ghosting, creeps, weird comments, no matches, dead chats, fake profiles, mindless swiping, no prompts, no pictures, not verified, validation seeking, rebound, hookup only, intent mismatching, gold digging, like farming, phishing, double timing, love bombing, gaslighting, queer baiting, ego stroking, breadcrumbing,
orbiting, in this research studio, benching, zombieing, soft blocking, ‘ We Ourselves’, passive aggression, late replies, I investigate, single word answers, copy paste openers, “hey hru”, no effort bios, generic prompts, cliché quotes, gym mirror selfies, sunglasses indoors, how technology mediates, group photos only, no face pics, catfishing, outdated photos, filters everywhere,
face tune, body editing, height lying, age lying, romantic relationships, location lying, job lying, marital status lying, emotional unavailability, commitment issues, fear of labels, situationships, almost relationships, hot and cold, mixed signals, reply games, strategic ignoring, power plays, ego boosts, chasing, overthinking, constant comparison, endless options,
paradox of choice, analysis paralysis, swipe fatigue, burnout, boredom, parents finding out, moral policing, shame, stigma, “desperate” tag, not serious enough, too serious too soon, trauma dumping, oversharing, love bombing then vanishing, future faking, fake vulnerability, therapy speak, performative wokeness, performative feminism, performative allyship, bare minimum kings, nice guy act,
entitlement, negging, subtle insults, body shaming, colourism, casteism, classism, fatphobia, misogyny, homophobia, queerphobia, fetishization, tokenizing, creepy dms, unsolicited flirting, sexual innuendos, unsolicited pics, harassment, unsafe meetups, stalking, doxxing fears, location anxiety, safety doubts,
not knowing who to trust, hidden relationships, people “just browsing”, people “not over their ex”, people “seeing where it goes” forever, emotionally unavailable people, revenge dating, rebound dating, hate using apps but still using them, deleting and redownloading, uninstall reinstall cycle, endless rebranding of the same apps, premium paywalls, pay to be seen, boosts, superlikes, algorithm bias, same faces again and again, long distance matches, wrong city matches, bad discovery radius, spam bots, crypto scams,
sugar daddy messages, mlm pitches, fake influencers, cat accounts, people only there for instagram followers, clout chasing, like collectors, match hoarding, never replying after matching, conversations that die after “what do you do”, no conversation skills, boring small talk, interview style questioning, no listening, talking only about themselves, self promotion, link in bio, podcast plugs, music taste judgement, playlist gatekeeping, niche interest shaming, kink shaming, religious mismatch,
political mismatch, value clashes, different timelines, different life stages, ghosting after first date, ghosting after months, slow fade, “it’s not you it’s me” texts, no closure, awkward first meetings, catfish in real life, no chemistry offline, safety worries on the way home, friends tracking location, fake kindness, breadcrumb reassurance, people keeping backups, fomo, jealousy, constant notifications, dopamine hits, late night scrolling, sleep deprivation,
feeling replaceable, feeling not enough, feeling too much, losing faith in romance, losing patience, treating people like profiles, treating feelings like features, dating app fatigue, wanting to delete everything, still being scared of missing out, ghosting, creeps, weird comments, no matches, dead chats, fake profiles, mindless swiping, no prompts, no pictures, not verified, validation seeking, rebound, hookup only,
intent mismatching, gold digging, like farming, phishing, double timing, love bombing, gaslighting, queer baiting, ego stroking, breadcrumbing, orbiting, benching, zombieing, soft blocking, passive aggression, late replies, dry texters, single word answers, copy paste openers, “hey hru”, no effort bios, generic prompts, cliché quotes,
gym mirror selfies, sunglasses indoors, group photos only, no face pics, catfishing, outdated photos, filters everywhere, face tune, body editing, height lying, age lying, location lying, job lying, marital status lying, emotional unavailability, commitment issues, fear of labels, situationships, almost relationships, hot and cold, mixed signals, reply games, strategic ignoring,
power plays, ego boosts, chasing, overthinking, constant comparison, endless options, paradox of choice, analysis paralysis, swipe fatigue, burnout, boredom, dating as content, screenshotting chats, sharing profiles in group chats, because dating apps, dating as content, screenshotting chats, sharing profiles in group chats, getting roasted by friends, being seen on apps, have a lot of problems, being seen on apps, aunties and uncles judging,
