I was always very skeptical of TikTok. Then I tried it.
And it didn’t disappoint. As I scrolled through for the first time I realised something really mischievous and dark.
The swipe back gesture wasn’t working. Swiping left to right is typically a gesture that takes us backwards. But instead of exiting the current video it was actually taking me to the next video.
TikTok is taking advantage of the conventional swiping back habit that we have all built from years of social media use. In this case it added just enough friction to prevent me leaving the app and continue scrolling for longer. By the time you've learnt the new way to exit a video you've already been scrolling long enough to have picked up a TikTok scrolling habit. While it definitely doesn't make users feel good, it's a sure way to speed up habit development.
Habit hijacking can be an ethical design strategy in circumstances where it helps the user to accomplish their goals, but this is clearly being used to trick users into spending more time on the site.
TikTok is taking advantage of the conventional swiping back habit that we have all built from years of social media use. In this case it added just enough friction to prevent me leaving the app and continue scrolling for longer. By the time you've learnt the new way to exit a video you've already been scrolling long enough to have picked up a TikTok scrolling habit. While it definitely doesn't make users feel good, it's a sure way to speed up habit development.
Habit hijacking can be an ethical design strategy in circumstances where it helps the user to accomplish their goals, but this is clearly being used to trick users into spending more time on the site.
Analyse your users' regular habits and ask yourself if you can possibly divert one of those habits into a new, better behaviour (Important: this new behaviour should be in line with your user’s goals).
It may seem smart in the short-term but this less than ethical use case leaves users frustrated, which will determine TikTok’s fate in the long term.
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