Evaluate a User-Requested Seek Bar for Jumping Within TikTok Videos

You are a product manager at TikTok. Users have sent feedback asking for a video scrubber: a control that lets a viewer drag through a video to jump forward or back to a specific moment. What would you do with this request? ```hint Look past the request A feature request describes a solution, not the problem behind it. Work out which viewers ask for it and what they are trying to do in those moments before deciding whether a scrubber, or something else, is the right response. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - How much of this feedback is there, and does it come from a broad set of viewers or a narrow group, such as people watching tutorials or longer videos? - Does any seek control exist in the app today, for example on longer videos only, or does the request cover every video? - What form do users have in mind: a draggable progress bar, tap-to-skip gestures, or jump points inside a video? - Is there a current team goal the decision should serve, such as growing viewing of longer videos? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Validating the feedback first: how much there is, which segments it comes from and the problem it points to. - Fit with TikTok's full-screen, swipe-to-the-next-video experience and with its growing catalog of longer videos, including when a scrubber could make things worse. - Effects on every party: viewers, creators whose videos rely on a hook and a payoff, advertisers, and the signals the recommendation feed learns from. - Alternatives that meet the same need, and a scoped first version with a clear rationale. - An experiment with a primary metric, guardrails, a sound test design and a decision rule for shipping. ### Follow-up Questions - Scrubbing lets viewers skip to the end of a video. How would that affect the watch-completion signals used to rank videos, and what would you do about it? - The experiment shows more viewing of longer videos but fewer videos watched per session and slightly lower ad impressions. Do you ship? - Would you show creators where viewers jump to in their videos, and how might that change what they make?