Project Length

3 Weeks

My Role

Solo Student Project at Edinburgh Napier University

PROBLEM

TikTok creators face challenges in using the platform’s features for content creation, engagement tracking, and collaboration.

Despite its popularity, creators struggle with complicated analytics, difficulty staying on top of trends, and a lack of efficient collaboration tools. These obstacles limit their growth and overall user experience, impacting their ability to create consistent and engaging content.

THE SOLUTION

Simplified cREATOR dashboard

Made the dashboard more simple to reduce cognitive overload
Defined clear sections to access the content the user desires.

made the analytics easier to understand.
Provided clearer descriptions for key metrics and their relevance to content performance
Included the abililty to change visual aids such as graphs to whatever format they user wishes.

THE SOLUTION

Simplified cREATOR dashboard

THE SOLUTION

Personalised trend Reccomendation tOOL

Implement an AI-powered tool to suggest trending topics based on a creator’s content style and audience.
Enable creators to track trends that align with their niche and interests.
Allow creators to bookmark trends for easy access and updates.

THE SOLUTION

Brand & cREATOR cOLLABORATION mATCHMAKING

Introduce a collaboration tool that matches creators based on content type, niche, location, and audience demographics.
Add functionality for creators to reach out directly through the platform.
Gamified Hub for finding brand collaborations

User Research

Survey & interview INSIGHTS

The user research focused on understanding the challenges creators face while using TikTok's platform. A mixed-method approach, including surveys and semi-structured interviews with six participants acting on behalf of the personas found below. This was not ideal but was necessary as creators are not easily accessible.

Key Insights :

Trend Discovery is Important but Challenging:
- Many creators rely heavily on trends to boost engagement but find it difficult to stay on top of current trends.
- Opportunity: A personalised trend recommendation system could help creators stay relevant and reduce the effort needed to find trends.
Difficult Analytics Creates Frustration:
- Creators shared confusion over TikTok’s analytics tools, struggling to understand and utilise key metrics like views, engagement, and audience demographics.
- Opportunity: A simplified, more intuitive analytics dashboard that includes easy-to-understand descriptions and actionable insights could reduce frustration and help creators improve their content strategy.
Need for Better Collaboration Tools:
- Participants wanted more efficient ways to find and connect with other creators for collaboration, often citing the difficulty in locating people with the right niche or location.
- Opportunity: A collaboration matchmaking tool could help creators find suitable partners based on content type, audience, and other relevant factors.
Gamification as a Motivator:
- Some creators expressed interest in gamification elements like badges and milestones to encourage consistency and growth.
- Opportunity: Introducing milestones, progress bars and achievement systems could provide creators with clear goals and motivation without causing unhealthy competition or comparison.

The Final Designs

SUS testing & short interview

To validate the usability of my TikTok creator tools prototype, I conducted user testing with 4 participants (ages 18-30) who acted as TikTok creators. They interacted with the prototype, focusing on the analytics dashboard, trend discovery tool, and collaboration features, followed by a System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire and follow up interview to assess usability.

Objective: The aim was to gauge the prototype’s usability and understand any challenges creators face while using the tools for content creation and growth.

Results:

The average SUS score was 85.0, indicating that participants found the prototype easy to use and understood its core functionalities well.
Participants felt the prototype was easy to use, but they suggested improving font size for easier readability in the analytics section.

Key Findings:

Ease of use: High usability with simple navigation through the tools.
Feedback on trend tool: Participants found the trend tracking feature helpful but noted the need for clearer trend descriptions.