Catalyst Group Study Compares eHarmony and Match.com

eHarmony
  • Sunday, February 21 2010 @ 04:08 pm
  • Contributed by:
  • Views: 2,407

The Catalyst Group released a 48 page document (see below) which outlines the experiences of 16 online daters of which 8 used Match.com and 8 used eHarmony. As stated in the report, the intention of the document "is to highlight broad themes and provide insights as to how these sites are used".

Note: Unfortunately the source to the video and/or image which once was displayed here has since been removed by the authors for an unknown reason.

I found the report itself to be more of a comparison of how Match.com and eHarmony work. The bulk of the report tackles how each dating site handles the online dating process. They broke it up into 3 phases, which are Identifying Matches, Reviewing Profiles, and Communication. The authors did include some information about what the users did and did not like for each site but there was no real comparison as to which site approach which phase better, and why (or how they could improve).

eHarmony nor Match.com participated in any way with the study. After reading it through thoroughly, I found it is an excellent source of information for those of you who wish to know how Match.com and eHarmony work and how their approaches to online dating differ. As mentioned in the limitations, the study sample is very small and may not represent the views of the overall population. But, what were the researchers' conclusions? Near the beginning of the Match.com and eHarmony Usability Study of Online Dating they list some general perceptions. The researches were told by the participants of the study that online dating sites come up short on their claims about matching. Most users had little confidence in the technology and the process behind the matchmaking. Despite all this, people use dating sites because they do offer a pool of potential matches for them to access when the more traditional ways of finding a date (bars, family, friends, etc...) do not work.

In the end the researchers concluded that eHarmony was preferred by singles who needed/wanted to be led every step of the way in the online dating process. This was especially helpful for those singles that lack self confidence in communicating with their matches. On the other hand, Match.com was seen as a "good compromise between the restrictions of eHarmony and the wild west of free sites".

For more on the story, read the WSJ Blogs. To find out more about these 2 dating sites you could also read our eHarmony review and Match.com review.