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Building transparent and user-centered T&S experiences
Role
Product Designer II
Timeline
3 Months, Q2 2025
Project type
Safety Product
Contributions
Strategy, UX Design, Visual Design, Prototyping, UX Research
OVERVIEW
This project originated from a Trust & Safety Hackathon I led in Q4 2024 at Tinder’s global onsite in Los Angeles. The idea was later adopted into the roadmap for Q4 2025. The initiative focused on transforming vague, easily missed messages into clear, actionable notifications that educate users about their behavior. By prioritizing visibility, clarity, and transparency, the redesign helps users understand their actions, builds trust, and reduces confusion across the platform.
RESPONSIBILITIES
I led early ideation and workflow design for the warning, suspension, and ban experiences. Partnering with another T&S product designer, I mapped the end-to-end experience, incorporating user research, feedback, pain points, and policy/legal considerations to create a more informative and user-centered enforcement process.
PROBLEM
Users felts unfairly banned and unheard
The existing ban and warning experience on Tinder lacked clarity, leaving users uncertain about why their accounts were restricted. Many described their bans as unfair or inaccurate, frequently voicing frustrations on Reddit, Quora, and other social media platforms. Vague messaging and limited context in alerts created confusion and distrust, ultimately damaging brand perception and increasing customer support load to address gaps in the product experience.
PREVIOUS DESIGN EXPERIENCE
Warnings often are unseen and misunderstood
The primary method for communicating warnings was through Tinder app inbox messages; however, internal analytics revealed that most users do not open these messages, causing many warnings to be missed.
User research confirmed that this leads to widespread confusion, particularly among those with multiple warnings, who often do not understand which behavior triggered a ban.
Even when users do read the messages, interviews and feedback indicated that the vague language fails to clearly communicate the specific violation, making it difficult for users to understand what they did wrong and how to correct their behavior.
SOLUTION
Building trust through clarity and visibility
Research and user feedback highlighted the need for greater visibility and clearer communication around account warnings and bans. By improving the visibility of warnings and providing detailed context in ban screens, users gain a clearer understanding of the specific violations that triggered their account actions. This transparency fosters self-awareness and trust, while also reducing customer support volume across internal and external channels.
PROPOSED
Warning Experience
DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
Ensuring users see, understand, and can act on policy alerts
VISIBILITY
Previously, warnings were hidden in Tinder’s inbox messages, only visible if users tapped on them. The redesign surfaces warnings as a full-screen bottom sheet upon app open, ensuring messages are front and center and immediately noticed by users.
CLARITY
The redesign provides users with clear, actionable context: warning counter shows how many warnings they’ve received, specific policy details explain the violation with a link to the relevant rules, and the exact user-generated content that triggered the warning is surfaced. This approach reduces confusion, supports self-correction, and minimizes appeals.
TRANSPARENCY
When users fail to correct behavior after multiple warnings, a suspension is triggered. The suspension screen surfaces at this moment, and a dynamic timer clearly shows how long the user must wait before regaining access, providing transparency and context around the consequence of repeated violations.
USER ACTION & CONTROL
Clear CTAs empower users to take immediate action. Specifically for the warning screens, the primary CTA dynamically routes users to fix the content while it’s top of mind. The secondary CTA directs users to the Appeal Center to dispute the violation if they believe it was issued in error. This design gives users control over how to respond when the warning surfaces.
LEARNINGS & TAKEAWAYS
Empathy and clarity in designing safety experience
Reflecting on this project, it was meaningful to work on a consumer-facing safety product at Tinder, especially as my last before transitioning out. I grew as a Trust & Safety designer, learning how to translate complex systems into approachable, educational experiences that support users seeking meaningful connections.
This project reinforced the importance of clarity, intent, and empathy in Trust & Safety design. Users respond best to straightforward guidance and transparent communication, enabling them to take the right actions confidently.
Leveraging my experience leading moderation tools and user research, I translated complex logic from backend to policy into user-centered experiences that are actionable, understandable, and trustworthy. This project strengthened my ability to design with purpose while validating that simplicity and clarity drive better adoption and user trust.
