Swipe left. Swipe right. It’s such a small gesture that packs such a big punch.
After Tinder launched about two years ago, its dead-simple user interface helped propel the app–and its interface–into the realm of pop culture artifact. The swipe-yes-or-no design has been adopted by apps offering everything from employment to puppies to threesomes, rapidly becoming as familiar a part of the mobile ecosystem as the checkbox is to the web.
But while Tinder’s widespread media attention and viral growth helped make swiping mainstream, being a “Tinder for X” does not necessarily mean instant success. The swipe design’s close ties to the app can make other swiping products seem less than serious. (After all, Tinder’s interface initially drew for making romantic interactions feel shallow). As startups look to become more than just novelty Tinder clones, they’re working to turn swipes into meaningful recommendations and adopt other features that set them apart from an increasingly swipe-covered field.
This begs the question: What is the meaning, exactly, of the swipe?
“I really see the Tinder swipe as a UI pattern, more than anything else,” says Chris Calmeyn, a cofounder of professional social networking firm Caliber. “It’s just a great way to process information quickly.”
Founded in 2013, Caliber uses the swipe UI to bring together people interested in building business connections. Calmeyn says the Tinder-style mechanism was originally proposed jokingly after Tinder’s soaring popularity at the time, but it turned out that, as on Tinder, only pairing users who both expressed interest in each other made users more comfortable looking to connect with relative strangers.
“That’s just as valuable in a new professional relationship as it is in dating,” he says.
