Timeline
January 2022 - March 2022 (10 weeks)
Role
UX Researcher
Primary and Secondary Research
A major feature of Tiktok is their recommended for you page. The hypersensitive algorithm captures the user's preference and creates a perfect feed of videos that are tailored to the user's interests and ideas. This ‘perfect‘ feed creates a filter bubble, where the user only sees things that reaffirm their belief. Over time, they can be blinded to different opinions.
Problem Domain
Our team wants to tackle polarization resulting from these filter bubbles created by TikTok's hyper-responsive content recommendation system.
Key Insights from preliminary interviews
"When I was watching a lot of the videos, I found them funny at the moment. However, sometimes when I think about what I just watched, I would find it disturbing. It's usually when people try to make funny videos about topics that are more sensitive such as obesity or mental health. It feels messed up. But I also kind of know that I only choose to watch these videos because they are funny. It's a conflicting feeling. " (Participant 2)
" I have learned a few things that make me who I am. Sometimes I do get influenced but then I sit back and have my own opinion. I am controlled in that way." (Participant 5)
"TikTok makes me more self-aware. I'm in my teenage phase, So it makes me more aware of stereotypes and wearing makeup." (Participant 5)
"Tiktok users can be mean sometimes for very little things and the environment as a whole can be toxic at times...(it needs to) give more creative freedom to its users and creators.” (Participant 4)
Mission Statement
We plan to inform users about TikTok’s intention to address the filter bubble problem and provide users with the option to explore a greater diversity of content or to "opt-out" if they do not wish to. We plan on executing this through the implication of a new feature called ‘blend’. Our new blend feature is meant to diversify users’ feeds to broaden users’ perspectives and ideas. We hope to give users a sense of freedom and freshness with the content they consume.
Core features of blend - what is it?
a feature that allows two users to mix their recommendation systems and generate a feed for both users.
aims to diversify user feeds and strengthen social connections.
Inspired by Spotify’s blend feature, we want to incorporate this concept into TikTok. So blend is a feature that….aims to diversify.
Through blend, one can mix his/her/their recommendation feed with someone else’s recommendation feed so that both people can have a more refreshing and diversified feed. This is like two friends watching a movie together, which can spark discussions and new connections.
Personas
Emily hasn't declared her major yet but she's taking classes in the social and political science department. She is also very sociable and she enjoys talking to others. She scrolls Tiktok during times between classes and when she needs a break from studying.
Motivations: Emily is using TikTok mainly to distract herself when life gets boring or tiring. She also uses it because she wants to stay up-to-date with what people are talking about in her area of interest.
Jennifer is a content creator who makes content about her lifestyle. She first heard about TikTok from her creative friends who have been telling her that they’ve been able to generate some stream of income from sharing what they create.
Motivations: Jennifer wants to maximize her following and views in order to make as much money as she can on the app. However, at the same time, she hopes to share content that is creative, informative, inspiring, and most of all authentic to her actual lifestyle.
Styleguide
Moodboard
The inspiration for our moodboard came from a mixture of being informed about new ideas and perspectives while also being something refreshing and new to older TikTok users.
The inspiration for our style guide came straight from Tiktok! Because we were implementing a redesign of TikTok by adding new blend features, we wanted to stay true to TikTok’s own style guide and adopt their style into ours for consistency purposes.
Early Sketches
Early on in our design process, we considered many different solutions and features for our problem including making the blend feature time-limited, displaying who was open to blending, and even having a Bluetooth feature that would allow blending with nearby users. Here are just a couple of our sketches.
Low-Fidelity Wireframing
Early into our prototypes, we wanted to stay consistent with Tiktok’s structure and organizations as well so we implemented our for us page directly on top of where the for you page is located. In addition, we added pages from this “for us page” to introduce new and current users to this new blend feature and how it works.
Design Process - Storyboarding
As part of our process, we decided to create a storyboard including our redesign. Here our persona, Emily, is feeling dissatisfied with her current feed even after trying to explore using the search bar. After discovering the Blend feature, she feels refreshed with a broader perspective and more connected to her online community.
This first screen shows our for us page, which is a page dedicated to the blending feature. The user can view blends that they created in the past, or they can invite others to create a blend. There is also the open to blend option which will allow the user to automatically accept any blend request.
The second screen shows the invite page. Users can invite each other if they follow each other.
The third screen shows the blend library. A blend will pop up once another user accepts the invitation.
Link to Final Figma Prototype here.
User Testing + Feedback and would do differently
From the testing of our hi-if prototype, we found that users wanted to see Blending with 2+ groups and more consideration for people who weren’t familiar with TikTok. most users found that our new app feature was intriguing and would use it in the future. if allotted more time, we would implement this feedback in an iterative hi-fi prototype.
Impact on Society
Nowadays on various social media platforms, misinformation and polarization are at an all-time high now more than ever. Not many people are aware of this issue and not many tech companies are doing a lot to combat this issue by adding more regulations or features. From our experience with this project, we realized the importance of polarization and what we can do to inform users ethically.