Tiktok Bookmarks
Role
Product Designer
Tools
Figma, Google Forms
Project Duration
July 8th - July 16th 2025
Responsibilities
Wireframes to High Fidelity Prototype
User Research
Usability Testing
Competitive Analysis
The Challenge
TikTok makes content discovery effortless, but finding those videos again becomes difficult as they pile up over time. While users can favorite videos or manually organize them into collections (playlists), most don’t consistently maintain their saves, making it hard for users to find content they want to revisit.
How might we make favorited videos easier to rediscover?
Goal
Adding a feature to help users rediscover videos they've favorited before. This feature aims to:
Make rediscovery of content easier, and reduce friction
Provide a familiar, personalized content organization that will help with the clutter
Competitive Analysis
While most apps allow content saving, they fall short on making it easy to organize and find.
(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
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
User Research
During the research process, I kept the problem in mind and connected it with the competitive analysis, some apps make it hard to rediscover content. However, Spotify has ways to rediscover music, such as retaining and sorting all the songs you liked from one artist, when making the questions, I wanted them to help solve: How can I similarly design a feature for Tiktok where I can help users find videos easier?
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:
Survey responses revealed that many users either don't take time to properly categorize saves, didn't know they could or abandoned organization of their favorites lists entirely. As a result, favorited videos are eventually lost, unless users can find them through specific keywords or extensively scroll through buried watch histories.
This validated the core insight: users need an intuitive way to rediscover their saved content without manual maintenance.
Wireframes
I started my wireframes by tracing TikTok's creator page layout, mapping out important key elements. I placed my bookmarks button in the row of tiny icons, but quickly realized a space problem.
I chose this as the Bookmarks icon because it visually represents person's favorited content while maintaining the connection to TikTok's existing favorites look.
TikTok's current icon row is already crowded. Adding my bookmarks button would push this beyond the available space. 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, so it maintains the familiar layout.
Will allow TikTok to implement future features without running into the same space constraints.
Lastly, I made the look of the section easy to navigate with dated months that can help users find a video they've watched during that time. Also, I added a search bar in this section. Users can type keywords to find specific content without scrolling.
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.
Usability
To close out the survey, I asked participants to test the prototype directly, giving them a chance test both the Bookmarks feature and the sliding navigation bar before sharing their ratings and feedback
On a scale of 1–10, how useful do you think your friends would find this bookmark feature?
12 responses
Average rating (7.92)
On a scale of 1–10, how useful do you think your friends would find this slider/navigation bar?
12 responses
Average rating (7.75)
Reflecting
I learned that users understood the bookmarks feature, once I can identify best place to position this button, it would be even more effective. One comment that stood out was an individual who said Tiktok an app that shows a variety of content and that they wouldn't have a go-to content creator, thus they rated it a bit lower. This is true and can apply to many casual Tiktok users, they aren't there for a select handful of users only. Which is why I felt as for some users, the Bookmark feature wouldn't be as effective. An upside is that the same person did touch on how the horizontal sliding navigation bar would be very helpful to new features that could be added!
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.
What's Next?
Feel free to connect with me!