Home   >   CSC-OpenAccess Library   >    Manuscript Information
The Interplay of Watching, Creation, Socialization, and Monetization on TikTok
Mickey Mengting Zhang, Cees de Bont
Pages - 1 - 20     |    Revised - 31-07-2022     |    Published - 31-08-2022
Volume - 4   Issue - 1    |    Publication Date - August 2022  Table of Contents
MORE INFORMATION
KEYWORDS
User Experience, Innovation, Interplay, Short video platform, TikTok.
ABSTRACT
Purpose - Short video platforms (SVP), as a new form of social media, have become tremendously popular over the last few years. SVPs are not fully formed but are instead the result of the dynamic among platform, users, and designers. This research takes a closer look at how UX is innovated and interrelated on one such platform - TikTok.

Methodology/approach - After an introduction to the emergence of TikTok, the paper explored the concept of UX, the construct of SVP, and the experience innovation of each construct. Then we investigated the interplay of watching experience, creation experience, social experience, and monetization experience, as the four fundamental constructs of SVP. A survey with users of the platform was conducted to understand the interplay of the four constructs. Data was collected and analyzed with structural equation modeling (SEM).

Findings - This paper argues that besides algorithms, UX design and innovation contribute to the success of SVP. The platform innovates in watching, creation, social, and monetization experiences, each of which is essential for the integrity of UX. We further investigated that what is the relationship among the four constructs; how they influence each other; and why the influence is essential. Based on the findings, we establish a UE-SVP model, which could be applied by practitioners and researchers to establish a new platform, or refine and assess an existent SVP.

Originality/value - This research extended the current understanding of the domain of SVP, which is an important topic in social media. This study represents a step toward understanding the UX innovation of SVP. It offers implications for designers and development teams.
Abidin, C. (2020). Mapping internet celebrity on TikTok: Exploring attention economies and visibility labours. Cultural Science Journal, 12(1), 77-103.
Anderson, K.E. (2020), Getting acquainted with social networks and apps: it is time to talk about TikTok, Library hi tech news, Vol. 37 No. 4, 7-12.
Arai, K., & Tolle, H. (2010). Automatic e-comic content adaptation. International Journal of Ubiquitous Computing, 1(1), 1-11.
Armstrong, R., Hall, B. J., Doyle, J., & Waters, E. (2011). Scoping the scope of a cochrane review. Journal of public health, 33(1), 147-150.
Baker, R. (1993). Designing the future: the computer transformation of reality. Thames and Hudson, Hong Kong.
Baluja, S., Seth, R., Sivakumar, D., Jing, Y., Yagnik, J., Kumar, S., ... & Aly, M. (2008). Video suggestion and discovery for youtube: taking random walks through the view graph. In Proceedings of the 17th international conference on World Wide Web (pp. 895-904).
Basch, C., Hillyer, G. & Jaime, C. (2020). COVID-19 on TikTok: harnessing an emerging social media platform to convey important public health messages, International journal of adolescent medicine and health, Online ahead of print, doi: 10.1515/ijamh-2020-0111.
Battarbee, K., & Koskinen, I. (2005). Co-experience: user experience as interaction. CoDesign, 1(1), 5-18.
Bevan, N., & Macleod, M. (1994). Usability measurement in context. Behaviour & information technology, 13(1-2), 132-145.
Bhattacherjee, A. (2012). Social science research: Principles, methods, and practices. Global Text Project.
Bland, J. & Altman, D. (2003). Applying the right statistics: analyses of measurements studies. Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology, 21, 283-9.
Brand House. (2020, Mar 24). KOL marketing in China - What is it and Why should you know about it? Retrieved Oct 30, 2020, from https://brand.house/2020/03/24/kol-marketing-in-china-what-is-it-and-why-should-you-know-about-it/
Bytedance. (2020). Retrieved Oct 30, 2020, from https://www.bytedance.com/en/
Chen, L. (2000). The Significance and Methods of Case Study, Counseling and Guidance, 57, 37-39.
Chen, L., Chan, V., Roof, K. & Huang, Z. (2020). TikTok owner’s value exceeds $100 billion in private markets. Bloomberg. Retrieved Oct 30, 2020, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-20/tiktok-owner-s-value-surpasses-100-billion-in-private-markets?sref=gni836kR
Chen, P., & Zhang, X. (2020). Evaluation and empirical study on the information service quality of TikTok government accounts. Eurasian Journal of Social Sciences, 8(2), 53-69.
