Date Quest

Dating apps make it easy to match, but hard to turn a match into a real date. Date Quest is a 90-minute city route for two people who have already decided to meet: three hand-picked local stops, a small challenge at each one, and perks from partner venues.

The project began in Cornell's Product Studio with a broad prompt — how might we improve dating? — and is still in development.

My role

I proposed the Date Quest concept during our team's ideation and led its visual direction: the end-to-end mockup flow, the interface language, the app icon, and the presentation materials.

We ran 20+ user interviews and audited 12 dating apps, then grouped 80 ideas into 10 recurring frictions. They clustered around three moments: matches that never make it offline, meeting that takes too much work, and unclear follow-through.

One pattern stood out to me: the setting shapes chemistry. A quiet café can make pauses feel awkward, while walking or doing something together takes the pressure off — but activity dates take far more planning.

Date Quest turns that insight into a product. Instead of another list of places, it plans a shared experience: curated niche routes, planning together from one link, challenges that break the ice, partner perks, and safety by default.

It also answers a question we kept hearing: why not just ask an AI for date ideas? An AI can list places. Date Quest checks what is actually on this weekend, plans for two people at once, turns the date into a shared game, and brings real perks from partners.

Our first mockup opened with a preferences form and read like a generic itinerary. I reworked the flow to start from discovery — routes and little places happening this weekend — and moved planning, challenges, and perks into a five-step journey.

Visually, I explored several directions before landing on a soft "candy glow" language: a light ground, blurred candy-colored light, jelly-like surfaces, and a dotted route line that carries from the app icon to every screen. Playful and a little romantic, without feeling loud.

Prove one great date before scaling.

We are scoping a narrow pilot for first and second dates on Roosevelt Island and in Long Island City: one 60–90 minute route supported by five to eight partner venues. The open questions are whether couples will pay for a ready-made date, and whether venues will participate.

Pricing and pilot figures are working assumptions, not validated results.

A product is a promise, not a feature list.

This project pushed me to connect research, concept, interface, and business model into one argument for why the product should exist — and to keep asking what makes it meaningfully different from tools people already use.