History of major design changes across popular mobile apps

A group chat that tells the stories of design changes across the top apps.

Published in

UX Collective

5 min readMar 22, 2020

The design changes in major apps such as Spotify, Instagram, Facebook, and more were told through a group chat. My friends and I unintentionally began sharing major changes we noticed on apps we used daily in 2018. As we set out on a journey to become Product Designers that summer, it connected us to our design brain and to each other.

The following design changes were tested by their respective companies for short periods of time and some have become permanent features today in 2020.

Welcome to 2018. A time where design went off the rails!

September 1st, 2018: Facebook Comment Upvoting

Giving the user the ability to give their input on the most “thoughtful” comments.

Facebook comment section. Users can upvote or downvote a comment on the right hand side of the comment bubble.

🌟Benefits:

Gives the user an additional way to interact with a comment
Empowers someone to engage with content that would not normally comment

👎Negatives:

Why does the tooltip tell you to downvote something that is rude? It encourages a rude comment or the ability for it to live on a platform
In a popular comment section of a video or influencer, it will be hard to discover more genuine comments rather than those that show popular opinions

September 7, 2018: Instagram Contextual Replies

Suggested replies to Instagram posts based on your most used emojis.

Contextual replies that show your most used emojis above the text bar as you go to reply to a feed post. — Instagram Contextual Replies — Comments

🌟Benefits:

Saves the user time
Shows the power of personalization

👎Negatives:

Questions if the interaction is meaningful as it encourages emojis as opposed to verbal feedback
Can be creepy to the user if the design seems much smarter

October 7th, 2018: Snapchat copies Instagram Stories Layout

Snapchat users can view their current stories in a card format.

Snapchat on admin side. You can see all viewers of your story and card format for your following stories you posted. — Snapchat Stories — User’s View

🌟Benefits:

Ability to quickly preview stories without clicking through individual stories
Consistency to other ephemeral platforms

👎Negatives:

The majority of the space is not used for any type of conversation or analytics for the user. If users have many followers is this use of space beneficial?

October 7th, 2018: Spotify Music Sharing in iMessage

Share a song via iMessage in a conversation.

Spotify integration in iMessage allows you to search for a song to send in a message to a friend. — Spotify in iMessage

🌟Benefits:

Quick and easy for a user to share a song in the moment of a text conversation

👎Negatives:

Does not get the user back on Spotify’s app

October 30th: Spotify Takes Political Action

Pop-up message to bring users to a playlist to listen to as they go vote.

Spotify pop-up that takes you to a playlist or allows you to dismiss the reminder that midterm elections are approaching. — Spotify Pop-Up

🌟Benefits:

Spotify is focusing on design that provides social value

👎Negatives:

It does not give actionable information about voting. It targets a user that is informed and only provides a playlist.

November 8th: Uber Adds Languages

Uber provides information about the driver’s languages.

Uber map view as rider is on their ride. Shows the driver’s photo, star rating, and list of languages beside it. — Uber Rider’s View

🌟Benefits:

Makes the rider feel more comfortable to know the driver speaks a similar language

👎Negatives:

The design occupies a lot of space to list the languages. How valuable is it to the user?

November 11th, 2018: Instagram uses Pop-Ups

Pop-up to take the user to a website.

Pop-up to get the user to click on a link above the comment section. — Instagram Shopping Pop-Ups

🌟Benefits:

Brings users to shop related content to the brand’s page
Notifies the user that the page has a website which helps them save time by eliminating time to discover it on page’s profile

👎Negatives:

The link takes the user off the IG app

December 1st, 2018: IG Close Friends

Add specific users to your “close friends” list to share stories to your inner circle.

Instagram Close Friends — User Side on Stories

🌟Benefits:

Strengthens relationships with your inner circle
Provides a more light-weight way to share your daily moments

👎Negatives:

Decreases post to your larger following
Can be harmful to know you are not on someone’s close friend list

December 19th, 2018: IG Exploring with Hashtags

One of the explore page options a category to explore further through a hashtag.

🌟Benefits:

Focused explorations on categories to create a better way for users to discover new content and accounts

👎Negatives:

Unclear if the user has the option to change or explore through the hashtag

December 27th, 2018: Instagram’s Horizontal Scroll

The messages below sum it up.

Screenshot of texts that show reactions to the IG update showing surprise and frustration. — I am not ok

Instagram changed from a vertical scroll to a fixed horizontal scroll.

🌟Benefits:

Priorities well-being to break the addictive vertical scroll
Created a lot of buzz on all platforms where people were discussing the design decision

👎Negatives:

Breaks interaction patterns dramatically that confuses the user
A decrease in time spent on user — bad for IG’s business
The progress bar does not show accurate representations of the

To Sum 2018 Up:

My group chat with four friends started a timeline to show how design changes from apps we used daily changed across time. When you are using these applications be mindful of these changes and start your own conversations to discuss the decisions. Train that design brain. Stay tuned for the following year of design changes.