Encounter Opportunity Browsing: A New Approach to Opportunistic Social Matching.
Opportunistic social matching is the concept of introducing individuals for various social interests when user-contexts are conducive to impromptu face-to-face meetings. Early prototypes have received positive feedback, yet they are susceptible to inaccurately reported match preferences and false-negative match recognition. This paper presents an alternative design for opportunistic social matching called the encounter opportunity browsing interface. The interface lets users indiscriminately browse and react to opportunities for social encounters nearby, which enables the gradual learning of users' match preferences. A preliminary qualitative assessment of the interface indicates that users seek trusted signals regarding the enjoyability of social encounter opportunities displayed.