Lessons I learnt from working with my girlfriend
Shes vegetarian Ilove bacon and burgers. Shes spiritual and does not drink. I work with spirits in a bottle. What happens when we are forced to work together?
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The Headache of Sharing Content with Friends
From taking breaks from my academics to the long MTA rides when traveling home to NYC, TikTok fills the empty spaces in my calendar. It’s addictive nature feels like a magic spell pulling me into a trance preoccupying my mind with constant content causing time to just fly.
During my hours of scrolling through my For You Page (FYP), I am constantly sharing relatable and funny content with friends in an attempt to connect with them. Whether it’s a dance I want us to learn or something I feel will make them laugh, sharing and receiving content is a major way I interact with my friends on TikTok.
With all the passion and creative expression that Tiktok encourages creators to put into their work, efficiency in engagement with friends to appreciate the content is vital.
The best way to describe the current method of sharing Tiktoks with friends is to call it a process which is the opposite of what TikTok stands for as a fast paced app. The most popular method of sharing content from TikTok relies on another app, iMessage.
Switching from TikTok to iMessage to watch content sent to you is exhausting which affects responsiveness. It is especially difficult for the recipicent to respond to a spam of TikToks sent through iMessage. You might be thinking — doesn’t TikTok have a DM feature? Well, to be said simply, it’s a bust.
The solution is not to cut off interacting with friends or leaving this dilemma alone. This is because the pattern you may have caught up to by now is that: the desire to send is prominent despite lack of responsiveness from the recipient.
When I watch TikToks, I want to engage with others in productive discussions about a variety of content we enjoy but I can’t do that well because:
Lets get to problem solving!
The overall objective was to identify pain points in the process of sharing TikToks (sending and receiving) as well as gaining more understanding of how users normally interact with the app.
Three TikTok users were interviewed to gain the major insights listed below:
2. Users continue to send TikToks to people despite the lack of response/reaction from the recipient.
3. Users are open to seeing what is beyond what the AI has personalized for them.
4. Users share TikToks where they believe their friends will be more responsive — iMessage.
The user insights revealed that users are struggling with the process of interacting with their friends which is a key component to how people are able to laugh together on this platform. This problem is worth prioritizing because:
So, how can a feature be incorporated into TikTok to achieve what the people want?
After some time exploring, thinking and eating through dominos boxes, my friends and I were able narrow down to 3 solutions.
The following are low fidelity sketches of our proposed 3 solutions:
A Decision
With the problem in mind, its important to remember the purpose is to design a feature that will allow friends to be interactive with the content they share with one another on the TikTok platform in an easy and seamless way.
To help in selecting the appropriate feature, I performed a feasibility and impact matrix for the Friends Recommendation, Quick Video, and Groupchat features.
All the possibilities can help in improving the app, however, a Friends Recommendation page is best for tackling the problem and aligns with TikTok’s business model. The feasibility is not the highest but, the impact is too high to be ignored.
Each user has a personalized recommendation page powered by AI, so why not a personalized recommendation page powered by friends?
Why a Friends Recommendation Page?
TikTok Visual Design
Explorations for Recommending (Sending a TikTok) Entry Point
All the entry points above (A, B & C) for recommending a video to a friend were explored through user testing.
This feature is intended to feel seamless and easy to navigate. Entry point C is what felt familiar to how users already interacted with the app. The share icon is both easily accessible to the thumb and a natural action. This also boosts the feasibility of the feature there option C will the entry point for recommending a TikTok to a friend.
Explorations for Recommending a TikTok Middle Flows
Explorations for the Getting to the Recommended Page Entry Point
Entry points A and B explored ways to compartmentalize videos sent to you in a space similar to the For You Page where users will engage with recommended TikToks sent to them from their friends.
The Friends Recommendation Page is powered by friends. The For You Page is powered by an AI-based algorithm. Both complement each other and should stand together on the home page
Explorations for Responding in the Friends Recommended Page Middle Flows
These middle flows explore designs for responding to the recommended videos. Within the recommended page, users will have recommended videos sent from their friends stitched together. Along with these videos are messages that friends sent that need to be responded to.
User research insights revealed that besides the actual content in the TikTok, the next best thing is reading the comments attached to a funny video and therefore incorporating the private messaging near the comments increases efficiency, usability, and feasibility.
It was important that the design of responding to messages attached to the recommended videos mimicked the comment section because it has the potential to increase the urge for users to respond and truly make it feel like their own private comment section with their friends.
The final flows showcase the two aspects of the feature which include sending and receiving a recommendation.
FRP: Recommended by Friends Page, a recommendation system powered by friends!
Starting from random screens with no direction or clue as to what I was doing to having my final prototype, its an understatement to say I learned a lot. This is my first design project ever. This project has taught me that the product is more than what the eye sees and that designers work to make products feel seamless, cater to users’ needs, and focus on the company’s business model.
Here are a couple things I learned during this project:
This was my first UX case study but certainly not the last. It will however be my most memorable. After these 8 weeks, this project has confirmed my love for the the entire design process. I am eager to continue in this direction and excited to see how my journey in design will progress.
Looking forward, I am hoping to continue editing this project with the more experience I gain and feedback I receive.
Thank you for reading and feel free to reach out to chat!
Check out my portfolio:
I am not affiliated with TikTok in anyway. I am a junior at Cornell University majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies.
This is a case study for my Digitial Product Design course.
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I am a mold not of day. “night songs” is published by Sesh.