TikTok Favorites Redesign
Personal Case Study - no affiliations with TikTok & this case study was driven by my personal interests
Introduction
TikTok Favorites Redesign
TikTok is a social media platform for creating and watching short-form videos, from genres ranging from dance, skits, lip-synching to education, social awareness, and games.
TikTok has been updating many features, including new filters and stickers, several times a month to remain competitive as a unique, creator inclusive platform.
Team: Individual Project
Timeline: 7 weeks
Roles: Concept, Research, Ideation, Prototyping, Visual Design, Animating
Methods: Surveys, Interviews, Remote Usability Testing, Wireframes
Tools: Figma, Otter, Zoom
Problem Space
Problem Statement
TikTok users struggle to quickly locate and organize their favorites (saved videos), leading them to spend an excessive amount of time scrolling or ultimately giving up
Goals
Create a better user flow that allows users to:
Easily organize individual item into folders
Quickly search items within favorites
RESEARCH & IDEATION
Pre-Research
To understand the user’s needs, I began by researching the app’s statistics:
Current Methods
To create a solution, I first analyzed TikTok’s current Favoriting task flow.
Favorites Function Competitive Analysis
Next, I observed other applications where users save or organize items, shops, products, and etc.:
User Interviews
To better understand user’s pain points, I conducted remote user interviews with 6 active users on TikTok.
My Hypothesis:
“Majority of users feel frustrated searching through the favorites page due to the volume of their favorited contents”
Results
Shockingly, out of 6 TikTok users who frequently or occasionally (3-7 days/week) use the application:
100% of participants have experienced giving up when searching for content.
pulled user interview quotes
Key Insights
Some users are unaware of the favorites function - These users use “like” as a way to late revisit content
Users have trouble finding specific content due to the lack of organization and a large amount of saved content
IDENTIFYING THE USERS
User Persona
After analyzing the data from TikTok statistics and user interview results, I created a user persona to narrow down my target audience and create main features of the updated favorites function
Ideation
Key Features
Once I defined the user persona of this redesign project, I narrowed down 3 key qualities for the new, redesigned Favorite’s tab:
User Flow
Next, I brainstormed new user flows that experimented with and adjusted existing user flows for different application’s favorite functions. After examining these different user flows, I created a basic wireframe flow for the main features above for TikTok users to meet their goals most effectively.
PROTOTYPING
Mid-Fidelity Prototype
After creating the user flow of the main features, I created a mid-fidelity prototype to best tested on users.
USABILITY TESTING
User Testing
Using this mid-fidelity prototype, I conducted user testing on zoom (while recording the test transcript on Otter.ai) to see how participants able to navigate through the given scenarios. I was curious to see their familiarity with the favorites function and if they would apply their knowledge of other applications to complete tasks.
Scenario 1 - Saving from For You Page
As you scroll through your For You page, you come across a video you want to save to recreate in the future. Please:
Show me where you would save this video to watch for later
Show me how you would create a new “Designs” collection
Scenario 2 - Searching in Favorites Page
You remember a holiday dance video that you want to share with your friend. Please:
Show me how you find this video within the dance collection
Scenario 3 - Editing in Favorites Page
You decide that a specific video from the dance collection fits more into a different collection. Please:
Show me where you would move the first video to another collection
Move the video from the Dance collection into the Funny collection.
Show me how you would rename this collection into Dance/Learn
User Feedback
After conducting multiple remote usability tests, I compiled common feedback about the prototype:
Key Insights
Find a way to introduce & promote the “Favorites” function & new feature
Create a clearer iconography or UX writing for Favorites
Explore more ways to make selections of items
Iterations
After conducting another remote usability testing of the developed version of the mid-fidelity prototype, these were the resulted changes in the experience:
Renaming “Favorites”
Pop-up Animation
Additional flow to edit selected items
Previous method:
3 taps to select an item
Additional & new method:
1 hold down to select an item
Minor iterations
Final WEBSITE
REFLECTION
Insight
This 7-week project has become one of my favorite case studies because I was able to redesign an aspect of an existing product that I use every day to deal with a problem that I faced as an active user. It allowed me to delve into animation and really use my research skills to observe how a common system of “favoriting” or “saving” is diversely incorporated in different applications.
Another valuable lesson I learned along the way is:
Things to consider when launching a feature
This project was unique because I placed myself in a scenario where many users are familiar with the application, but not necessarily the feature I was promoting. This position allowed me to pinpoint key information when relaying this message and allowed me to practice making pop-ups or promotions quick and digestible to users.
Next Steps
I believe there are always ways to improve current features to the evolving users of TikTok, so as my next step, I would focus on ways for users to customize this feature by including:
Ways for users to sort and reorder collections to their preference
Ability to share and link to these collections with friends
Ability to have a collaborative collection between friends