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 Understanding User Behaviors of Creative

Practice on Short Video Sharing Platforms – A

Case Study of TikTok and Bilibili

A thesis submitted to the Graduate School

of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

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IE Master of Design

in the Myron E. Ullman Jr. School of Design

College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning by

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[Qiyang Zhou]

Bachelor of Engineer in South China University of Technology

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Committee Chair [Heekyoung Jung, Ph.D.]

Committee Member [Matthew Wizinsky, M.F.A.]

3/28/2019

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ABSTRACT

Ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes, the short video has become a popular

form of learning and sharing creative skills such as drawing, photography, and crafting.

Short videos in social media platforms are reshaping the experience of learning creative

skills by providing visually rich instructional materials and communication features to

question and comment on those materials. These functions and features of a video

platform can impact a user's learning experience, and this aspect has been under-

investigated. This study is motivated to investigate user behaviors in short video sharing

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platforms and identify any gap between user expectations and behaviors afforded by
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those platforms for creative practice. This study focused on analyzing TikTok (i.e., a short

video platform) and Bilibili (i.e., a video sharing platform), specifically 1) their information
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architecture and user interfaces, 2) viewers' comments on selected drawing skill sharing

videos in both platforms (which resulted in four themes of viewer activities and three types

of viewer attitudes in practicing and learning creative skills), and 3) selected TikTok users’
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online activities and expectations for creative practice based on profiles and in-depth

interview. The multi-dimensional data about user behaviors and expectations are

synthesized into five different personas and their specific user journey maps, leading to

the discussion of design recommendations to support creative practice in short video

sharing platforms.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would first like to thank my thesis chair Heekyoung Jung, without whom I will never be

able to finish this thesis. Heekyoung consistently steered me in correct directions during

the past seven months, with her professional points of view and her talents. I am, and I

will be thankful to her for the most challengeable and fruitful time that I spent at Daap. I

would also like to thank my thesis committee member, Matthew Wizinsky. He always led

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me to explore more possibilities through the whole process of my thesis development.

Matt’s enthusiasm towards design and academics inspired me a lot.

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I would also like to acknowledge my support group. My deep thanks to Han Shen, Xiangyi
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Duan, Hui Yin, and Jiayang Zhang for bringing me so many supports and care. They

supported me from giving me advice of my thesis, teaching me of data analysis

knowledge, to even developing a python software for me to collect user data. My

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accomplishment would not have been possible without them. Thank you!

I would also like to thank my classmates at Daap and my colleagues at Live Well

Collaborative. Many thanks to Adriana Navarro Sainz, Longwei Li, and Shuai Mu for

numerous supports in the thesis year.

Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my parents, to my aunts and uncles,

and to my grandparents for providing me supports and encouragements all the time. I

want to especially thank my grandmother, Shixian Huang. I hope you would be proud of

me.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ix

LIST OF TABLES xi

LIST OF FIGURES xii

CHAPTER 1. Introduction 1
1.1 Background 1
1.2 Problem Statement 2

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CHAPTER 2. Literature Review 3
2.1 Knowledge Sharing on Web 2.0 and Social Media 3
2.2 Short Videos for Sharing Creative Skills
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2.3 Popular Short Video Integrated Platforms 5
2.3.1 TikTok 6
2.3.2 Bilibili 7
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2.3.3 Instagram 7
2.4 Knowledge Sharing in Short Video Sharing Platforms 8

CHAPTER 3. Research Statement and Methods 10

3.1 Design Analysis of Selected Platforms 11
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3.1.1 Information Architecture (IA) Analysis 11

3.1.2 User Interface (UI) Analysis 12
3.2 Comment Analysis 12
3.3 User Profile and Activity Analysis 15
3.3.1 User Behavior Patterns 18
3.3.2 User Groups Based on User Data Patterns 19
3.4 In-depth Interviews (with TikTok Users) 23

CHAPTER 4. Research Findings 26

4.1 Findings from Design Analysis: Platform Affordances 26
4.2 Findings from Comment Analysis 34
4.2.1 Four Categories of Comments 34
4.2.2 Three Attitudes of Commenters 35
4.3 Findings from User Profile and Activity Analysis 38
4.3.1 User Behavior Patterns and User Groups in Bilibili 38
4.3.2 User Behavior Patterns and User Groups in TikTok 49
4.3.3 Comparison of User Behavior in Bilibili and TikTok 56
4.4 Findings from In-Depth Interviews: User Expectations 56

