Michael Bruch, founder of Peas and Love Corporation, partnered with us earlier this year to create a new dating app focused on healthy relationships. His thesis was that a more humanized and enjoyable online dating experience would be possible if a platform focused on enabling self expression, encouraged interesting conversation, and fostered empathy between strangers. While lots of people use dating apps, many people aren’t particularly happy with their experiences or emotionally attached to any one platform. Even in a crowded market, there were a lot of consumer pain points that weren’t being adequately addressed. So, together, we embarked on a journey to create something better – Sweet Pea.
We asked ourselves, what features we could build to provide a friendly, approachable and ‘real’ dating experience? If we were going to be successful, our approach to this process needed to be different than our competitors in a very crowded market. So we settled on three core feature sets – video stories, ice breakers, and detailed Q&A driven settings.
With this in mind, we quickly developed a prototype that roughed out the complex rules behind the algorithm that would provide a higher degree of control over matching than most dating apps. This made it easier to start meaningful conversations, and to provide unique security features making user’s privacy and security a priority.
While the development team was busy writing code for the server side of Sweet Pea, the design team went to work on creating a user experience that made the app feel simple, easy to use and, above all, friendly. We wanted Sweet Pea’s user interface to be welcoming and playful so we designed a bright color scheme and illustrated a band of happy pea characters to convey emotion through animations at key points in the app. These elements, combined with colorful icons remind users that meeting new people is, and should be, a fun experience.
It was also important to that Sweet Pea ‘do well by doing good.’ As part of our commitment to healthy relationships, 10% of Sweet Pea’s revenue is donated to charities that help people escape and recover from domestic abuse and other toxic living situations.
In addition to the app design and development, we created the marketing assets that help tell the Sweet Pea story including the logo and app icon as well as the website and social media banners.
We’re proud to be a part of this project and help Michael accomplish his mission. Yes, we design and develop mobile apps, but, more importantly, we’re proud to build applications that have a positive impact on people’s lives. Very soon, Sweet Pea will launch on campuses and in cities across the U.S. and Canada. If you’re looking for an app that provides an opportunity for meaningful connection, we hope you’ll give it a try.
