vision to life.

Unique problems to solve

Unique problems to solve

Long onboarding & verification process

Ameli comes with a unique proposition of “slow dating” – forget about mindless swiping and cheesy openers and invest time in your match to get to know them better before moving on (either direction). In order to enable this, Ameli has to get to know you first little more than your average swipe-to-hookup app. Verification process to ensure you are who you say you are, your lifestyle and dating preferences, personality test – Ameli team knew what data they needed, but we had to solve the challenge of extracting it from the user and not bore them while doing so.

 

Everyone is unique

Something we discovered very early in the process was that in order to sell the concept of “slow dating”, we can’t afford to look like any other cookie cutter dating app. We had to find an unique identity for Ameli that reflected uniqueness of the people using it – to provide a safe space of “relationship wellbeing”.

Big aspect of this was to create a design language that would be understandable to people with different dating expectations, but also bigger differences such as their beliefs (and levels of practising them).

 

Matching algorithm that narrows, but doesn’t constrain.

Who were we designing for

Who were we designing for

The app is designed for young muslim professionals who are generally somewhat active in practising their faith and don’t have much time for dating yet.

The proto-persona was validated through Ameli’s community the client has been growing since inception of the project. Initial assumptions were tested through engagement on social media posts, clubhouse sessions and similar.

ameli ui design
The process

We started the process with benchmarking the dating landscape, doing desk research on seeing what is available on the market and if the USP of “relationship wellbeing” can be a good enough differentiator.

We worked closely together with the client on refining their brand voice and created a visual identity that was inspired by islamic visuals, but didn’t feel gimmicky or cheap.

The Ameli team started building their community from the beginning even before we even started working on the product, so we were able to release sneak peaks of our work to potential users and get some early feedback. Our goal was to release the MVP that would test the unique value proposition and started iterating from there.

Integrated personality test that doesn’t feel awkward

Ameli algorithm is using different inputs with different weights to match two users – it’s not about exact match of preferences, but about recognising patterns and similarities in their lifestyles.

One of the more “qualitative” parts of matching is a personality test developed by Sentino and implemented into the UX by us that asks user to relate to different personality related questions and creates their personality profile based on the answers.

The results of the test are carefully worded to present the best and most intriguing aspects of the personality. We didn’t want this to feel weirdly pseudo-scientific, so we decided to not include this into the algorithm itself, but instead it turn it into a fun game where users have their personality shown on profiles in a fun and shareable way and can use it as icebreaker for their first chat!

ameli app ux design
Ice breakers, no swiping

Speaking about ice breakers, Ameli profiles are combination of things a person likes, dislikes or enjoy doing the most. We saw people creating almost their small “landing pages” showing off their unique personality through photos or answers to our curated questions.

Two people meeting each other on Ameli can then engage in real conversation reacting to one of these “ice breakers” instead of just swiping right or left based on few photos.

ameli app development
No more ghosting

Ameli is full of little surprises and little prompt based on human behaviour discoveries to help with the most typical pitfalls of online dating. We have designed an experience that is actively trying to limit number of conversations person engages in and to prevent ghosting – we made it easy for our matches to just end the chat without awkward explanation if the spark is not there.

ios android app development
Results

Quotes from instagram and app store

app development reviews