Between February and September 2025, the BIIT Lab worked closely with the dating app Feeld to enhance features that encourage self-discovery in sexuality and gender, promote dating safety and health, and foster equitable technology design. The primary goals of the project were to answer the company’s call to collaborate with trained academics to support identity exploration, improve communication quality and connection online, and enhance app member retention. As a dating app specifically designed to support diverse queer identities and non-traditional relationships—including polyamory and ethical non-monogamy—Feeld has established a track record of collaborating with academics to produce research-driven insights about the dating landscape. This includes publishing studies and articles that explore various aspects of modern dating through their State of Dating series. The BIIT Lab studies assessed the core concerns of marginalized app users by translating research insights into actionable redesigns, including the creation of Reflections, a new quiz-style self-exploration feature aiming to encourage people’s self-development of intimacy and sexual/gender identity.
The desktop and in-app feature, titled Reflections, was launched as part of Feeld’s January 2026 app update and has since been highlighted across the company’s social media, app support pages, and includes media appearances, including coverage by Wired.com and Mashable.com.
Over a seven-month period, their team partnered closely with Feeld’s UX research team to advance the project, each member executing a specific arm of the project that drove design redevelopment further. The collaboration involved an ideation phase, where they conducted an initial exploration of app member needs and challenges, then a testing phase, where they evaluated their recommended redesign with a small sample of existing app members.
During the ideation phase, the team began by conducting in-depth focus group interviews with app members in both the United States and the United Kingdom to better understand the challenges and nuances of their online and offline dating experiences. Communications and Media doctoral candidate, Mel Monier, and Psychology doctoral candidate, Jasmine Banks , designed a focus group study, while Psychology Ph.D. Janae Sayler and Sociology Ph.D. Student Erykah Benson moderated focus groups and synthesized findings into a series of insights reports translating interview findings for the Feeld UX Team. Communications and Media Undergraduate Senior, Gabe Paredes, conducted a competitor analysis, assessing the advantages and disadvantages of competing dating apps.
During the testing phase, the team designed and deployed a survey to test prospective app functionalities, led by Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Dr. Kyla Brathwaite. Drawing on frameworks and well-defined psychological scales, the team developed a self-discovery tool in a quiz format, translating academic concepts into accessible measures for diverse public audiences. Through data collection processes, they identified key design principles such as consent and boundaries, which were summarized for the Feeld team.
The BIIT lab team developed an entirely new app feature. Feature redesign recommendations were provided via user mock-ups, graphics, and collaborative Miro boards, designed entirely by students. The team provided actionable recommendations for cross-functional teams including product designers, the user experience team, and copyeditors. Our final product involved delivering design recommendations with full visual mock-ups, designed by Gabe Paredes and copy language executed by the entire team and finalized by Dr. Apryl Williams.
Finally, coinciding with the launch of the feature update, Drs. Kyla Brathwaite and Apryl Williams designed a survey to evaluate user perception of the product and published the State of Reflections report, published in March 2026 with Feeld. Based on responses from 6,000 survey participants, this report revealed that users who had spent more time on Feeld gave higher ratings of acceptance to non-straight sexualities than those who were newer to the platform. This suggests that interacting with people who live different lives can foster more positive attitudes and reduce stigma, particularly in communities that value openness.
Through this partnership, the BIIT Lab has bridged academic research and industry practice to center marginalized voices and foster more inclusive online environments. Their scholarship has advanced public understanding by considering how to rethink modern mainstream dating culture. By keeping theories of social marginalization at the core of their industry-partnered research, they ask how the stigmatization of identity categories shapes dating experiences on and offline. They translated insights into usable app features that can help people explore and articulate their evolving desires, boundaries, and relationship preferences.
This portfolio of work is part of the BIIT Lab’s broader commitment to researching the impact of digital technologies on members of marginalized communities.
