Source: Xiaomi App Store

Experience environment: MIUI 10.2

Phone model: Xiaomi 9se

2 Product Introduction

Product name: Tik Tok short video

Product Type: Short video software

Product slogan: Record a beautiful life

Product positioning: A music short video community focusing on young people

Product introduction: Tik Tok short videos, accompanied by music, record and share your life in the form of short videos, and make your life better through video shooting speed, video editing, special effects and other technologies!

3 Iterative Analysis

3.1 Iteration Path

As of March 20, 2019, the overview of the iOS version iteration of Tik Tok is shown in Figure 1:

Core iterative process (Figure 2):

V2.0-V5.0 iteration process (Figure 3):

3.2 Iteration Analysis

Tik Tok was renamed from the APP "A.me" on December 9, 2016. From its iterative development process, from inviting friends from the address book, QQ, Weibo, etc. to posting videos and commenting on friends, it has formed a community culture and quickly acquired a large number of users. The focus will then be on refining the processing of music, video and other content and streamlining the interactions to optimize the user experience . V1.6.0 released in October 2017 added a live broadcast function, and with the help of the "Millionaire Heroes" quiz event in January 2018, Douyin short videos became popular in 2018. For versions after V2.0.0, the purpose of iteration is mainly to improve performance, optimize experience, etc.

3.3 Slogan Analysis

4. Demand Analysis

4.1 Target Users

As of February 2019, the number of male users of Tik Tok short videos exceeded 1/2, which is about 5 percentage points lower than that of female users.

Figure 6 shows that most of the users of the Tik Tok short video APP are those born in the 80s, 90s, and 00s, accounting for about 80% of the total user population. Among them, the largest number of users were born between 1990 and 1994, accounting for 29.37%; the second largest group was those born after 1994, accounting for 25.66%; and users born after 1980 accounted for 24.93%, ranking third. The above results are consistent with the product positioning of Douyin, that is, a music short video social APP focusing on young people.

Douyin short video users are almost all over the country, with ten provinces including Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Shandong ranking at the top, accounting for about 50% of the total users.

4.2 User Requirements

(1) Self-actualization

According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the gross domestic product in 2017 was 82,075.43 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.90%, and the per capita GDP was 59,201.00 yuan per person, a year-on-year increase of 6.30%, indicating that the economy and life of the entire society are in a relatively harmonious state, and people's basic needs such as physiological, safety, social, and respect are well met. What the entire society urgently needs now is the top demand of Maslow's triangle of needs - self-actualization. So they need a platform to showcase themselves and highlight their personality.

(2) Low cost and low threshold

The popularity of smartphones and the improvement of shooting functions have reduced the cost and threshold of video shooting, and ordinary people can also publish videos and appear in the public eye.

(3) Relax

In recent years, people are under high pressure in life and work almost every moment, and they need to find a way to use their fragmented time to quickly relieve stress. Therefore, the fragmentation of entertainment information is very important, and a 15-second video is just right.

2. Product Analysis

1 Recommended content

Tik Tok short videos have a unique mechanism of double review and secondary recommendation, as shown in Figure 8.

2 Functional structure

By analyzing the core logic of the product, the main functions of Douyin short videos are shooting (snap) and browsing videos, which correspond to content creators and content consumers respectively.

3 Business Process

The core business process of Douyin short video is divided into two parts: video shooting and video uploading (Figure 10).

As shown in Figure 11, the shooting interface of the Douyin short video APP is divided into shooting modes such as photo, single click, and long press when viewed horizontally; when viewed vertically, it has the characteristics of diversified video editing mainly based on video beautification, speed, timing, etc.

3. Competitive Product Analysis

1 Industry Analysis

The growth of mobile Internet traffic, the popularization of smart phones and technological innovation have changed people’s social methods to a certain extent and promoted the development of the short video industry. From Kuaishou in 2011, Miaopai in 2012, Douyin in 2016, and Weishi in 2017, the short video industry has entered a period of explosive growth, and the 2018 quiz with prizes has pushed the short video industry to its peak.

2. Identify competing products

Based on iResearch data analysis , the APP Kuaishou was selected as a competitor. The comparison of the user scale of the two is as follows:

The user analysis of Kuaishou is as follows:

3. Function Comparison

The comparison of the main functions of Douyin short video and Kuaishou is shown in Figure 16:

4 Page Analysis

(1) Home page

There are obvious differences between the homepages of Douyin and Kuaishou. The former adopts a single video content recommendation method, which saves users' selection time and easily arouses users' curiosity about the "next"; the latter adopts a waterfall flow content recommendation method with more options, giving users greater freedom of choice, but with too much information.

(2) Shooting page

The content shooting functions of Douyin and Kuaishou are not much different, but the actions are different. Douyin short videos have two shooting modes: single-click and long-press, while Kuaishou's shooting is a combination of single-click shooting and karaoke.

(3) Local page

The local interfaces of Douyin and Kuaishou both use a waterfall-style recommendation method. However, Douyin has laid out local information such as food, attractions, and culture in the top bar to help users quickly understand local conditions.

IV. Summary and Suggestions

1. SWOT analysis

(1) Strengths

① Decentralization: The content recommendation mechanism of Douyin short videos will not give priority to recommending a user’s works to other users just because the user has more fans or likes. Instead, the quality of video content is used as the only criterion for recommendation. The more refined and innovative the work is, the more traffic it will get.

② Short duration: 15s video is just right, shortening the user’s time and being suitable for every aspect of the user’s life;

③ Diversified content: Douyin short videos include entertainment, office, photography, dancing, etc., and have the characteristics of integrating video, music, entertainment, and social interaction;

④ Simplified interaction: The interaction of Douyin short videos is extremely simple, giving users an immersive experience. Swipe up and down to switch content; swipe right to shoot your own photos; swipe left to enter the author's details page;

⑤ Single video recommendation: Adam Alter mentioned six factors of behavioral addiction in his book "Can't Stop: How to Get Rid of Behavioral Addiction in the Age of Screen Scrolling", one of which is irresistible and unpredictable positive feedback. The single video recommendation on the homepage of TikTok takes advantage of this psychology of people, making you unable to stop at all;

(2) Weaknesses

① It is difficult to create high-quality videos, and non-high-quality videos do not receive attention, which reduces user enthusiasm and leads to user loss;

② Accurate recommendation algorithms will cause users to lose their sense of freshness and eventually abandon the product;

(3) Opportunities

① The popularity of smartphones and the 5G era have brought huge business opportunities to the Internet industry;

② In the era of the surging short video market, Douyin took advantage of the trend and took the lead;

③ Driven by the fast pace of life, users are paying more and more attention to using fragmented time to relieve themselves;

(4) Threats

① There are many similar products, and the competition is more intense, such as Kuaishou, Meipai, Weishi, etc.

② Criminals exploit vulnerabilities to spread negative information

2 personal suggestions

(1) Managing fans

When novice users publish works on the platform, the quality of the content may be low, but the quality of fans varies, which will cause the overall atmosphere of the platform to be disharmonious. Therefore, fans should be managed more strictly to create a good platform environment.

(2) Irregular fuzzy recommendations

The current recommendation algorithm of Tik Tok short videos is too precise, which will cause visual fatigue to users. It will make fuzzy recommendations at irregular intervals, stimulate users' psychology and vision, increase users' active time, and achieve the purpose of retention.

Author: Shuang_Liu

Source: Shuang_Liu