Video sharing as a user tactic of empowerment: Analysis of social media videos featuring users’ actions on everyday objects

Abstract

This study centers on TikTok videos, which serve as a medium for users to express their active interactions with products. These videos offer insights into users’ everyday lives and practices, yet design researchers find challenges in recognizing this content due to its unique verbal and visual language, which is distinct from conventional design terminology and literature. This paper highlights the userempowering videos while emphasizing their capacity to hold innovative design ideas. The primary goal is to familiarize design researchers with this content and enhance its visibility and recognition. To achieve this goal, we address the question: How do users express their experiences of active product use in TikTok videos? In a systematic TikTok search, using a balanced set of everyday objects as keywords, 79 videos were gathered that demonstrate an active user-product relationship. Video content analysis was employed, leading to the identification of six themes that describe the expression ways of active use: “exposing,” “exploring,” “suggesting,” “making,” “testing,” and “narrating.” The themes reveal a broad spectrum of content, from vocal product critiques to unique design experiments. The study shows that seemingly unrelated content can contain implicit meanings with valuable information about design and use. Contrary to the embracing approaches of conventional user-centered design, the videos include peer criticism, where users criticize the actions of other users. By enabling users to exchange information independently, videos on TikTok empower users and carry the potential to be a continuously expanding and up-to-date data pool that could be used in design research.