TikTok Animal Audition Effect

UX, Project Lead, Animator, Art Director

Overview

The Animal Audition effect turns users into a 1 or 2 animals depending on the sounds they mimic. I led a group of designers and interaction engineers to launch new AI sound detection features with this effect.

What I did

Worked with engineers to implement prototypes into interactive product.
Created multiple UX interaction flow options
Conducted internal A/B testing to determine best user experience
Created multiple UI animations based on A/B test results

Impact

Over +200 million views and posts on TikTok

Introduced new audio detection technology to TikTok app

Background and Research

Introducing new AI audio feature

The Research and Development team approached us with a new AI audio detection technology. The model could be trained to detect specific words or sounds.

Our team was asked to integrate the new technology into effects that showcased their research and users would love.

User Research

I hosted a brainstorm session that generated over 40 ideas.

Effects that transformed users’ faces were one of the most popular.
I wanted to boost the chances of virality for this new technology by combining it with an interaction already loved by the community.

Design Process

User Flow

UX Interaction Iterations

Decrease user choice fatigue:

The audio tech had an option to detect up to 6 different animals. One goal for our effect was to allow users the freedom to choose any of the 6 animals. Following this logic, I created an initial interaction that gave people all animal options after the wheelspin UI finished.

After conducting 10 internal user tests, we found that users were overwhelmed by the number of choices and had trouble deciding within the 4 seconds allotted. I then changed the UI interaction to prompt users with 2 choice options, decreasing friction from choice fatigue.

UI animation variations:

I created several different animation to displaying the wheelspinning UI that encouraged users to make animal sounds. We went with the 1st choice, as it supported the "wheel of fortune" form factor from our UI design the best.