Chen, Z., He, Q., Mao, Z., Chung, H. & Maharjan, S. (2019). A study on the characteristics of Douyin short videos and implications for edge caching. In: Proceedings of the ACM Turing Celebration Conference - China, pp. 1-6. ACM, New York.
Cheng, Y., Ji, X., Li, X., Zhang, T., Malebary, S., Qu, X., & Xu, W. (2020). Identifying child users via touchscreen interactions. ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN), 16(4), 1-25.
Chi, E. H., Rosien, A., & Heer, J. (2002). LumberJack: Intelligent discovery and analysis of web user traffic composition. In International Workshop on Mining Web Data for Discovering Usage Patterns and Profiles (pp. 1-16). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Chin, Z. (2021). 5 Ways TikTok Demonstrates Great User Experience Design. Retrieved on June 22, 2022 from https://blog.snappymob.com/5-ways-tiktok-demonstrates-great-user-experience-design
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Cooke, M., & Buckley, N. (2008). Web 2.0, social networks and the future of market research. International Journal of Market Research, 50(2), 267-292.
Cuofano, B. (2020). TikTok business model: the rise of creative social media powered by AI, FourWeek MBA(online). Retrieved Oct 30, 2020, from: https://fourweekmba.com/tiktok-business-model/.
Cyr, D., & Head, M. (2008). Hedonic and utilitarian outcomes of website social presence: the impacts of framing and time constraints.
Davis, J. (2019). The TikTok Strategy: Using AI Platforms to Take Over the World. Insead Knowledge. Retrieved Oct 30, 2020, from https://knowledge.insead.edu/entrepreneurship/the-tiktok-strategy-using-ai-platforms-to-take-over-the-world-11776
Dulenko, V. (2020). How TikTok Design Hooks You Up. Retrieved on June 22, 2022, from https://uxplanet.org/how-tiktok-design-hooks-you-up-6c889522c7ed
Eghtesadi, M. & Florea, A. (2020). Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and TikTok: a proposal for health authorities to integrate popular social media platforms in contingency planning amid a global pandemic outbreak, Can Journal Public Health, 111(3), 389-391.
Federoff, M. A. (2002). Heuristics and usability guidelines for the creation and evaluation of fun in video games (Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University).
Forlizzi, J., & Battarbee, K. (2004, August). Understanding experience in interactive systems. In Proceedings of the 5th conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques (pp. 261-268).
Götz, O., Liehr-Gobbers, K., & Krafft, M. (2010). Evaluation of structural equation models using the partial least squares (PLS) approach. In Handbook of partial least squares (pp. 691-711). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Gould, C. (2019). Disrupting TV: How short-form video is upending the entertainment industry. Retrieved Oct 30, 2020, from https://www.opalitemedia.com/2019/03/17/disrupting-tv/
Guan, Z., Hou, F., Li, B., Chong, A. Y. L., & Phang, C. W. D. (2019). What Encourages Purchase of Virtual Gifts in Live Streaming: Cognitive Absorption, Social Experience and Technological Environment. In ICIS.
Gurbani, V.K., Migliosi, A., State, R., Payette, C., Cilli, B. & Engel, T. (2015). A characterization of short-video and distributed hot-spot activity in Instagram. In: Proceedings of the Principles, Systems and Applications on IP Telecommunications, pp. 28-34. ACM, New York
Gutiérrez, C., Garbajosa, J., Diaz, J., & Yagüe, A. (2013). Providing a consensus definition for the term" Smart Product". In Engineering of Computer Based Systems (ECBS), 2013 20th IEEE International Conference and Workshops, 203-211.
Hair Jr, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C. M., Sarstedt, M., Danks, N. P., & Ray, S. (2021). Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) using R: A workbook.
Hassenzahl, M. (2003). The thing and I: understanding the relationship between user and product. In Funology (pp. 31-42). Springer, Dordrecht.
Hassenzahl, M., & Tractinsky, N. (2006). User experience-a research agenda. Behaviour & information technology, 25(2), 91-97.
Hayes, C., Stott, K., Lamb, K. J., & Hurst, G. A. (2020). "Making Every Second Count": Utilizing TikTok and Systems Thinking to Facilitate Scientific Public Engagement and Contextualization of Chemistry at Home. Journal of Chemical Education, 97 (10), 3858-3866.