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CHAPTER 5. Synthesis of Findings: User Personas and Journey Maps 59
5.1 User Group 1: Content Browser 60
5.2 User Group 2: Learner Creator 63
5.3 User Group 3: Fan Art Creator 66
5.4 User Group 4: Recognition-Seeking Creator 69
5.5 User Group 5: Influential Creator 72

CHAPTER 6. Design Implications and Discussion 75

6.1 Encourage Creative Practice Through Social Interaction 78
6.2 Preview Video Content and Organize Comments 79
6.3 Support for Planning, Tracking, & Evaluating Creative Practice 79
6.4 Nurture Communities for Collaborative Creative Practice 80
6.5 Adaptive Recommendation for Personalized Creative Practice 81

CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSION 83

REFERENCES 87

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APPENDIX A 94

APPENDIX B IE 95

APPENDIX C 101

APPENDIX D 104
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APPENDIX E 105

APPENDIX F 108
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APPENDIX G 113

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Summary of selected videos 13

Table 2. The codes of the data of user’s behaviors. 18

Table 3. Users' data category on Bilibili 20

Table 4. Users' data category on TikTok 22

Table 5. The percentage data of the comments categorized by the two classification

schemes. 36

Table 6. The means in each knowledge sharing or learning activity and user’s status on

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Bilibili. 42
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Table 7. The amount of the quantifies number of all the significant user groups (G)’

behaviors or status. If a value of an item below the mean, it will show the “-”, if it is
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above the mean, a “+” will show. 46

Table 8. The means in each knowledge sharing or learning activity and user’s status on

TikTok. 51
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Table 9. The amount of the quantifies number of all user groups (G) behaviors or status.

If a value of an item below the mean, it will show the “-”, if it is above the mean, a

“+” will show. 53

Table 10. Integrated comment classifications for evaluating the percentage of the

comments under each selected video on TikTok and Bilibili 95

Table 11. Word count in comments under each selected video on TikTok and Bilibili 98

Table 12. Differences of the comment categories on the two platforms 99

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. TikTok, 2019. TikTok App Features Introduction 6

Figure 2. Bilibili. (n.d.). Bilibili homepage ©2019 Bilibili. Retrieved March 18, 2019, from

https://www.Bilibili.com/. Screenshot by author. 7

Figure 3. Instagram. (n.d.). Instagram story ©2019 Bilibili. Retrieved March 18, 2019,

from https://www.instagram.com/stories/zeazhou/. Screenshot by author. 8

Figure 1. Screenshots of selected videos on TikTok 14

Figure 5. Screenshots of selected videos on Bilibili 14

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Figure 6. Screenshots of selected videos on Instagram 15
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Figure 7. Collected public users' data on Bilibili 16

Figure 8. Collected public users' data on TikTok 17

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Figure 9. TikTok Interfaces Analysis 27

Figure 10. TikTok Interfaces analysis – Search Page 29

Figure 11. Information Architecture of the bottom sheet of TikTok. 32

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Figure 12. Frequency of navigation among different functions. 33

Figure 13. The percentage of comment in each category on posted videos on general

video sharing platforms. 35

Figure 14. Users’ activities, status, or behaviors of knowledge learning and sharing that

showed various statistical correlation on Bilibili. 38

Figure 15. The comparison of two formats of users' creations uploading behaviors -

Shown in the column chart 40

Figure 16. the dendrogram of Bilibili users. 44

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Figure 17. Users’ activities, status, or behaviors of knowledge learning and sharing that

showed various statistical correlation on TikTok. 49

Figure 18. The comparison of the number of all videos that user liked and drawing

related videos user liked - Shown in the column chart. 51

Figure 19. Dendrogram of TikTok users 52

Figure 20. Persona of the Content Browser 61

Figure 21. Content Browser journey map 62

Figure 22. Persona of the Leaner Creator 64

Figure 23. Leaner Creator journey map 65

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Figure 24. Persona of the Fan Art Creator 67
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Figure 25. Fan Art Creator journey map 68

