Jayson Mei | Tiktok Bookmarks

TikTok is a short-form video platform that has revolutionized social media platforms by making content discovery seamless. TikTok's core strength being its effortless discovery experience: users simply scroll to find personalized content through the For You Page. However, this same simplicity creates a challenge. While liking and favoriting videos is seamless, finding those saved videos later is surprisingly difficult.

Overview

Problem

Users struggle to find specific video's they've previously liked or favorited. When people interact with content, the videos pile up chronologically, newest saves appearing at the the top, pushing older content deeper down. Finding that recipe or outfit inspiration becomes nearly impossible unless it's in the first few scrolls. While Tiktok offers manual collections (Playlists), most users don't take time to properly categorize saves, leading to random videos in vaguely-named collections. This manual organization disrupts Tiktok's core effortless experience, ultimately causing users to lose access to content they genuinely want to revisit.

Problem

Goal

Adding a tab to each TikTok profile where users can privately view videos they've favorited from that specific creator would:

Make rediscovery of content easier
Encourage return visits to creators' pages, potentially increasing engagement
Improve users' trust in the Favorites system by making it actually useful for retrieval

The Blueprint

The "Bookmarks" tab is a section of the profile visible only to the user, displaying videos they have previously favorited from that specific creator. It includes a search function to filter saved content by keywords and a drag-to-scroll interaction for the tab navigation to accommodate space constraints. It does not impact the creator's public profile or existing Favorites tab. Building on familiar TikTok interactions like horizontal scrolling, as seen in the stories feature and favorites categorization (different things you have favorited), this feature requires minimal learning curve for users.

The feature aims to:

Introduce creator-level sorting for favorites
Reduce cognitive load and friction in content rediscovery and no more endless scrolling for lost content
Provide a familiar, personalized content organization that will help with the clutter

The Blueprint

The feature aims to:

Introduce creator-level sorting for favorites
Reduce cognitive load and friction in content rediscovery and no more endless scrolling for lost content
Provide a familiar, personalized content organization that will help with the clutter

The Blueprint

The feature aims to:

Introduce creator-level sorting for favorites
Reduce cognitive load and friction in content rediscovery and no more endless scrolling for lost content
Provide a familiar, personalized content organization that will help with the clutter

Comparative Feature Analysis

While most apps allow content saving, they fall short on making it easy to organize and find. While today's apps lean into passive, scroll-heavy experiences, that doesn’t mean thoughtful structure isn’t valuable.

(Current) Tiktok

Similar Features: Favorites Tab

Limitations: Not based per creator

The current app doesn't let you filter by creator, so that's what I wanted to fix

(Current) Tiktok

Similar Features: Favorites Tab

Limitations: Not based per creator

The current app doesn't let you filter by creator, so that's what I wanted to fix

Youtube

Similar Features: Liked/Playlists

Not creator specific, hard to filter

While playlists help, users can’t easily find content by creators unless organized manually

Youtube

Similar Features: Liked/Playlists

Not creator specific, hard to filter

While playlists help, users can’t easily find content by creators unless organized manually

Instagram

Similar Features: Saved

Limitations: Not grouped by user, buried in other features/ui

Instagram’s saved posts are hidden under layers of navigation, instead of being upfront its hard to access

Instagram

Similar Features: Saved

Limitations: Not grouped by user, buried in other features/ui

Instagram’s saved posts are hidden under layers of navigation, instead of being upfront its hard to access

Spotify

Similar Features: "You Liked" from Artist

Easy to revisit, sorted through artist

Spotify automatically sorts your liked songs by artist, making it easy to find songs again — a UX pattern that directly inspired the feature I designed for TikTok

Spotify

Similar Features: "You Liked" from Artist

Easy to revisit, sorted through artist

Spotify automatically sorts your liked songs by artist, making it easy to find songs again — a UX pattern that directly inspired the feature I designed for TikTok

User Research

To better understand how users interact with TikTok’s Favorites and collections features, I created a short Google Form and shared it with casual TikTok users. While the sample size was small, the insights were consistent, here were my questions:

How often are you on Tiktok?
When you favorite a video, how often do you actually take the time to organize it into a specific collection? Do you create a new one or just throw it into whatever playlist is convenient? (How often do you end up just dumping videos into random collections because it's easier than organizing them properly or creating new categories? )
Have you ever tried to find a video from a specific creator, but couldn’t remember their username or find the video in your favorites?
(Y/N) and explain if you had an experience.

Here is some feedback I received:

How often are you on Tiktok?
When you favorite a video, how often do you actually take the time to organize it into a specific collection? Do you create a new one or just throw it into whatever playlist is convenient? (How often do you end up just dumping videos into random collections because it's easier than organizing them properly or creating new categories? )
Have you ever tried to find a video from a specific creator, but couldn’t remember their username or find the video in your favorites?
(Y/N) and explain if you had an experience.

Here is some feedback I received:

How often are you on Tiktok?
When you favorite a video, how often do you actually take the time to organize it into a specific collection? Do you create a new one or just throw it into whatever playlist is convenient? (How often do you end up just dumping videos into random collections because it's easier than organizing them properly or creating new categories? )
Have you ever tried to find a video from a specific creator, but couldn’t remember their username or find the video in your favorites?
(Y/N) and explain if you had an experience.