Helm, R., Möller, M., Mauroner, O., & Conrad, D. (2013). The effects of a lack of social recognition on online communication behavior. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3), 1065-1077.
Hepp, A. (2018). What Makes a Maker?-Curating a pioneer community through franchising. Nordisk Tidsskrift for Informationsvidenskab Og Kulturformidling, 7(2), 3-18.
Hoffmann, C.P., Lutz, C. & Meckel, M. (2015). Content creation on the Internet: a social cognitive perspective on the participation divide. Inf. Commun. Soc. 18(6), 696-716
Hooper, M. A., & Sant, P. (2018). A Disruptive Contexts Model for Mobile Commerce Systems. International Journal of Ubiquitous Computing, Volume (3) : Issue (1).
Hu, H. & Ma, X. (2020). MCN attacked the circle of KOL, network celebrities perfected the value chain of the traffic platform industry-advertising marketing MCN special research report. New Times Securities. Retrieved Oct 30, 2020 from http://pdf.dfcfw.com/pdf/H3_AP202001071373638172_1.pdf.
Influencer Marketing Hub, (2020). What is TikTok? Influencer Marketing News and Resources, Retrieved Oct 30, 2020, from https://influencermarketinghub.com/zh/.
Jöreskog, K. G., & Wold, H. (1982). The ML and PLS techniques for modeling with latent variables: Historical and comparative aspects. In H. Wold & K. G. Jöreskog (Eds.), Systems under indirect observation, part I (pp . 263–270). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Jiang, X. (2019). Research on TikTok APP Based on User-Centric Theory. Applied Science and Innovative Research, 3(1), 28-36.
Johnson, J. (2020). Designing with the mind in mind: simple guide to understanding user interface design guidelines. Morgan Kaufmann.
Johnson-Laird, P. (2010). Deductive reasoning. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 1(1), 8-17.
Karapanos, E., Zimmerman, J., Forlizzi, J., & Martens, J. B. (2009). User experience over time: an initial framework. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 729-738).
Kaye, DBV, Chen, X, and Zeng, J. (2020). The co-evolution of two Chinese mobile short video apps: Parallel platformization of Douyin and TikTok. Mobile Media & Communication, Online first: 1-25. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2050157920952120
Kazais, A. (2021). What makes the UX of Tiktok’s feed so successful. Retrieved online on June 21, 2022 from https://uxdesign.cc/what-makes-the-ux-of-tiktoks-feed-so-successful-1c15e7e82dcd
Ketola, P., & Roto, V. (2008). Exploring user experience measurement needs. In Proc. of the 5th COST294-MAUSE Open Workshop on Valid Useful User Experience Measurement (VUUM). Reykjavik, Island (pp. 23-26).
King, G., Keohane, R. O., & Verba, S. (1994). Designing social inquiry: Scientific inference in qualitative research. Princeton university press.
Klug, D. (2020). It took me almost 30 minutes to practice this. Performance and Production Practices in Dance Challenge Videos on TikTok. arXiv preprint arXiv:2008.13040. Retrieved Oct 30, 2020, from https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.13040
Kobie, K. (2019). TikTok breaks all the rules of app design - but somehow it still works. Retrieved on June 22, 2022 from https://www.wired.co.uk/article/tiktok-snapchat-app-design
Koleson, J. (2020). TikTok is on the Clock, Will Democracy Stop? SLU Law Journal Online. 45. Retrieved Oct 30, 2020, from https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lawjournalonline/45
Kue (2019). Short Video User Insight Report. Kue User Research Institute. Retrieved Oct 30, 2020, from http://www.woshipm.com/it/2522354.html
Kumar V D, Prabha M S. (2019). Getting glued to TikTok - Undermining the psychology behind widespread inclination toward dub-mashed videos. Arch Ment Health 20 no.2 (2019): 76-77
Lakhani, K. R., & Wolf, B. (2005). Why hacker do what they do. Understanding motivation and effort in free/open source software projects. In J. Feller, B. Fitzgerald, S. Hissam, & K. R. Lakhani (Eds.), Perspectives on free and open source software (pp. 3-22). Cambridge.
Löwgren, J., Larsen, H. S., & Mads, H. (2013). Towards Programmatic Design Research. Designs for learning, 6.
Leavitt, M. O., & Shneiderman, B. (2006). Based web design & usability guidelines. Health and Human Services Department.
