The Secret to Finding a Match: A Field Experiment on Choice Capacity Design in an Online Dating Platform
通过与在线约会平台合作开展实地实验，研究了不同选择容量（用户可查看和选择候选人的数量）对用户参与度和匹配结果的影响，发现增加男性用户的选择容量能提高参与度，而增加女性用户的选择容量则更有效提升匹配结果。
Online matching platforms require new approaches to market design because firms can now control many aspects of the search and interaction process through various IT-enabled features. Although choice capacity—the number of candidates a user can view and select—is a key design feature of online matching platforms, its effect on engagement and matching outcomes remains unclear. We examine the effect of different choice capacities on market performance by conducting a randomized field experiment in collaboration with an online dating platform. Specifically, we design four treatment groups with different choice capacities in which users can only interact with other users in the same group and randomly assign the users to the treatment groups. We find that providing more choice capacity to male and female users has different effects on choice behaviors and matching outcomes. Although increasing the choice capacity of male users yields the highest engagement, increasing the choice capacity of female users is the most effective method to increase matching outcomes. We empirically demonstrate four mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of different choice capacity designs and generalize our findings by discussing how choice capacity can be designed to increase engagement and matching outcomes.