How does question-based matching work?
In question-based matching you match by answering questions the other person wrote, not by swiping on their photo. On Qulo each person writes between 2 and 4 multiple-choice questions — up to 10 on a paid plan — with four options each and marks the correct answer; another user matches with them only by getting every one of those questions right. The filter is a small act of attention rather than a snap judgement on a picture.
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The mechanic, step by step
- You write the questions. Between 2 and 4 of them, each with four options, and you mark which option is correct.
- Someone else answers them. They see your questions before they can reach you.
- Every answer has to be right. Get one wrong and there is no match. Get them all right and the conversation opens.
- The questions are yours. They can be about your taste, your habits, your opinions — whatever you think someone worth talking to would get right.
That is the whole filter. There is no compatibility score being computed in the background and no algorithm claiming to know who suits you. The gate is simply whether another person paid enough attention to answer correctly.
Why a question and not a photo
A photo is decided on in a fraction of a second and asks nothing of the person deciding. A question costs a little effort, and that effort is the signal. It is a small filter, but it is a filter on behaviour rather than on appearance.
There is research pointing the same way. In a 2017 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers analysed real speed-dating rounds — 1,961 yes/no second-date decisions — and found that people who asked more follow-up questions were more likely to be asked back. Asking, and answering well, is not small talk; it is the thing that makes people want to see each other again.
What it is not
Question-based matching is not a personality test and not a compatibility guarantee. Nobody can promise that a correct answer predicts a good relationship, and any app that claims to has overstated its case. What the mechanic does is narrower and more honest: it moves the first point of contact away from a photograph and onto an exchange.
How Qulo does it
On Qulo you write your questions from the main screen, add four options to each and mark the correct one. Other people find you, solve them, and match only on a clean sweep. Optional powers — a hint, halving the options, skipping a question — exist for when you are stuck, and none of them are required to match.
Sources
External figures on this page trace to a primary source. We publish no number we cannot verify.
- Huang, Yeomans, Brooks, Minson & Gino — It Doesn't Hurt to Ask: Question-Asking Increases Liking — Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 113(3), 430–452
September 2017 · 110 speed daters · 15–19 four-minute dates each · 1,961 second-date decisions analysed (Study 3)
Other answers
Try it yourself
Write your own questions and see who gets them right. Free to use, no swiping.