Lin, G. (2019). Marketing and martech: low-key taiwanese TikTok executives showed up to share the first-line short video trends and ideas, Business Next. Retrieved Oct 30, 2020, from https://www.bn
Lu, X., Lu, Z. (2019). Fifteen seconds of fame: a qualitative study of Douyin, a short video sharing mobile application in China. In: Meiselwitz, G. (ed.) HCII 2019. LNCS, vol. 11578, pp. 233-244. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21902-4_17
Mahoney, L. M., & Tang, T. (2016). Strategic social media: From marketing to social change. John Wiley & Sons.
Manzo, L., & Devine-Wright, P. (2013). Place attachment: Advances in theory, methods and applications. Routledge.
Matera, M., Rizzo, F., & Carughi, G. T. (2006). Web usability: Principles and evaluation methods. In Web engineering (pp. 143-180). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Müller, S., Atan, O., van der Schaar, M., & Klein, A. (2016). Context-aware proactive content caching with service differentiation in wireless networks. IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 16(2), 1024-1036.
McRoberts, S., Bonsignore, E., Peyton, T., Yarosh, S. (2016). Do it for the viewers!: audience engagement behaviors of young YouTubers. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children, pp. 334-343. ACM, New York.
Medina Serrano, J. C., Papakyriakopoulos, O., & Hegelich, S. (2020). Dancing to the partisan beat: A first analysis of political communication on TikTok. In 12th ACM conference on web science (pp. 257-266).
Mhalla, M., Yun, J., & Nasiri, A. (2020). Video-sharing apps business models: TikTok case study. International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management, 17(07), 2050050.
Mohd, F., & Rosli, M. H. B. (2015). Social commerce (S-Commerce): Towards the future of retailing market industry.
Morimoto, R., Ash, J., & Hope, C. (2005). Corporate social responsibility audit: From theory to practice. Journal of Business ethics, 62(4), 315-325.
Nansen, B., Chakraborty, K., Gibbs, L., MacDougall, C., & Vetere, F. (2012). Children and Digital Wellbeing in Australia: Online regulation, conduct and competence. Journal of Children and Media, 6(2), 237-254.
Neyaz, A., Kumar, A., Krishnan, S., Placker, J., & Liu, Q. (2020). Security, privacy and steganographic analysis of FaceApp and TikTok. International journal of computer science and security, 14(2), 38-59.
Nielsen, J. (1994). Usability inspection methods. In Conference companion on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 413-414).
Norman, D. A. (2005). Human-centered design considered harmful. Interactions, 12(4), 14-19.
Nygren, E., Sutinen, E., Blignaut, A. S., Laine, T. H., & Els, C. J. (2012). The UFractions Mobile Manipulative Game: Opportunities For South African Grade 8 Learners. International Journal of Ubiquitous Computing, 2(1).
Omar, B. & Dequan, W. (2020). Watch, Share or Create: The Influence of Personality Traits and User Motivation on TikTok Mobile Video Usage. International Association of Online Engineering. Retrieved August 2, 2022 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/216454/.
Pangrazio, L., & Cardozo Gaibisso, L. (2020). Beyond Cybersafety: The Need to Develop Social Media Literacies in Pre-Teens. Digital Education Review, 37, 49-63.
Pavlik, A. (2020). Use TikTok to engage with future students. Enrollment Management Report, 24(2), 6-7.
Pelz, B. (2022). Research Methods for the Social Sciences. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-research-methods/
Rönkkö, M., & Cho, E. (2022). An updated guideline for assessing discriminant validity. Organizational Research Methods, 25(1), 6-14.
Rhea, D. K. (1992). A new perspective on design: focusing on customer experience. Design Management Journal (Former Series), 3(4), 40-48.
Ryan, F, Fritz, A and Impiombato, D. (2020). TikTok and WeChat: Curating and controlling global information flows. Policy Brief Report No. 37/2020. Canberra, Australia: Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Retrieved on July 1, 2022 from https://www.aspi.org.au/report/tiktok-wechat.
Salameh, A. A., & Hassan, S. B. (2015). Measuring service quality in m-commerce context: A conceptual model. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 5(3), 1-9.
Savic, M. (2021). Research Perspectives on TikTok & Its Legacy Apps| From Musical. ly to TikTok: Social Construction of 2020’s Most Downloaded Short-Video App. International Journal of Communication, 15, 22.
