Krush, Asian dating app
Krush is an Asian dating app that started in New York City. The aim of Krush is to establish a vibrant and carefully curated dating community for like-minded Asians. It also has two step verification where they try to keep all users authentic.
Role
UX consultant
Team
Jiyoung, Sara, Meng, Pete and Nabhi
Duration
6 weeks
Project Overview
During our client kick-off meeting, we reviewed Krush's goals to improve user acquisition by evaluating its referral flows. After conducting nine user tests, we uncovered a deeper issue: users felt the app lacked cultural resonance and “Asianness.” This insight led to a research pivot, focusing on features that celebrate Asian identity and foster meaningful connections. To address these needs, we proposed:
Community Vibe - explore user-generated content on Asian culture—dating, food, family, and more—all in one place, with match compatibility based on your activity.
Daily Snap & Connect - explore Asian-themes photo challenges and connect locally by viewing up to 9 near by responses
Referral flows:
Matchmaker - Invite your friends to help you discover your ideal matches.
Tell a Krush - Discover if your real-life crush is mutual with an anonymous message on Krush.
Current Referral Flow
User Interviews
To gain deeper insights into user perspectives, we conducted user interviews as our primary research method.
15
User Interviews
20-30 years old
Asian
Single
Experience with Dating Apps
Problem
How might we add value and engagement to referrals?
We started off with evaluating the current Krush referral flows. Within the current flows, there were some changes that could be made for a better user experience.
improve the ux writing
make labeling more clear
make the ui more attractive
From here, we started putting down all referral ideas we had as a team in order to conduct the first user testing with 9 users.
These are the few referral ideas that we came up initially:
Matchmaker
Raffle
Tell a Krush
Feature Sharing
Events
First User Testing (9 users)
100% of our users mentioned that they have never referred anyone to the dating app and expressed no interest in doing so in the future.
Users also tested out the current referral flows and expressed that it is dull and it mainly foxuses on the in-app rewards which users aren’t interested in.
Spice Up Referrals by Making Them Social
In order to spice up the referrals, we conducted user testing on 2 recommendations on a different referral flow on the app
Matchmaker
Tell a Krush
Matchmaker
Invite your friends to help you discover your ideal matches.
Users will receive text to be a matchmaker for the person that referred. Users could find a perfect match for the person referred.
Invitation Flow
Receiver Flow
User will receive text that someone thinks that you would be the perfect matchmaker
User can find a perfect match for the person that referred them, be a matchmaker!
“It’s a cute community activity through the app”
87% would love use this feature.
50% prefer our design over competitor’s offerings.
Tell a Krush
Discover if your real-life crush is mutual with an anonymous message on Krush.
Submit your crush’s name and phone and they’ll get an anonymous notification someone has a crush on them. Krush tells you whether your feelings are mutual if they list you as their crush.
Receiver Flow
“I would 100% use this feature if I have a crush on someone”
87% find this bold & fun.
75% of the users would accept the referral.
While we interview with users, we discovered additional problem that the app does not give differentiation from other dating apps like Bumble, Hinge and more. We figure that it was more significant issue than the referral flow. We think that we need more ASIANNESS to make Krush distinguished.
Problem Pivot
“Is this really made for Asians? Feels like it could use a little more culture, a little more us.”
Currently Krush offers all the essential features of a dating app but does not currently focus on or include Asianness as a defining aspect which is their value proposition.
As we pivoted, we brainstormed additional ideas to highlight elements of Asianness within the app.
Community
New ways to discover and connect
Profile based feature
Rating profile
Zodiac feature
First date recommendations
Reinforce Krush’s Asianness at the Core (6 users)
From our brainstorming, we decided to stick to the three ideas and do 6 user interviews on it.
Community vibe
Daily snap & connect
Rating profile
From the user interview, we learnt that:
Users would want to be matched with people in the same vibe
Users would want to get connected with people near by a snap
Users would not like to be rated, but instead they want to give rating to other
Based on our research, we decided to propose Ideas 1 and 2 to our client as ways to incorporate Asianness into Krush.
Community vibe
A community that connects users with the same vibe.
The community on Krush would serve as a social feed fostering Asian culture, featuring memes, events, and opinions.
On the dating side it will offer a compatibility score based on user activity on the community, helping you connect with people you best vibe with.
“It would be really nice to be matched with people in my vibe”
75% would love to have this feature.
Daily snap & connect
Snap and connect with people near by.
Engage with a daily photo challenge featuring Asian-inspired topics like dating, food, and culture to connect with up to 8 local active users.
Photo Challenge Notification
Take a photo based on prompt
Explore Profiles
“It could be fun to change up the swiping dynamic”
62% want to use this feature.
Client’s Feedback!
“It’s a brain opener for me”
“I really like what you guys mentioned about Asianness and we had conversation about this last week on this too”
Our client was very satisfied with our ideas and findings throughout the project. He agreed that the app lacks an Asian cultural essence and expressed a desire to focus on incorporating it. He was also open to the recommendations we made.
