TikTok effect creation lives within the camera and provides a wide range of tools for creation. I contributed to optimizing this experience.
ROLE
Product Design Lead
Research, Concepts, Interaction, Prototypes
User Testing, Stakeholder coordination
RESULTS
Increase in Effect engagement / consumption
Detailed insight into effects panel use cases
Contributed to effects overall UX re-design
The aim of this project was to optimize the overall effect creation UX for all creator use cases. Along with exploring new ways of personalized creation.
In 2022 I conducted extensive research with a focus on the TikTok Effect creation UX. There was no PM involved, at the time, and rethinking the UX was not on the roadmap, although it was apparent it needed refinements.
In 2023 I became the lead designer on this project, that included enabling users with template based effect creation tools.
Through research, we refined the design to optimize the UX and create new platform features.
Research included:
• Internal audits and extensive dogfooding
• Competitor analysis
Key issues related to:
• Lack of effect discoverability
• Lack of effect understanding
• Lack of effect functionality, relating to UI
Early effect UI iteration
I presented initial insights to XFN stakeholders, which worked to build trust and buy-in to collaborate with the core camera creation team, on UX improvements.
CN stakeholders and product teams heard of my initiative and there was a great deal of initial push-back with my initiative. A stakeholder meeting was organized where I presented my overall effect UX product thinking and findings, hoping for product funding around a effect creation UX redesign.
The project was not added to the overall TikTok product roadmap at this time, but my presentation earned me trust with stakeholders and CN product teams.
Early effects template design iterations
Next I became aware of an opportunity to collaborate with Duyin. The TikTok of China.
In early 2023 I collaborated with Duyin, gaining insight from their teting and data. This informed a range of effect creation prototypes I made, while testing their effectiveness in parallel.
The findings were very interesting. Small UI changes had huge impacts on engagement at scale. Ultimately we found that a combination of the the platform with streamlined UX provided the bests results.
One of many quick early prototypes
Effect filters
Extensive user testing at scale lead to an optimized effect creation UX.
I created design concepts, user flows and prototypes in parallel, while getting user data as quickly as we could.
The most successful design is similar to the concept here. Effects in the carousel are sorted based on user data improving the creator experience while also reducing the cognitive load of relying strictly on an effects panel.