Back to blogs
By Aastha Dedania • Product Designer at Pixster Studio • 8 September 2026 • 5 min read
Balancing Functionality, Engagement & UX in Captions AI.
A Product Design case study on simplifying a complex mobile video-editing experience.
The Real Test Started After We Shipped
Designing a product is one thing; seeing how people actually use it is another.
When we redesigned Captions, we had our assumptions about what would make the experience simpler and easier. The real test began after the new experience reached users. Their feedback and behaviour helped us understand what was actually working.
This is the story of what we changed, why we changed it, and what we learned after putting the design in people’s hands.
Key Takeaways
Make the next step easy to understand
Don’t make users figure out the product before they can use it. Keep the important action clear and let the interface guide them naturally.
Keep the functions, remove the extra effort
You don’t always need fewer features. Sometimes you just need fewer decisions. Presets, smart defaults and progressive disclosure can keep an experience powerful without making it complicated.
Design for the person using it
A mobile screen isn’t just a canvas. Think about thumb reach, touch targets, action placement and how the product feels in real-world use.
When One Screen Does It All
Balancing Functionality, Engagement & UX in Captions AI
01 — The problem: The app existed, but the experience wasn’t simple enough
Captions already had the core functionality, but users had to work harder than necessary to reach the final result. Our focus was to reduce that friction and make the experience easier, faster and more enjoyable.
02 — Start with the goal, not the features
We looked at the journey from a creator’s perspective. Instead of designing around features, we focused on making each next step easier.
03 — One screen, many jobs
The challenge was fitting video preview, caption editing, styling and other controls into one small mobile experience. We solved this through hierarchy — keeping the result at the center while giving each action the right level of importance.
04 — Make mobile UX feel natural
We designed with one-handed use in mind, considering thumb reach, touch targets and action placement. We also used progressive disclosure and immediate feedback to make interactions feel simpler and more natural.
05 — Don’t make users design the design
Instead of asking users to build every caption style themselves, we introduced ready-to-use presets inspired by social-media trends. This gave users a polished starting point while still leaving room for customization.
06 — The redesign was more than a UI refresh
We questioned navigation, hierarchy and interaction effort before touching the visual layer. Through multiple iterations and real product constraints, we focused on the changes that could make the biggest difference.
07 — From a better-looking product to a better-performing product
The redesign made the experience clearer and easier to navigate, reducing friction across the core creation journey while keeping the functionality users needed.
The impact was visible in user behaviour: engagement increased by ~28.5%, while sessions per user increased by 20% after the redesign.
This showed us that improving UX wasn’t just a visual exercise — making the product simpler encouraged users to engage with it more.
08 — What other designers can take away
Start with the user’s goal, not the feature list. Reduce decisions without removing control, and always design for the person actually using the product.
09 — Before → After: From feature-led to user-led
Before: The experience had the right functionality, but too many actions competed for attention, making the next step harder to understand.
After: Clearer hierarchy, simpler interactions and better reachability made the journey easier to follow — users could focus on creating instead of figuring out the interface.
Great products don’t have to feel complicated. Good UX gets out of the way and lets people focus on what they’re creating.
MORE BLOGS
