A dating and community app for the Tigrayan diaspora, researched, designed, built and shipped solo. The hard problem was making traditional matchmaking (Shmagele) legible inside a modern app without flattening it, and serving people who wanted community more than dates.
Role
Product Designer and Developer (solo): research, design, build and release
Timeline
8 weeks of research and testing, now live on the App Store
Los Angeles, CA · Mekelle, Tigray · about 4 mi away
Aunt Mebrat suggests86% compatible
5'5" · 165 cm
Product designer
Master's
Orthodox Christian
Want kids
Drinks: sometimes
Smokes: never
Suggested by Aunt Mebrat
“She looks after the people she loves. Start there.”
About Rahwa
Product designer in Los Angeles, with family from Mekelle.
My roots in one sentence
Mekelle-born, Inglewood-raised, Tigrinya at the dinner table.
The dish I'd cook for you
Shiro with a lot of berbere and zero apologies.
Vouched for by their Shmagele
“Rahwa has looked after her grandmother every summer since she was sixteen. Nothing more needs saying.”
Aunt Mebrat · Aunt
Context
A displaced community with nowhere to connect
Amidst the devastating humanitarian crisis faced by Tigray beginning in November 2020, Tigrayans globally found themselves without a dedicated haven to connect and support each other. The diaspora community, scattered across continents, needed a way to maintain cultural identity, find romantic partners who understand their cultural values, discover community events, and build support networks during an incredibly turbulent and traumatic time.
Mainstream dating apps had no way to find other Tigrayans, and no concept of the matchmaking tradition the community already trusted.
No ethnicity or cultural background filters for Tigrayan users
Superficial swiping ignores traditional matchmaking values
Zero community features for cultural events or gatherings
No safety measures for users affected by humanitarian crises
Cultural needs met:
Cultural identity filters
Traditional matchmaking
Community events
Crisis-aware safety
0 / 4
The Problem
Tradition inside a modern app, without flattening it
The obvious product was a swipe app with an ethnicity filter. The interviews (8 people, ages 19 to 55, across the diaspora) pointed somewhere harder: people wanted the trust of traditional matchmaking, a way to stay close to community events, and in many cases connection without dating at all. The design problem was making those three things coexist in one product a 26-year-old and a 55-year-old would both understand.
Click a card to reveal the insight
Decisions
Three calls I made, and what I turned down
01
Explain Shmagele inside the product, not around it
Traditional Tigrayan matchmaking works through trusted community members. The first prototype dropped that into the app as a feature name, and 3 of 8 testers didn't understand what it did or why they'd want it. I rejected the easy fix (rename it to something generic) because the tradition was the point. Instead I added an onboarding explainer, contextual tooltips, and a visible Shmagele score so the mechanism explained itself in use. In the second round, only 1 of 8 was still unsure, down from 3.
Rejected: Renaming it "Trusted Introductions". Clearer to a Western reader, and it would have erased the thing that made the app worth building.
02
Serve people who want community more than dates
Interviews kept surfacing people like Semhal, a student who wanted to meet other Tigrayans and track community events but had no interest in dating right now. Half the women in testing said they'd use the app today if a non-dating mode existed. I added a Just Friends mode as a first-class toggle rather than a hidden setting, and put event discovery in the primary navigation.
Rejected: Keeping it a dating app and treating events as a growth feature. Simpler positioning, and it would have excluded the users most eager to sign up.
Hiwet, 29
Los Angeles, CA · Roots: Adwa, Tigray
Nurse, weekend hiker, keeper of the family jebena. Looking for something serious.
87%
Suggested by Shmagele Aster, based on shared values & culture
03
Cut the navigation to what people actually used
All 8 testers called the first nav bar cluttered, even though they could find Events. I removed the icons nobody touched, tested three configurations with 5 people in a follow-up, and shipped the one where none of the 5 flagged clutter.
Rejected: Keeping every section reachable from the bar for discoverability. Testing showed it cost more than it gave.
Original: 6 icons
Home
Search
Matches
Events
Chat
Profile
"The bottom bar feels cramped with too many icons."
Evidence
Round one findings, and what changed by round two
Eight participants tested the low-fidelity prototype. These were the round-one findings that drove the decisions above.
Lacked personal connection5 of 8
did not feel personal connection with overall layout
Women: Just Friends50%
of women would use app today with Just Friends option
Shmagele confusion3 of 8
were confused about Shmagele feature
Men: Just Friends12.5%
of men would use app today with Just Friends option
Shmagele understanding
5 of 8 to 7 of 8
testers understood the matchmaking feature in round one vs. round two, after onboarding screens and tooltips (3 were confused at first, 1 after)
Personal connection
5 of 8 to none
said the layout lacked a personal connection in round one; none did after the Tigray-inspired palette and illustrations
Navigation clutter
8 of 8 to 0 of 5
flagged the nav bar as cluttered: all 8 in the initial test, none of the 5 in the follow-up test of the streamlined nav
Launch interest
6 of 8
said they would use the app at launch
What I Learned
Designing for a community meant spending time inside it
01
Building a community-focused UI takes deep cultural understanding. Immersing myself in the community's values, traditions and pain points surfaced needs that outside assumptions would have missed.
02
Experimentation with matchmaking features teaches iterative design. Complex features need scaffolding: tooltips, explainer screens, and gradual introduction to help users understand their value.
03
User feedback is gold. Listen, iterate, validate. Every round of usability testing revealed insights I never would have discovered on my own.
04
Design can be an act of resistance and healing. Creating a platform that helps a diaspora community stay connected during a humanitarian crisis showed me the real-world impact design can have.
Status
Where it stands
Beles is live on the App Store and at belesconnect.app, built and shipped after the research and testing rounds above. The Discover screen and match moment in the demos on this page are ported from the shipped app's own components, including the Shmagele suggestion card shown at the moment a match lands; only the profile is a demo member. Next up: a beta with community organizations, Tigrinya language support, and instrumenting match and event-attendance rates.
