Can blind people use Tinder?
Currently, no… but Tinder can take responsibility and make this possible.
Mobile-first dating apps such as Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble have the potential to greatly benefit the blind community. Unfortunately, advocates of these apps largely ignore the narrative of the blind community and their products reflect this ignorance.
In 2017, Tinder’s vice president of global communications branding at the time, Rosette Pambakian, has stated that it did not “make sense” for Tinder to be in the narrative for visually impaired daters.
Although this quote was taken in 2017, not much has changed. Tinder in 2020, is still not accessible to people who are completely blind. They have not implemented any new features or accommodations to meet their needs.
On the agenda:
- “Prevalence” of dating apps
- Why the blind community needs mobile-first dating apps
- How these apps are not accessible and how these issues can be addressed
- Recommendation for new features to aid the blind population (which can also benefit the rest of users regardless of visual ability)
Dating apps are “widely adopted”
(Quotations because it only pertains to people who are not visually impaired)
According to the App Store, Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge have been downloaded well over 100 million times worldwide and rank second, fourth, and seventh respectively on the App Store’s “Lifestyle Top Charts” list (Jan 2020).
Unarguably, mobile-first dating apps have become key players in the process of people searching for their companions. This prevalence, however, does not extend to the visually impaired community since these apps are almost unusable for independent, completely blind users.
Do blind people even need Tinder?
(Short answer: yes)
There is research that supports blind people are more likely to experience physical isolation (Thurston, 2010). Some blind people argue that they need online dating apps more than their counterparts who do have vision. Adrian Higginbotham, in an interview with BBC, has stated that the most difficult part of dating is “making first contact.” He states because he is blind, he cannot step into a room, make eye contact with someone and start a conversation. He also cannot have moments in which he recognizes someone that he regularly runs into and start a friendship.
How can these apps be made accessible to the blind community?
(Obvious answer: alt texts. Less obvious answers: continue to read below.)
The motive for these design recommendations is to hopefully provide an equivalent experience for blind people and the rest of users on these platforms. However, that does not mean non-blind users cannot benefit from these recommendations.
Alt Texts Will Increase Autonomy and Independence in Blind Communities
A significant component of the experience Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge provide is that users are able to view images of other people’s profiles and their perceptions of those photos have influence on whether or not the users want to connect with others. Unfortunately, all three mobile-first applications do not have alternative texts for people who cannot see what the images entail. This violates success criterion 1.1.1 under “Perceivable” guidelines in Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) because there is no text alternative that serves the equivalent purpose of the profile images. Lack of alternative texts is problematic because the stigma of dating apps become unavoidable for people who are blind, and increases their dependency on others.
In Molly Burke’s Youtube video which discusses “Telling Tinder Boys I’m Blind” she mentions having asked her mom numerous times asking what the people in the photos look like. Many people have reported that they experience shame when disclosing they are on dating apps and feel embarrassed when they tell others that they met their partners online in fear that others will consider them to be desperate (Pew Research Center, 2014). While this stigma can easily be avoided by people without visual impairments, blind people who need help to understand what a person looks like do not have that luxury. To keep themselves safe, they need to be aware of the red flags in people’s profiles which are largely comprised of visual images that do not have alt text and therefore need assistance which they can only get at the expense of their privacy. Additionally, sharing preferences for specific visual qualities of a person is personal information that might feel shameful to share. Including alternative text would help increase blind people’s independence and avoid shame when it comes to using dating apps.
There are two ways to go about this
- Dating apps themselves can create an algorithm to have their system upload alt texts.
- Like Instagram, give users the option to include their own alt texts and raise awareness about the blind community.
Additionally, entirely new features such as audio clips with transcription can be introduced. Although the motive for this feature is to be more inclusive and provide alternative ways to experience these dating apps, this feature can also be enjoyed by the rest of the users who are not blind. I suspect that hearing the voice of a person users might be meeting for the first time can bring some comfort to an encounter that can be extremely awkward.
Blind Communities Need More Protection
During onboarding for Tinder, I noticed that it took less than a minute to sign up and begin clicking through the thousands of dating profiles. For Hinge, the process was longer because Hinge had a greater focus on showcasing personality as compared to Tinder, however like the previous app, there was no measure for verifying that I was actually the person who I claimed to be in my photos. Catfishing is predatory behavior when people pretend to be someone else by stealing others’ photos or uploading stock images online. Unfortunately, people who are blind are especially vulnerable as they cannot see people’s images and therefore will not be able to tell that even the most fraud looking photos are fake.
I recommend that Tinder and Hinge adopt the onboarding process of verification that Bumble has employed. Bumble asks users to take a photo making a specific gesture with your hands so that their system can verify the photos users uploaded are guaranteed to be themselves.
This is another recommendation that can greatly benefit blind people since blind people need more protection (Ahmed et al., 2015) but it can also benefit the rest of the community as well by eliminating catfishers overall and therefore will be a good business decision.
Another recommendation is to provide more protection for blind users: a notification system that if a user they connect or match with on the app is in the same proximity such as ~25ft within each other, notifications are sent to both parties. This is to help both parties be aware that they are in the same location which can be a good or bad thing. Instead of only one party being able to recognize the blind user across the room, the blind user will also be able to recognize this event without having to rely on the other party to make their presence known. I believe this feature can benefit all users and not just the blind community because it help anyone with fortuitous meetups or avoid each other. (Of course, people need to opt for this option for privacy concerns, and the 25ft number was a random number that I chose without research.)
Privacy for All
Blind people have a harder time locating and identifying people in their vicinity, which can result in privacy concerns such as “visual eavesdropping” (Ahmed et al., 2015). To safeguard the privacy of completely blind people and prevent “shoulder surfing”, I propose that these dating apps have a blackout feature which dims the screen to the lowest setting whenever one of these dating apps are opened. This intense dimming of the screen will not affect a blind person’s ability to navigate through the app but will deter others from fringing on their privacy.
Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge have made it easier for people to find partners by increasing the dating pool and giving people the means to reach out to complete strangers outside of their social circle. Because of these capabilities, these apps have the potential to greatly benefit the blind community by battling their physical isolation and yet, blind people’s needs are not included in the dating app narrative. Not only are there the obvious technical violations that need to be addressed — such as lack of alt texts, mislabeled or non labeled buttons that make voiceover essentially useless for some features — but the introduction of new features such as audio clips, blackout screens, and people in range notifications can increase independence and autonomy for the blind population.
