Why is Instagram so popular?
I really don’t know.
Whilst Instagram was blowing up about 18 months ago, I wondered what all the fuss was about. Upon researching the site, I realised it wasn't for me and that people were mainly using it for it’s vintage, easy to apply filters. I happened to be of the opinion that Instagram’s filters are horrid. There is no denying that vintage/retro is ‘in’ right now, but Instagram missed the boat by a mile with it’s tacky offerings.
So, I decided against starting an Instagram account (despite all of my friends being on it) and continued on with my life.
Having not given it a second thought for the past year or so, I was randomly invited by a friend, via email, to join Instagram. Any other time of the day and I’d have just deleted the email and moved on. But this email came just moments after posting a free HTC One mockup. I posted the mockup on my Tumblr and on Reddit (r/design). Obviously, even when you’re giving out something for free, you want it to be used and you want it to get as much exposure as possible. That’s natural.
You can probably see where I’m going with this. It made sense to give Instagram a shot and see if my work could gain any traction. After all, it is an image sharing site, so why wouldn't it be the perfect platform for me to post my designs?
Now, you might think that I’ll go on to write about how poor Instagram’s been for my work and that I didn't get any views, no conversions blah blah. This isn’t the case. I’m actually way too early on to gauge whether it’ll be worthwhile and whether I’ll see any beneficial impact. I don’t even have a single like on any of my pictures; that isn’t what’s bothering me.What I am here to write about is the design of Instagram itself — the webapp and the mobile app.
I am absolutely astounded that this is one of the most dominant social sites in the world. It lacks the basic functionality one would expect from a photo-sharing app and the webapp is an utter abomination.
The webapp
Whilst I understand that Instagram was initially a photo-sharing service for mobile users, there is no excuse for having a webapp as poor as the current one. It’s three years on from launch and the webapp can only really be used for viewing images, commenting and liking. What more than that would you want anyway?
Well, I’ve noticed that I’ve amassed an entire 12 followers, but who are they? I’ll just click on the followers li- oh. Surely there’s a way to check out who my new followers are… nope.
Okay, so I can’t check who I’m following and who’s following me, big deal. The main focus of the site isn’t checking followers, it’s sharing photos. I’ll just share this cool pict- oh. My eyes are darting across the screen in search for the upload button. It doesn’t exist.
I had to download a third party app (Gramblr) to be able to upload photos.
It is beyond me why this functionality is locked to the mobile app.
The mobile app
While the mobile app is vastly superior to it’s desktop brother, it is also lacking some of the most basic features handheld consumers have come to expect.
Fast becoming one of the most recognised mobile gestures, pull to refresh should be part of the app. Ditching the refresh button would offer greater flexibility with the UI design, possibly opening up more screen space for content.
Pull to refresh is a relatively minor gripe with the mobile app. The biggest downfall involves probably the most recognised mobile gesture: swiping through pictures. I remember when I got the first iPhone and people just loved swiping through pictures. It utterly baffles me why this isn’t implemented. If you’re on your homepage/feed, you cant even click on the photos that show up. You have to navigate your way to that person’s profile where you’ll be faced with a wall of dinky photos. Here you can click on an image and get a full screen shot, but then you have to click back to the wall of photos and choose another. It’s a tedious process if you want to check out a persons whole collection.
What’s really strange is that you can click through (with arrows) someones photos on the webapp.
So, to get the full functionality, you have to use both in tandem?
You’re all grown up now Instagram. No longer an app used just for its filters, but a photo sharing platform. Get your shit together.
Last quick groan: No editing is annoying.