parents finding out, moral policing, shame, stigma, “desperate” tag, not serious enough, too serious too soon, trauma dumping, oversharing, love bombing. My name is, Vidush Gupta, future faking, fake vulnerability, therapy speak, performative wokeness, performative feminism, performative allyship, bare minimum kings, nice guy act, entitlement, negging, subtle insults, body shaming,
colourism, casteism, classism, fatphobia, misogyny, homophobia, queerphobia, fetishization, tokenizing, creepy dms, unsolicited flirting, sexual innuendos, unsolicited pics, harassment, unsafe meetups, stalking, doxxing fears, location anxiety, safety doubts, not knowing who to trust, hidden relationships, people “just browsing”, people “not over their ex”,
people “seeing where it goes” forever, emotionally unavailable people, revenge dating, rebound dating, hate using apps but still using them, deleting and redownloading, uninstall reinstall cycle, endless rebranding of the same apps, premium paywalls, pay to be seen, boosts, superlikes, algorithm bias, same faces again and again, long distance matches, wrong city matches, bad discovery radius, spam bots, crypto scams, sugar daddy messages, mlm pitches, fake influencers, cat accounts,
people only there for instagram followers, clout chasing, like collectors, match hoarding, never replying after matching, conversations that die after “what do you do”, no conversation skills, boring small talk, interview style questioning, no listening, talking only about themselves, self promotion, link in bio, podcast plugs, music taste judgement, playlist gatekeeping, niche interest shaming, kink shaming, religious mismatch, political mismatch, value clashes, different timelines, different life stages,
ghosting after first date, ghosting after months, slow fade, “it’s not you it’s me” texts, no closure, awkward first meetings, catfish in real life, no chemistry offline, safety worries on the way home, friends tracking location, fake kindness, breadcrumb reassurance, people keeping backups, fomo, jealousy, constant notifications, dopamine hits, late night scrolling, sleep deprivation, feeling replaceable, feeling not enough, feeling too much, losing faith in romance,
losing patience, treating people like profiles, treating feelings like features, dating app fatigue, wanting to delete everything, still being scared of missing out,
Traces
Design research project exploring how technology shapes relationships, resulting in Traces — a reimagined dating solution tested on campus.
Observation
people are lonely
dating apps exist, but…
Claim
they suck
Read the design brief
The formal version: an intervention that augments how relationships already begin offline, rather than replacing it.
Why do they suck?
of dating app users are men
match rate for dating apps
said dating app talking didn’t go anywhere
Like & matchLike, but no matchPass
Women match with 36% of those they like; men with under 2% — source Duro.Data, Swipestats.io
So what of it?
It’s a vicious cycle where users feel the need to perform (curation), to play a rigged game (dating apps), and then feel pressure (judgement) which in turn feeds their need to perform.
Curated profiles fuel the cycle of odds, swipes, and addiction.
Fear of exposure pushes people to stay masked, safe, curated.
The more rigged the system, the more frequent rejection, invisibility, or humiliation.
The Fix: Traces
A low pressure way of connecting in the real world.
01More Intention
No
swiping.
02Less Curation
No
profiles.
03Deeper Connection
No
cold starts.
How does it work?
Play a situation or upload a Trace, get matched on the personality that reveals, then meet each other’s Traces in AR.
Explore the Interface
Screen 1
Onboarding
What came of it
Traces set out to do one thing: match couples on campus — not to grow a user base, but to make one good introduction between two people who were already in the same place.
01Delivered
Research → concept → interface
Desk and field research, synthesis into three archetypes, the concept, the user flow, and the screens that carry it.
02Role
Solo, end to end
Research, processing, analysis and evaluation, then the build. No team — every decision on the page is mine.
03Status
UI mockups
A one-week studio project at Future Factory. Traces exists as a designed, testable interface rather than a shipped product.
Research
Sixteen structured interviews and a live matchmaking experiment — around 400 datapoints, and seven themes that kept recurring.
Analysis
One unmet desire for companionship under every complaint, sorted into nine archetypes and an iceberg model that reaches cause rather than behaviour.
Ask Pixel about the user testing that got people dates on campus!