Opus Clip
Bringing AI video clipping to creators who create on their phones
Product Design
Mobile App
2024–2025
Timeline
2024–2025
Team
Role
Product Designer
Skills
UX Research, UI/UX Design, Interaction Design, Figma
The brief
Opus Clip was growing on web. Creators were on their phones.
When I joined, Opus Clip had millions of web users but no mobile app. The next step for the business was clear: bring AI video clipping to the phone. The real question was how.
Solution
We brought an AI desktop tool to mobile by leaving most of it behind
A 4-step app: upload a video, set preferences, pick a generated clip, and post. No timeline, no frame-by-frame editing. As a content creator on the side, I was designing for people like me.
Upload a video
Set preferences
Pick a generated clip
Share or auto-post
What I did
01
Helped turn the web app into a mobile flow: what to keep, what to cut, and what to condense into one step.
02
Designed the homepage and the upload flow for every source: the photo album, or a link for creators who want to cut videos they already posted on YouTube.
03
Designed the wait states that follow upload, queuing, processing, and done, so creators always know where their project is, even outside the app. I also designed the upgrade prompt for a faster queue.
04
Audited the web app, mapped the user flow, tested competitor apps, and designed the full mobile flow with my team of 4, with weekly reviews from the Opus Clip team.
Audit
We started by auditing the web app we had to adapt
Before designing for mobile, we audited the Opus Clip web app screen by screen: dashboard, login, upload, processing, clip preview, and editing. We kept the four problems that mattered most on a phone.
What we found
01
Dashboard: only two main actions, yet people still had to scroll to reach them, wasting screen space.
02
Clip preview: no full-screen view, a timeline with no hint it could be adjusted, and no clue where liked clips went.
03
Brand templates: names like “Preset template 1” said nothing, and the feature changed more than templates, like colors and fonts.
04
Processing: people left the page and waited for an email, unsure if they could come back or what would happen if the email never came.
Key insight: the web app assumed people would stay and look closely: scroll the dashboard, decode template names, keep the tab open. On a phone, none of that holds, so each problem became a key change.
Mobile creators
Mobile creators want it now, not perfect
Desktop creators
Filmmakers and professionals with 30+ minutes available. They prioritize precision and control.
Mobile creators
Shooting directly on their phones and editing during breaks (commutes, lunch), 5–10 minutes max. They want fast results over perfect results.
Key insight: desktop creators ask “How do I make this perfect?” Mobile creators ask “How do I make this now?” So we had to pick one focus for mobile and leave the rest behind.
First attempt
Our first flow copied the web app
We mapped the mobile flow from what worked on web and presented it to our design lead.
He pushed back immediately:
"You can't just translate our web tool to mobile app. This flow is too complex for mobile users."
He was right. We had designed for desktop habits, not for creators editing in short breaks.
Competitive gap
Winning mobile video apps do one job well
So we studied how mobile video apps handle this: VEED (clean, subtitle-focused), Captions (feature-rich for pros), and Riverside (works across devices). The pattern was clear. Apps that win on mobile don’t copy desktop. They pick one core workflow. Riverside also gave us an idea we kept: let users leave the waiting page and notify them when the video is ready.
What we cut
Instead of shrinking the editor, we cut it
To keep clipping fast, we removed frame-by-frame editing and timeline controls, and let the AI do that work.
Iteration
From paper sketches to a flow that asks less
We sorted must-haves from nice-to-haves, then sketched how each step could look:
Full flow
From a long video to a posted clip, in six steps
Here is the whole mobile flow we designed as a team. The AI does the heavy lifting in the middle, and creators step in only where their taste matters: picking the clip and polishing it. Compared with web, five areas changed the most.
Step 01
Import
Paste a link or pick a video from the camera roll.
Step 02
Set preferences
Caption language, brand template, timeframe, and clip length, all on one page.
Step 03
Wait
The AI queues and processes the video. Creators can leave and get notified when it’s done.
Step 04
Pick a clip
Clips come back with a virality score. Like the good ones, skip the rest.
Step 05
Edit
Not quite right? Adjust layout, captions, font, overlay, and emojis, then save it as a brand template.
Step 06
Post
Download it, or auto-post straight to TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Key changes
Five places where web habits didn’t fit a phone
For each area, we asked what the web version assumed, like a big screen, a mouse, or a tab left open, and redesigned it for a phone and a five-minute break.
01 Navigation: a hidden menu became a home screen
The challenge: On web, the main menu sat under the user avatar, and the dashboard needed scrolling for just two actions. A phone has even less room.
Our approach: I designed the homepage around Projects: Liked and Edited folders on top, recent videos below, and a bottom bar with Create in the middle, always one tap away.
02 Upload: from a drop zone to where videos already live
The challenge: On web, creators paste a link or drag in a file. On a phone there’s nothing to drag. Videos sit in the camera roll, or are already posted on YouTube.
Our approach: I designed one upload sheet with two clear paths, photo album or link, plus a tip on which videos work best. Creators who already posted on YouTube can paste the link and cut it into Shorts.
03 Preferences: many pages became one
The challenge: web shows every setting at once on a big screen. Our first mobile version split them across several pages so no screen felt crowded, but setup felt slow for people who just wanted a quick cut.
Our approach: we put every choice on one page, ordered by how important it is and how often people change it.
04 Waiting: from a tab left open to a phone in a pocket
The challenge: On web, people leave the tab open or wait for an email, and our audit found nothing told them whether they could leave. On mobile, they leave in seconds.
Our approach: I designed the wait so it’s safe to walk away: a clear progress screen, an upgrade prompt for a faster queue, a Live Activity on the lock screen, and a push notification when clips are ready.
In the app
Safe to leave
Right after upload, a sheet shows progress and says creators can safely leave. I designed the upgrade prompt for a faster queue.
On the lock screen
Queuing, Processing, Done
A Live Activity tracks the project outside the app, so no one has to keep it open.
When it’s done
Back to the clips
A push notification tells creators their clips are ready and brings them straight back.
05 Preview and edit: from a timeline to a few taps
The challenge: Web shows clips in a list with a small player, and edits on a timeline. Our audit found people couldn’t preview full screen, and names like “Preset template 1” meant nothing.
Our approach: Clips play full screen with labeled Like, Download, Edit, and Auto Post. Editing became presets, layout, captions, font, overlay, and emojis, saved as a named brand template.
Final design
The AI does the editing. The creator stays in control.
Step 01 · My focus
Homepage and upload
I designed the homepage and the upload flow. New creators land on an empty Projects page with one clear + button. From there they pick a video from the photo album or paste a link, for example a YouTube video they already posted and want to cut into Shorts.
Step 02
Set preferences once
Caption language, brand template, clip length, and timeframe all live on one page, so the AI knows what to make.
Step 03
Pick a generated clip
Generated clips come back with only the info that matters, so creators can scan and choose in seconds.
Step 04
Download or auto-post
Save the clip, or post it straight to TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and more.
While the AI works · My focus
Know when it’s ready
AI takes a few minutes, and mobile creators won’t wait in the app. A Live Activity on the lock screen shows Queuing, Processing, and Done, and a notification brings them back when their clips are ready.
Outcome
#1 AI video clipping tool
A few months later, Opus Clip launched its first app
OpusClip became the #1 AI video clipping tool and expanded to 8 languages globally.
The official OpusClip iOS app launched with the streamlined 4-step flow: create projects, upload videos, browse AI-generated results, and share directly to TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms.
Early App Store reviews were encouraging: "It's about time we got the app. But I think I like it better than desktop" and "This app helps me infinitely." One creator shared: "Using this app gave me 100 views in like 10 minutes."
Learnings
Three things I’d bring to my next AI product
Lesson 01
Start from where people are
Our first flow copied the web app. Now I ask where, and for how long, people will use a product before I sketch.
Lesson 02
The wait is part of the experience
With AI, queuing and processing matter as much as the result, especially once people leave the app.
Lesson 03
Cutting is a design decision
Removing the timeline made the core flow faster. Knowing what to leave out is as important as what to add.
