Product design question
How would you improve TikTok?
- TikTok
- Product design
- Easy
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What this question tests
Tests product sense on a well-known, fast-iterating app: picking a real user pain point and a focused improvement with a clear trade-off, not a grab-bag of ideas.
How to approach it
- Clarify scope: improving the core For You feed experience versus creator tools versus e-commerce (TikTok Shop); default to the core viewing experience for casual users.
- Segment users: casual scrollers, active creators, and TikTok Shop shoppers, since pain points differ sharply.
- Pick one pain point: difficulty finding a video seen earlier and lost in the endless feed, since there's no easy 'continue where I left off.'
- Propose a solution: a lightweight 'recently watched' history accessible from the feed, with a one-tap resume, without disrupting the addictive infinite-scroll flow.
- Address trade-off: TikTok's algorithm thrives on forward momentum, so a history feature must not slow discovery of new content or reduce watch time.
- Define success: % of users who use the history feature weekly, and whether it increases session return rate without cannibalizing total watch time.
What a strong answer includes
- Picks one specific, common pain point (losing a video you liked) instead of listing generic ideas like 'better recommendations.'
- Names the exact tension with TikTok's business model (infinite scroll and watch time) and designs around it rather than ignoring it.
- Proposes a lightweight, low-friction solution that doesn't require restructuring the core feed.
- Defines success with both an adoption metric and a guardrail against cannibalizing watch time.
Common mistakes
- Suggesting features that fight against TikTok's core discovery-and-momentum design without acknowledging the tension.
- Listing many shallow ideas without picking and defending one.
- No metric to check whether the improvement actually helps retention versus just adding clutter.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you prevent this feature from becoming a crutch that reduces discovery of new creators?
- How would you measure if this cannibalizes ad impressions?
- Would this feature differ for algorithmic power users vs new users?
More product design questions
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- What user pain points does TikTok solve?TikTok · Product design · Easy
- How would you improve the recommendations module 'For You' on TikTok?TikTok · Product design · Easy
- How would you leverage the TikTok app to acquire customers for their shopping platform?TikTok · Product design · Hard
More questions from TikTok
Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 7: AI UX and human oversight: design for a system that is wrong sometimes
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop