TikTok and Its Content — UX Research Case Study
Disclaimer: This is a personal project at Dibimbing.id.
Introduction
Hello, My name is Dina Restanova. Currently, I’m a Senior Creative at GWH Adtech and also a UI/UX student at dibimbing.id Bootcamp.
I’m very interested in the UI/UX field and would like to learn more about it. That’s why I’m here!
While studying UI/UX, I have learned a lot of new knowledge such as design thinking, user experience, user research, and many more. This UX Research case study is a personal project of the Bootcamp and in this case study, I want to share about the Tiktok application.
Overview
According to their official website:
TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video
Since its launch, the TikTok app’s popularity has been growing tremendously. In October 2018, it was the most-downloaded photo and video app in the Apple store, globally. Quoted from Forbes, by the end of 2021, the company’s data showed TikTok.com was the #1 most popular domain. Google.com came in second, followed by Facebook.com, Microsoft.com, and Apple.com.
Problem Statement
After personally using it, reading the feedback review on the Apple Store and Google Play, I found some reviews and comments related to some issues about this application. And from some of the problems found, there are quite some people who are concerned about the appearance of sensitive content on TikTok. Therefore, I want to find out more and do research on TikTok users using the UX Research method. UX research is conducted for several purposes:
- Identify the user, including demographics (user personas)
- Articulate the problem by understanding user needs, wants, and feelings
- Identify target market size
- Identify the competition
- Prove or disprove assumptions and ideas before and during the design
Roles & Responsibility
Role: UX Researcher
Scope: UX Research, Design Thinking
Timeline: 2 weeks
Tools: Google Form, Miro, Google Sheets, and Google Slides
The Process
To get an idea of what is needed from a human, technological, and economic point of view and to answer this problem from the point of view of the human needs behind it, I will use design thinking framework in making this project.
Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.
- Tim Brown, Executive Chair of IDEO
Empathize
At this stage, we need to know about TikTok users and their needs. Empathy is vital to the design thinking process because it allows us as a researcher to step outside our own biases to figure out exactly what the user wants.
There are 3 main things in this stage; Planning the Research; Making Research guidelines, and Conducting the Research.
Background
Starting from my personal experience as a new TikTok user, I often come across some content that I don’t think fits my preferences and it’s quite sensitive. The first thing I think about is what if this content appears on fyp (the term for the timeline on TikTok) of people who are not old enough or people who can’t filter sensitive things such as SARA, violent content, 18+ content, content that relating to and displaying blood and other sensitive content.
Based on my experience above, I finally tried to find the experiences of other TikTok users through reviews from Google Play and Play Store.
After that, I make a research plan and questionnaire guide to help me validate the data.
Planning The Research
Objective
Based on the above background, the objective of this research is to find out motivation, user behavior, and pain points, especially related to sensitive content that appears on TikTok.
Methodology
In this research, I used a qualitative methodology (In-Depth Interview) and Competitive Analysis
Sample Specification
Key Information Areas
Key information areas are some of the main subjects that will explore in this research. These key information areas will be used as material to be processed in making a list of questions:
1. User Profile
2. General behavior when using TikTok
3. General behavior of content creators when using TikTok
4. Content restrictions on TikTok
Making Research Guideline
After compiling the research plan, I made a research guideline for conducting In-Depth Interviews. This guide contains introductions, general behavior when using TikTok, general behavior of content creators when using TikTok, and content restriction.
Conducting The Research
At this stage, I explore information about the user’s thoughts in using TikTok. Due to the current covid pandemic, we are conducting online interviews via Zoom and Google Meet with each interview time of around 30–40 minutes.
Define
Competitive Analysis
Competitive analysis is useful to identify competitors’ strengths and weaknesses relative to their own business, product, and design. Competitive analysis in this research was carried out on 1 similar application, namely Instagram Reels.
Main Finding
What do they think about TikTok?
General users
TikTok which was originally considered as an application for entertainment purposes has now become an application that can provide new information and inspiration that many people can enjoy.
Based on my interviews with several users, when opening TikTok some users have a goal of seeking entertainment. However, there are also some users who use the TikTok application to get relevant information, find inspiration for their business, and use the TikTok application as a source of finance.
What content creators say about TikTok
Content Creators are interested in creating content on TikTok because it’s very easy to get a lot of viewers, there is no need to follow each other but the possibility of their content appearing on other people’s fyp is very large. Content creators usually have several other content creators who inspire them in creating content. Most content creators are more likely to create content with a viral theme and only a handful of content creators have a special genre in creating content.
What do they think about content restrictions on TikTok
If you look further, the content on TikTok has a very wide spectrum of genres. In the past, only entertainment and music content was found, now there is a lot of information, education, and self-improvement content that has become a separate genre in the TikTok application.
However, there is also a lot of content that is sensitive enough to be displayed in certain circles, especially TikTok users who are under 18 years or who have special concerns on other sensitive matters. In the interview process, we explore what users think about their experiences with sensitive content that is popping up a lot on TikTok. What did they do, and what should TikTok do in dealing with this problem.
Some users think that content that should be limited is content that is vulgar or indecent (18+ and not educational content), content that contains blood or incidents of accidents and violence, content that offends SARA or defames customs, beliefs, race, and conspiracy theories.
When they find content like this, they will usually skip the video or if it is very disturbing, they will immediately block the TikTok user and report the video, but according to users, this is still lacking because sometimes they still find videos that are sensitive and disturbing.
The Users Journey
When using TikTok, most users will spend a lot of their time on fyp and the average user we interviewed spends 1–3 hours a day opening TikTok.
User Persona
The user persona is a fictional character who represents the target users of the product. We finally get this user persona by identifying the user and distinguishing them into two POVs, people who only use Tiktok as entertainment (content lovers) and content creators.
The Takeout
From the research that we have done, we have a result that is related to content restriction on TikTok.
Content creators generally argue that in creating content, there is no need to be limited except for content that explicitly contains sensitive content such as 18+, SARA, or violence. When the content is still in the educational category or just a joke but is still in the safe category (even though this safe category cannot be measured and has different perceptions for everyone) it should not need to be limited. Because excessive restrictions will actually reduce the creativity of content creators.
Meanwhile, content connoisseurs are a bit stricter in terms of content restriction. They want the rules regarding content restriction not only to involve and limit users but also creators to be given more restrictions in uploading their content.
Way Forward
Based on the take out above, there are 2 actionable insights that can be applied to improve the user experience of TikTok users without reducing the creativity of content creators in their work.
- Content Tag
This means tagging the content to be uploaded by the content creator. They will tag each content they want to upload and TikTok will filter it according to the tags they use. Of course, this will still follow the basic provisions of the content restriction. And users will be able to block certain tags from appearing on their fyp page.
2. Age Restriction
When a user create an account, TikTok will automatically be even stricter in terms of providing content and filtering all content based on their age, and restricting users from accessing content with sensitive tags.
Appendix
Currently, TikTok has done the basics in limiting content in its application. But of course, there are many pros and cons to the current content restrictions.
Differences of opinion between content creators and content audiences in terms of content restriction are not too different because the two POVs agree to tighten sensitive content more, with a note that existing solutions must maintain the creative space of content creators.
In the end, as content connoisseurs or content creators, we must be able to take advantage of the convenience of today’s technology, while still taking positive things to have a good impact on our generation.
While working on it, I learned that doing UX research is not easy. Of course, there is still a lot to improve, please feel free to leave feedback or suggestions. You can also visit the LinkedIn and Behance links below :)