Here is some feedback I received:

My user feedback confirmed that TikTok's current system creates a significant rediscovery problem. While users can easily find new content, relocating previously saved videos particularly from specific creators proves frustrating and time-consuming. Survey responses revealed that most users either abandon organization entirely or use cluttered collections, indicating the current system fails to meet user needs. This validated the core insight: users need an intuitive, creator-focused way to rediscover their saved content without manual maintenance.

User Persona

User Flow

Wireframes

I started my wireframes by tracing TikTok's creator page layout, mapping out key elements like the profile picture, name, follow button, and the row of tab icons (Posts, Likes, etc.). I placed my bookmarks button in this same row, but quickly realized a space problem.

I chose this bookmark icon because it visually represents favorited content while maintaining the connection to TikTok's existing favorites system. Since the bookmarks are essentially your favorited videos from that specific creator, keeping the same icon within the bookmark symbol reinforces this relationship and helps users understand that they're viewing their personal collection from that creator's content.

TikTok's tab row is already crowded, since creators can have Posts, Likes, Favorites, Reposts, Shop, and Stickers tabs. Adding my bookmarks button would push this beyond the available space, and create a real estate problem. In other words, if TikTok adds more features, there won't be room for additional tabs.

UI Update

To solve this, I implemented a drag-to-scroll feature that lets users swipe left and right through the tab icons. I chose this solution because TikTok already has horizontal scrolling in several areas of the app, it maintains the familiar layout, saves space and allows TikTok to implement future features without running into the same space constraints. It can reside my bookmarks button without overwhelming the interface.

Lastly, I added a search bar in this section. Users can type keywords to find specific content without scrolling

Usability

While formal testing hasn’t been conducted, the feature follows familiar interaction patterns like tapping and horizontal scrolling.
It’s designed to feel native to TikTok’s UI, requiring no added instructions or onboarding. Based on its simplicity and alignment with existing behaviors, the experience is expected to be intuitive and low-friction for users.

Prototypes and the Mockup!

The Mockup shown highlights how the new “Bookmarks” tab allows users to quickly find saved content from specific creators. The experience builds on TikTok’s familiar interactions, using a horizontal scroll row for easy access in profile tabs. Within the Bookmarks tab, a search bar adds another layer of precision, helping users locate specific videos they've saved.

Impacts

Based on user research insights and behavior patterns, this feature is expected to help:

Fewer frustrating search attempts

Users often struggle to find videos they've seen using vague keywords or half-remembered details. Organizing saved content by creator cuts down on these failed searches and makes rediscovery much smoother. This feature is expected to reduce time spent searching for previously favorited content.

Higher creator revisit rates through "Bookmarks"

When users can easily find their favorited videos organized by creator, they're more likely to return to those creators' profiles with Bookmarks and rediscover content from them. This feature is expected to boost revisit frequency and help strengthen creator-viewer connections over time.

Deeper Creator-Audience Relationships
When users can easily revisit content they’ve previously enjoyed, they’re more likely to stay engaged with those creators over time. This strengthens long-term connections and can positively influence TikTok’s algorithm, showing users content they actually enjoy. Overtime, this feature is expected to increase time spent per returning user and support higher re-engagement rates for creators.

Reflecting

TikTok already uses horizontal scrolling in several areas of the app, so extending that pattern for a feature like Bookmarks feels intuitive and consistent. By giving users a dedicated space to view saved videos from specific creators, we reduce friction and simplify rediscovery. Through user research, it became clear that while some users try to organize their favorites, most do not. Also, for those who use collections, content can overflow and become difficult to find. This solution not only tidies up the user experience, but also encourages reengagement with creators.

What's Next?

Nudges

To increase engagement, TikTok could softly nudge users follow creators they’ve bookmarked frequently. For example, if a user saves 10+ videos from @eatwithsherry, a subtle prompt could ask:
“You’ve saved a lot from @eatwithsherry… want to follow them to stay updated?”
This nudge supports the rediscovery aspect of Bookmarks and encourages users to stay connected with the creators they like over time

Nudges

Explore filter functionality
Complementing the search button with filters in Bookmarks tab can help users sort by videos by the time it was saved, additionally adding a video type filter, clickable options might be "Food & Recipes", "Funny", "Travel" etc. This would increase content findability.

Interactive timestamps

As TikTok continues to support longer videos (e.g., tutorials, recipes, reviews), users often want to quickly revisit specific sections. YouTube’s named time stamps seems to be the most familiar feature, using this as another inspiration, Tiktok can allow creators to manually add named timestamps to their long-form content. These moments could appear as e.g. “Step 2: Mix Ingredients" at 01:12.

Interactive timestamps

Most replayed

Add a most replayed highlight along the progress bar - again similar to Youtube - to show where users tend to linger or replay. This would make long-form content easier to navigate, especially when users return later through the new Bookmarks tab. It improves usability without requiring any extra work from the creator, helping saved videos feel more valuable and skimmable. It also gives creators control over their content navigation.

Most replayed

And that's a Wrap.

Feel free to connect with me!

jaysonmei1337@gmail.com

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