Redesigning Instagram — a case study
Introduction:
Instagram is a very popular app, it is interesting how the app has grown from just a medium for sharing photos to a place where people get inspired, personally, apart from Behance and Pinterest, Instagram is a place where I get inspired, and as from many people, Instagram is used almost daily. The app provides the opportunity to follow all kinds of accounts ranging from, friends, family, some related to our profession, some related to our hobbies and interests.
Design Approach
The 5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process Highlighted by International Design Foundation was adopted throughout this design, although some stages where not executed due to resources constraints.
Preliminary Research
The research conducted during the process of redesigning the app indicated that when we are allowed to make our decision and to choose from a wider range of options, this makes us feel in control. The new Instagram concept focuses on redesigning the experience of the app to give the user more control of the way they present themselves to the public, and also to be able to decide what they see.
The new Instagram concept focuses on redesigning the experience of the app to give the user more control of the way they present themselves to the public, and also to be able to decide what they see.
Although this project was about redesigning a product or service that frustrates me personally, before diving in, I had to be sure that this was a common issue, so I conducted mini-research in which structured questions were asked. I ended up discovering that almost all my respondents faced a similar situation.
Besides, I also needed to test my assumptions about the solutions that I thought would tackle these problems. The survey I conducted revealed that 98% of my respondents would like the solutions, the questions were close-ended questions, which were tailored toward informing the users about the solutions. For example, below are some questions asked in during the survey:
- Would you like Instagram to adopt a feature like…
- If you are allowed to customize your profile page, would you feel your are in control?
- If you are allowed to customize your profile page, would you feel you are more creative?
Demographic
The people who are likely to be affected by this are mostly the creatives, Millennials and the Gen-Zs. To be more specific, I interviewed three of my peers to get a better understanding of how they use Instagram, two people were selected from the creative industry; a graphic designer, a photographer, and a non-creative was also selected — someone who doesn’t use Instagram from any profession.
Discovering the Problem:
In the age where the new trend followed by almost every app is “Infinite scroll” some user experience designer refer to this as “scroll to death”, although this was adopted in the name of giving the user more content to feed on, this has also posed a lot of pain, especially on people who would like to customize their feed to view some certain things. When scrolling through Instagram, especially when you have followed thousands of accounts, this can be time-consuming and frustrating, particularly when you are looking for some certain contents, this can feel unproductive when most of the content seen isn’t important to you at that time.
Another pain-point that was identified is when users have to upload multiple pictures in a sequence, for them to be arranged in a specific way.
Design Challenges
1. To redesign the news feed in a way that the user would be able to determine what they see.
2. To give users an easier method to arrange their pictures on their profile page when uploading.
3. To allow the users to take control of how they present themselves to the public, by allow them to make small creative decisions.
Interviews
There are a couple of reasons why this step was so important:
- I wanted to know how people felt about the current state of Instagram, it was so funny to notice that a lot of people do not see any problem with the current state until it was pointed out to the users. When people were asked the questions by starting with “What If”, people were able to spot the problems and were able to articulate their problem.
- To help me create a persona which would guide most of the decision process during the design
Insights
- People would like to have more control over what they see
- People would love an easier way to arrange the uploaded pictures.
- People feel more creative and in control when they are allowed to pick from a wider range of options.
Personas
Pain Points as highlighted By users
Content Overload which sometimes makes users miss what they want to see.
Impossible to rearrange pictures on profile after it has been uploaded.
Make the profile page more dynamic for the users to able to customize it to suit their taste.
Solution
- The solution is to make Instagram feed tailored following users need by providing a filter for posts
- To provide a way for the user to be able to rearrange picture on their profile after it has been uploaded.
- Make the profile page more dynamic.
Interface Design — Instagram Feed
The homepage was designed with an overlay from the right side, the overlay was selected for various reasons. Considering the fact that Instagram teams have done a great job in designing the App, the overlay was a perfect choice in other not to mess up the aesthetic intelligence of the app.
Also in the name of accessibility which is very important in User experience design, I decided to integrate the principle of “happier thumb”, to make life easier for the people using smart devices with long and big screens, and with the release of “larger than my hand devices” the top part of the screen is really hard to reach, and also to avoid difficulty for people with shorter thumbs and one hand, I placed most of the important content and the most used element at the region called the “sweet spot”
for more details on the happier thumb principle in UX deisgn you can click on this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8AZYtbS8s0&t=24s
For users to be able to customize what they see in their Instagram feed, there are three main filters.
The news feed can be filter by date; Months, weeks or by days. This is to tackle the challenge of having to scroll a long way down before one could access previous content. I go through the frustration of having to scroll through endless contents that are not useful for me at that moment before I can get the contents that have been previously uploaded by various accounts I look up to for inspirations, and the survey reviewed that I am not the only one that goes through this frustration. The new design for the feed is illustrated on the left side of the image above.