Figure 26. Persona of the Recognition-Seeking Creator 70

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Figure 27. Recognition-Seeking Creator journey map 71

Figure 28. Persona of the Influential Creator 73

Figure 29. Influential Creator journey map 74

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Figure 30. Integration of users’ journeys of all five persona. The phases with same color

indicate they belong to same category. 76

Figure 31. The design interventions that can fit in different phases of users’ journeys. 77

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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

With more accessible social media and communication technologies, many knowledge-

related activities, such as learning and sharing, are taking place in online communities,

introducing new forms of collaborative platforms (Dron & Anderson, 2014).

Research showed that to some extent, social media could facilitate knowledge sharing by

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providing social interactions, platforms for experience sharing, relationships construction

and networking opportunities, more throughout observations opportunities, and mutual

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swift trust. (Panahi et al., 2012). Many justifications have been offered to explain how

social media succeed in promoting knowledge-related activities. One of the justifications

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is interpersonal interaction. Close interaction is necessary for knowledge transfer

amongst individuals (Polanyi, 1967). Interpersonal interactions are necessary for efficient
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distribution of knowledge in a particular online community or even among different online

communities (Murray & Peyrefitte, 2007). Also, knowledge-related activities in online

communities are always manifested by the presentation of alternative views, and the

production of new ideas (Eteläpelto & Lahti, 2008). All these theories support that

interpersonal interaction and collaboration are important attributes that contribute to the

knowledge-related activities in online learning. Therefore, emerging social media

presents profound potential in enhancing knowledge sharing via collaborative behaviors

where people have similar goals and similar attitudes to obtain the knowledge necessary

to pursue their achievements (Wahlroos, 2010).

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A short video platform is used to produce and browse short videos (Newby, 2018). It has

multiple social media features and all the videos on the platform are limited to a short

duration, which ranges from a few seconds to a few minutes (Su, 2018). The platform

emphasizes building a content generating and sharing community.

One of the representative short video platforms is TikTok. TikTok has emerged to be the

most popular social media platform among millennials in China (Patrick, 2018). This

entertainment-oriented platform succeeds in the immersive user experience and

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stimulation mechanisms. Knowledge sharing is becoming an important part of all the
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content and experience that the platform provides. In the essence of community, this

platform’s immersive user experience and stimulation mechanism have opened

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opportunities for a new collaborative, engaging, and effective learning experience for

users.
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1.2 Problem Statement

Motivated by the potential of learning experience in short video platforms, this paper

investigates knowledge-related activities occurring in TikTok with a focus on learning,

practicing, and sharing drawing skills.

This study aims to provide insights to enhance users’ experiences of knowledge-related

activities with short videos and in short video sharing platforms by identifying the gap

between user expectations and experience that short video platforms provide.

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CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Knowledge Sharing on Web 2.0 and Social Media

Web 2.0 encompasses web technologies and services, including blogs, social network

sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies. They all emphasize the sharing of

content among users and online collaboration, which makes Web 2.0 a highly interactive

and dynamic application platform for fielding new kinds of applications (Murugesan,

2007). Popular applications like Twitter, Instagram, Wikipedia, WhatsApp, and YouTube

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are all the derivatives of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 enables users to collaboratively create

information and conduct knowledge sharing in the Internet community (Darwish &
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Lakhtaria, 2011).
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One of the direct applications of Web 2.0 is social media. Social media refers a group of

Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of

Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content (UGC)
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(Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Social media is also defined as “collaborative online

applications and technologies which enable and encourage participation, conversation,

openness, creation and socialization amongst a community of users.” (Bowley, 2009)

The attributions of collaboration and interaction of social media open the opportunities

for people to share knowledge on the Internet. People tend to hold a positive attitude to

collaborative learning on social media because it will provide a more interactive

experience and more motivation during their involvement of knowledge-related activities

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on social media (Manca & Ranieri, 2016; Mao, 2014). The common knowledge-related

behaviors happening on social media can be summarized as follows:

• Content creation: On social media, users are not only passively obtaining

information. They are emerging to actively produce User Generated Content

(UGC). The co-creation of UGC is one of the main characteristics of social media

(Bowley,2009). Users can contribute in creating, editing, commenting,

annotating, evaluating, and distributing original contents in social media space

(Lerman, 2007).

