Overview
Designed a contextual trust-signal system for YouTube Shorts — surfacing things like AI-generated content, location, and creator monetization as lightweight, tap-to-expand badges overlaid directly on the video, without interrupting the swipe-based viewing experience. Increased perceived transparency by 70% and user trust by 85% in testing.
Introduction
Short-form video has changed how people consume information — content is encountered, evaluated, and acted on within seconds, and users scroll rather than explore. That speed collides with an increasingly complex content landscape: AI-generated media, unclear sourcing, and creators monetizing directly within a video all raise the same underlying question — what am I actually looking at, and can I trust it? Existing disclosure information, when it existed at all, lived buried in a video's description — invisible to someone swiping through a feed in real time. YouTube's own team hit the same wall: when they overhauled their platform-wide AI disclosure system in 2026, they moved the label onto the video itself, specifically because a description nobody opens doesn't do its job.
Problem
How might we enable real-time understanding in fast-moving content environments? Evaluating trust and intent takes active effort, which directly conflicts with passive, swipe-based viewing — so critical context, even when the platform already has it, was never actually seen by users.
Research
Studied how people actually watch Shorts: users have low tolerance for anything that interrupts a fluid feed, actively avoid tapping overlays mid-playback (watch, swipe, repeat, rarely pausing to explore context), and don't equate likes or follows with trust — they wanted legitimacy signals up front, especially for news-related content. Full research detail is in the presentation deck.
"
70% of Gen Z and Millennials consume news via social video, with low tolerance for friction or skepticism
Ideation
Tested two approaches directly with users before landing on the final design: an always-visible context banner (users found it cluttered and intrusive, competing with the content itself) and a pause-triggered context card (too dependent on a behavior — pausing — that most Shorts viewers simply don't do). Full exploration and user quotes are in the presentation deck.
"
This approach provides context on demand, avoiding disruption while promoting transparency.
Solution
1. A tap-light badge, overlaid on the video itself — Landed on a subtle badge (flagging things like AI-generated content, location, or creator monetization) placed directly on the video, not in the description below it. Users can tap it to reveal deeper context in a description layer, but nothing is forced into view. This is the same placement decision YouTube's own team landed on when they moved AI disclosure labels onto the video itself platform-wide in 2026 — a description nobody opens isn't a disclosure.
2. One signal at a time, ranked in real time — Rather than surfacing every available signal, the system detects and ranks all relevant context, then shows only the single most relevant one for that moment — keeping cognitive load low without hiding what matters.
Impacts
+70% increase in perceived transparency and +85% increase in user trust, achieved without disrupting the natural swipe-based viewing behavior. Designed to scale across diverse content types and signal categories — AI-generated content, location, and creator monetization among them.