The user can also filter with #hashtags, The user can search for #hashtags or filter with saved #hashtags. This is used because it is a way people use to optimize their posts to be seen during the search. The app can also suggest from the content often viewed by the users, this should be easy, especially in the age of Artificial Intelligence.
The third method is filtering with saved lists by the users. While scrolling through the feed-in Instagram, if the user comes across a post on an account that posts a particular content they want to see frequently, the user could easily click on the existing option icon on Instagram to add the post or the user to a new or existing list. This is illustrated on the right side of the image above
Instagram Profile — Picture upload
The second and the most frustrating part of Instagram is when you have to upload multiple pictures in a certain sequence for you to be able to arrange them in a particular way.
To solve this problem I borrowed two common concept from the field of psychology, which are: Gamification and Fun Theory.
According to Wikipedia Gamification is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts, it also uses or applying the characteristics of game elements. This concept was adopted for a couple of reasons, to make the newly designed interface to be perceived to be more easy to use, because perception goes a long way. Research in psychology has proven that when people perceive a task to be easy, there is high likelihood they get the task done.
The second concept Which is Fun theory which is a behavioral technique to get people to change their behavior, by making the new behavior fun and novel.
I was able to integrate this in my design process by making the profile page look like a puzzle, with this users would find it very easy to arrange their pictures on their profile and have fun in the process.
The solution was designed to tackle the problem by considering different professions and how different people use Instagram for different purposes. For instance, making references to the persona designed at the onset of this project, the newly designed interface would work well for both the photographer, who might want to arrange his pictures on his page in a particular way or the graphic designer, who seeks to take control of who he presents himself to the public, likewise the individual that uses Instagram for self-promotion
Users can access this option by just long clicking and holding on any picture on their profile to be able to rearrange the pictures in anyway they want.
lastly, imagine you can use your profile to tell a story, to fit your personality, likes and dislikes and hobbies, imagine what it would feel like to treat Instagram profile page as Canva where you can demonstrate and express your creativity.
In supporting the recent trend which started some years ago, I decided to democratize creativity by giving the user more control
I designed the profile page to feature different themes and gives the user the ability to create new themes. This is as a result of the insight I got during the research process, users believe that they are in control whenever they are provided with a range of options to select from, and I also decided to add this feature, and also 90 percent of my respondents believed that they are more creative within a flexible system and also when they are allowed to make decisions themselves
On an ending note I added something I really think would be cool for Instagram to have, I tagged it auto grid, this is a feature that allows you to split you picture into grid by selecting the grid numbers, I think this would be useful for designers and other creatives who would like to upload a whole picture in for of grid, instead of pre-editing the picture in a design software, this feature makes it very easy
Summary:
Design Approach — The 5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process Highlighted by International Design Foundation was adopted.
Problem: … when scrolling through Instagram, especially when you have followed thousands of accounts, this can be time-consuming and frustrating, particularly when you are looking for some certain contents, this can feel unproductive when most of the content seen at that moment isn’t important to you at that time. Another pain-point that was identified is when users have to upload multiple pictures in a sequence, for them to be arranged in a specific way.
Pain Points as highlighted By users: Content Overload which sometimes makes users miss what they want to see and it is Impossible to rearrange pictures on profile after it has been uploaded.
Task: To redesign the experience of the app to give the user control of the way they present themselves to the public, and also to be able to decide what they see.
Theoretical Framework: Gamification and Fun Theory
Solution: The solution is to make Instagram feed tailored following users need by providing a filter for post and to provide a way for the user to be able to re-arrange picture on their profile after it has been uploaded
Thanks for your time.
We are a product of our influences, below are the lists of people, designs, websites, books, and resources that inspired my process.
References:
Vincent Palermo — https://www.vinpalermo.com/portfolio/ono
The Need for a Sense of Control — http://changingminds.org/explanations/needs/control.htm
Instagram redesign — a case study by Linh Hoang — https://uxdesign.cc/instagram-a-case-study-e96d086e52c1
Instagram — UX Design Concept to Customize feed and Save time by Dalsukh Tapaniya — https://medium.muz.li/instagram-ux-design-concept-to-customize-feed-and-save-time-783628cfb664
Design approach — International Design Foundation https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/5-stages-in-the-design-thinking-process
Happier thumb principle — ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8AZYtbS8s0&t=24s
Gamification — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification
Fun Theory — https://www.familyadventureproject.org/fun-theory/
Stephen P. Anderson — Seductive Interaction Design_ Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences (Voices That Matter) -New Riders Press (2011).pdf
Democratizing Creativity — https://www.jstor.org/stable/3684669?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
https://medium.com/swlh/the-democratization-of-creativity-ce6bf785163a