• Peer Communication: Communication is essential for knowledge sharing

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(Gordeyeva, 2010). Social media has provided an effective platform for social
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interactions and real-time communications among users in the forms of text

chatting, and video and voice calling.

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2.2 Short Videos for Sharing Creative Skills

Depending on the types of applications, certain forms of media will be shared and
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exchanged on social media. YouTube is for video sharing; Instagram is for picture and

video sharing; Twitter is mainly for text message sharing. New platforms where users can

exchange new kinds of media are developed. Short video has become a popular

communication medium, shared in short video platforms.

Video as a media carrier of information, has been broadly used in knowledge sharing

from social media to Massive Online Open Class (MOOC) platforms. Currently there are

two types of video forms that facilitate different ways of knowledge sharing. Lecture

videos usually present conceptual (declarative) knowledge, whereas tutorials present

how-to (procedural) knowledge (Guo et.al, 2014). Multiple research has shown that

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viewers preferred to watch the knowledge sharing video which is with a short duration.

Guo et.al (2014) found that viewers are more engaged with videos ranging from zero to

three minutes on MOOC platform. Study shows that for the lecture video which introduces

discrete mathematics, videos lasting less than 5 minutes provide better knowledge-

obtaining experiences by improving students’ learning attitude, learning effectiveness,

and learning engagement (Hsin, 2013). Research has showed that, learning with shorter

videos will significantly encourage task-relevant activities and reduce task-irrelevant

activities of students (Szpunar, 2013). Study also revealed when people are obtaining

knowledge through short videos, they would prefer watching skills and experience sharing

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knowledge rather than conceptual knowledge.

2.3
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Popular Short Video Integrated Platforms

Short video platforms have emerged to be the most popular social media among
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millennials in China (Patrick, 2018) with representative applications including TikTok1,

Tencent Weishi2, and Kwai3. Most of the short video platforms are mobile applications,
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where users can create, edit, share, and view short videos. The videos have a

standardized short duration ranging from few seconds to few minutes. Research shows

that the relative convenience of content generation, rapid content transmission, and

emphasis on sociality are the distinct attributes of a short video platform (Zhao, 2015).

1 https://www.tiktok.com/en
2 https://weishi.com/
3 https://www.kwai.com/

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2.3.1 TikTok

In China, TikTok is already one of the fastest growing apps and the most popular music

video community (PR Newswire, 2018). It is especially popular among Internet users

under the age of 30 in China (Patrick, 2018). Beyond China, it has also become a

phenomenon in North America as well as multiple other Asian markets like South Korea,

Japan, and Thailand (PR Newswire, 2018). In June 2018, TikTok announced that the

number of its monthly active users in mainland China have hit 300 million, and the number

of its monthly active users worldwide reached to 500 million (Jon, 2018). The videos on

TikTok can range from 15 seconds to 60 seconds. Figure 1 shows the screenshots of

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TikTok app.
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Figure 1. TikTok, 2019. TikTok App Features Introduction

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2.3.2 Bilibili

Bilibili is a popular video-sharing platform based in China, which is derived from a

Japanese video-sharing website, Niconico 4 . It emphasizes UGC and social activities.

There is no limitation of video duration on Bilibili. The videos on Bilibili can range from few

seconds to few hours. Figure 2 shows the screenshots of Bilibili website.

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Figure 2. Bilibili. (n.d.). Bilibili homepage ©2019 Bilibili. Retrieved March 18, 2019, from
https://www.Bilibili.com/. Screenshot by author.

2.3.3 Instagram

Besides short video platforms, some of the other social media platforms integrate short

video as one of the UGC sharing media forms. Instagram has released the “Instagram

story” feature (Figure 3), which is a personal feed of photos and videos within Instagram

4 https://www.nicovideo.jp/

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and can only exist for 24 hours (Instagram, Inc, 2010). The duration of each story is

limited to 15 seconds. The feature has reached a great success. Now it has reached

more than 400 million active users (GuruFocus.com, 2018). Also, the duration of video

posts is limited to 60 seconds on Instagram.