Scalvini, M. (2020). Negotiating morality and ethics: the social media user’s perspective on TikTok. Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Schweyer, A., & Callahan, B. (2012). Social recognition: Is the latest application of social media the most powerful yet? Retrieved on July 1, 2022 from http://bit.ly/29hvjjx
Seffah, A., Donyaee, M., Kline, R. B., & Padda, H. K. (2006). Usability measurement and metrics: A consolidated model. Software quality journal, 14(2), 159-178.
Sehl K. (2020). Everything brands need to know about TikTok In: Hootsuite, editor; 2020. Retrieved on July 1, 2022 from: https://blog.hootsuite. com/what-is-tiktok/.
Shao, G. (2009). "Understanding the appeal of user-generated media: a uses and gratification perspective," Internet Res., vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 7-25. https://doi.org/10.1 108/10662240910927795
Shutsko, A. (2020). User-generated short video content in social media. A case study of TikTok. In International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 108-125). Springer, Cham.
Sidorenko-Bautista, P., Herranz de la Casa, J. M., & Cantero de Julián, J. I. (2020). Use of New Narratives for COVID-19 reporting: from 360º videos to ephemeral TikTok videos in online media. Tripodos, number 47, vol. 1 | 2020 | 105-122. ISSN: 1138-3305
Su, Y., Baker, B. J., Doyle, J. P., & Yan, M. (2020). Fan engagement in 15 seconds: Athletes’ relationship marketing during a pandemic via TikTok. International Journal of Sport Communication, 13(3), 436-446.
Swathi, G.K. & Devakumar, C. A. (2020). Study to Analyze the Impact of TikTok App on Students Academics and Psychology. JETIR March 2020, Volume 7, Issue 3.
Tang, A. K. (2016). Mobile app monetization: app business models in the digital era. International Journal of Innovation, Management and Technology, 7(5), 224.
TikTok (2019). DIY: Duets & Reactions on TikTok Retreived on June 29, 2022 from https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-gb/diy-duets-reactions-on-tiktok
TikTok Statistics, F. (2021). TikTok Statistics - Updated July 2022. Wallaroo. Retrieved from on July 1 https://wallaroomedia.com/blog/social-media/tiktok-statistics/#:~:text=Total%20App%20Downloads%20%E2%80%93%20The%20TikTok,quarter%20by%20any%20app%2C%20ever.
Vanderdonckt, J., & Pribeanu, C. (2005). State of the art of web usability guidelines. The Handbook of Human Factors in Web Design.
Wang, Y. (2020). Humor and camera view on mobile short-form video apps influence user experience and technology-adoption intent, an example of TikTok (DouYin). Computers in Human Behavior, 110, 106373.
Xu, S., Li, Y., Sun, B., Xiao, X., & Li, S. (2020). Research on Business Model Innovation of Short Video Enterprises from the Perspective of Community Economy—Taking "Douyin" as an Example. In 2019 3rd International Conference on Education, Economics and Management Research (ICEEMR 2019) (pp. 324-330). Atlantis Press.
Yang, C. (2020). Why TikTok is Addictive: A Product Design and UX Analysis. Retrieved onJune 22, 2022 from https://chougeena.medium.com/why-tiktok-is-addictive-a-product-design-and-ux-analysis-149f429d55c3
Yu, S. (2019). Why is Tik Tok sweeping over the world? — an app critique. Retrieved from on June 22, 2022 https://uxdesign.cc/why-is-tik-tok-sweeping-over-the-world-e06ab94262e8
Zarour, M., & Alharbi, M. (2017). User experience framework that combines aspects, dimensions, and measurement methods. Cogent Engineering, 4(1), 1421006.
Zimmer, F., Scheibe, K., Stock, W.G. (2018). A model for information behavior research on social live streaming services (SLSSs). In: Meiselwitz, G. (ed.) SCSM 2018. LNCS, vol. 10914, pp. 429-448. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91485-5_
Dr. Mickey Mengting Zhang
Faculty of Humanities and Arts, Macu University of Science and Technology, Macau, 999078 - China
mickey.mengting.zhang@gmail.com
Professor Cees de Bont
School of Design and Creative Arts, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU - United Kingdom


CREATE AUTHOR ACCOUNT
 
LAUNCH YOUR SPECIAL ISSUE
View all special issues >>
 
PUBLICATION VIDEOS