Many participants described how social platforms not only helped them find connections to peers online, but also led them to meeting people in the physical realm. However, many participants described issues with mismatched expectations on dating apps, or a desire for apps that would help them find friends.
Help people find local community and support
Platforms seeking to support people to make social connections ought to help orient people to places or areas where they can find community. Such information could be helpful to those traveling and people at home who are starting to become involved with local communities.
For example, the mockup on the right shows how Grindr could implement a local guide that shows information about places of interest and how to get support. The mockup on the far shows how this could be implemented as part of a map view. While these examples are queer focused, such features could be implemented for other groups, or the wider population.
Participants were particularly enthusiastic about using such features when traveling: "I would definitely use [Local Guide]. I think 10 out of 10. It would be like Google Maps but like queer. There's no app that has the people. It has the local people right now. And like the information, events, that's so important because you arrive from any city and you want to go out, hang out, meet new people but you don't know what the locals use for events."
However, they also saw the benefit for those who are isolated: "I think it's good, especially in a regional sense, some people are quite isolated generally. So being able to see where they can find community, where they can reach out to people, where there's a safe space and where there's support."
Allow people to crowdsource information
Information and resources provided should be relevant to the community and allow people to contribute through crowdsourcing affordances. A strength of the concept Local Guide for many participants was that the information it would provide would specifically targeted at LGBTQ+ people, and likely more relevant compared to generic information on the internet. As some participants suggested, people should be able to add reviews, comments or suggestions to provide further information or context.
Let people flag themselves as able to be guides or to provide local knowledge
In Support variation in the kinds of connections people are looking to make we offer recommendations for supporting people to find a range of types of connections on dating apps. Based on responses to Local Guide we also suggest that people are able to flag themselves as happy to be guides or to provide local knowledge.