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Figure 3. Instagram. (n.d.). Instagram story ©2019 Bilibili. Retrieved March 18, 2019, from
https://www.instagram.com/stories/zeazhou/. Screenshot by author.

2.4 Knowledge Sharing in Short Video Sharing Platforms

Statistics show that knowledge sharing is one of the most popular categories of content

on TikTok (CBNData, 2017). The categories of shared knowledge vary from skills sharing

(e.g., creating, experience sharing) to explicit knowledge (e.g., common science) on

TikTok (CBNData, 2017). Su’s study shows that one of the reasons that users would have

a positive attitude on TikTok is that they can learn and obtain many skills and knowledge,

which users consider to be very beneficial in their daily lives (Su, 2018).

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Many researchers have identified users’ knowledge-related behaviors on video sharing

platforms, analyzed users’ experiences, and offered insights on how to optimize the

system of video sharing platforms and videos themselves to improve users’ learning

experiences and meet users’ needs. Monserrat et. al found that the ease of access to

knowledge in comment section will help viewers understand a big picture of knowledge

introduced in the video (Monserrat et al., 2014). Research of Wu et.al has showed that

collaboration is crucial for increasing users’ engagement in knowledge sharing. Users on

a collaborative video platform are more willing to share their opinions and knowledge than

in a traditional forum platform (Wu et al., 2018). These studies have investigated how

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video sharing on MOOC platform would better facilitate sharing and obtaining of
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knowledge. However, there is no discussion explaining how user’s knowledge sharing

behaviors are supported in short video platforms with short videos, system services, and
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interaction design.
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CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH STATEMENT AND METHODS

Short video platforms belong to a social media service that provides users with video

content, mostly user generated, in short durations from a few seconds to a few minutes.

Many current video sharing platforms also integrate standardized short videos. With the

attributions of interaction and collaboration of social media and the entertaining

knowledge sharing and learning experiences of short video, short videos and short video

platforms attract a great number of viewers. However, there are still significant gaps

remaining when it comes to effective learning from an academic perspective, especially

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regarding user expectations for learning creative skills vs. user experiences available in
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short video sharing platforms. This thesis is motivated to understand user behaviors

related to learning and practicing creative skills with the following research questions:
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• What are user expectations regarding creative practices in short video

sharing platforms?
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• What are their actual experiences of learning, practicing, and sharing creative

skills in short video sharing platforms?

• Can we identify any behavior patterns, and further identify any gaps in user

behaviors that are enabled by platforms versus user’s expectations? In

addition, can we design opportunities to bridge the gaps?

This study chose drawing as the specific research topic. The rationale for using the

drawing as an example is due to the amount of drawing knowledge sharing videos that

have been created. According to the data retrieved on November 1 st, 2018, the number

of total views of the videos with “drawing” hashtags has been viewed 4.3 billion times on

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 TikTok. The number of the total views of the videos with “drawing” hashtags is 129 million

on Instagram. Also, there are 214 million videos with “Drawing” as a keyword in the

headers on YouTube. The statistics prove that drawing is one of the most popular topics

on video sharing platform.

This study selected the following video platforms as examples: TikTok, Instagram, and

BILIBILI. The rationale of using these three platforms as an example is that they have a

significant number of users. According to the New York Times, over one billion users are

Instagram users while half a billion users are TikTok users all around the world (Zhong,

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2018). Bilibili as a Chinese video platform has attracted more than 200 million consumers

in China in 2016 (Wang, 2016). The statistics prove that these three video sharing
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platforms are very popular in the market.
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3.1 Design Analysis of Selected Platforms

3.1.1 Information Architecture (IA) Analysis

Information architecture (IA), defined by Rosenfeld and Morville (2006), is “the

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combination of organization, labeling, search, and navigation systems within websites

and intranets”. It represents the user’s needs and the information they pursuit when they

use the website or application. The construction of IA is also based on the user’s

information-seeking behaviors. This study builds up the information architecture of

TikTok and Bilibili to understand how the platforms intend for their users to post and

respond to videos and how the system structure influence user behaviors and

interactions in the platforms.

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