What’s Happening: The Dilemma of Instagram

Our summer of 2022 was accompanied by heatwaves and also — heated backlash over Instagram’s updates. The new features and updates were not taken very well by users worldwide, and people are asking Instagram to stop. The Instagram post ‘MAKE INSTAGRAM INSTAGRAM AGAIN’ by photographer Tati Bruening (@illumitati) has accumulated over 2 million likes and been reshared by celebrities and mega influencers including Kylie Jenner. The petition she started has also received more than 300,000 signatures on change.org. In this article, we would like to examine what Instagram has done and how it could do it better, from a UX perspective.

Back in May, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, announced to the public that Instagram is going to test some new features to create more immersive experiences. The test revolves around the main Home Feed, including focusing more on video, making posts full screen and recommending more content to users.

Full Screen

The users who were part of the test saw their Home feed posts presented in a full-screen 9:16 ratio, extending to the like, comment, share section. This new interface reminds people of TikTok, Instagram’s rival which saw incredibly rapid growth in the past few years.

Video Focus

Starting off as a photo-sharing social media platform, photo has been the focus of Instagram although the app introduced videos and stories to give users more choices and to compete with newcomers. Rolling out the test, Instagram was hoping to make video the emphasis of the Home feed.

Feed Recommendation

According to Adam, Instagram would like to recommend more ‘things we (Instagram) think you (users) might love but you might not have heard of yet.’ That means the Home Feed would show not only content from accounts you follow but also posts that Instagram’s algorithm think you would be interested in.

These potential updates alarmed many users that Instagram might be on track to make itself something they don’t want it to be. The followings are the protesters’ opinions in summary:

• They are against the full screen feature because it’s TikToky, and there is no need for another TikTok as it already exists.
• They are against the Home feed being video-focused because photo was the core of Instagram.
• They are against feed recommendation because the posts from friends are what they want to see on the Home feed. The Explore page has been providing the extra content they need.

Instagram has now reversed some of the changes seeing the scene they caused. However, the incident is of interest to our UX consultants, and here are their thoughts from an external point of view.

First of all, to avoid going down an unfavoured route of users, the advice from our UX consultant Antonia is conducting more user research. Carry out primary research and compare the viewpoints from ordinary people and design/social media professionals. By doing so, it shows whether the opinions of two groups are aligned, and leads the decision makers to consider whose opinion is more important if not. The research could also incorporate secondary research, including, for example, the observations of UX UI trends that people are fond of.

As many users are not sold on Instagram’s feed recommendation, UX consultant Antonia noticed that the algorithm might be overly reactive and sensitive at this stage such that a casual search or like could result in unwanted recommendations of the same topic all over the feed. Therefore she suggests giving users more control of the content. Adding tick boxes or similar designs that allow users to express their interest would help the algorithm learn and feed users with what they really want to see. With right interesting content, it is natural that users would spend more time on the app and engage more, which is presumably goals Instagram wants to achieve.

Although Instagram’s update turned out to be turbulent and put it into a dilemma, it’s not impossible for the social media giant to win users’ heart back. Antonia points out that Instagram has made some successful changes throughout the past few years, such as the emoji comment which encourages more interaction and engagement. The confidence is there to witness Instagram’s comeback.

UX Connections, the UX agency with UX/UI consultants to help your digital product succeed.

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