Instagram newsfeed groups — a UX design concept
Many Instagram users follow accounts that range from friends and family to celebrities and social influencers including accounts that appeal to their interests, such as food, traveling, fashion, sports, etc.
Upon opening the application, there are times when users want to check up on close friends, but what if they just want to get a good laugh at some meme content? What if they just want inspiration for their next big adventure?
Instagram offers ways to tailor a user’s experience such as: “Turn on Post Notifications” for an account or the ability to follow a hashtag, but I have found out that most users do not use these features.
User Research
After surveying 25 college students on their Instagram usage, I have come to discover that:
· Users feel like they miss out on some posts.
· Users sometimes have a particular mood on what they want to see on their feed.
· Users are interested in customizing their feed.
“It’s annoying that I made a new account just to follow fashion accounts.”
To create a more “controlled” newsfeed, one user went as far as creating a whole separate account to follow only fashion accounts. This guaranteed that the user would see fashion posts on this account’s newsfeed.
What if users had the ability to create different newsfeeds based on their interests?
Brainstorm
With this in mind, I recruited my friends, Noah Hizon and Allan Wong, 2 aspiring engineers, to brainstorm how we can do this.
After brainstorming, we asked, “How can we implement a section that contains a user’s specific interests?” Two options emerged.
Option 1: Create a communities section.
· Each community is set by a topic. The posts in a community are related and satisfy the topic.
· Challenges: How will the communities be regulated? How can you simply integrate this feature? Does this change the purpose of Instagram?
Option 2: Allow users to create multiple newsfeeds.
· Users can organize the accounts they follow into different groups. Instead of seeing all posts on their newsfeed, they can see posts of a specific group of accounts.
· Challenges: How can you switch between newsfeeds? How can you simply categorize the accounts you follow?
I decided to go with Option 2 in an effort to rework features that the user is already familiar with instead of attempting to create a new communities feature. From there I began to sketch how this feature could be implemented.
Implementing the Feature
Creating a Group: How do users group the accounts they follow?
Adding an Account to a Group: How can a user quickly add an account to a group?
Switching Between Groups: How do we allow users to switch between the different groups they created?
After testing the prototypes on 10 users, this is what I found:
Creating a Group
Because this feature is very similar to having multiple accounts, I looked at how Instagram asks a user to log into an additional account. From there, I realized that this group feature is different in the sense that the user needs to do 2 very different things: title the group, and add accounts that they follow.
My first iteration asked users to create a group using 2 different screens. The first screen to title the group and the second screen to add accounts to it. Through user testing, I noticed that most users were confused at this 2 screen process. Some users wanted to select the accounts before titling the group.
I decided to put both steps on the same screen. To ensure that all steps were completed in any order that the user desired, the user would not be able to click on the “Create Group” button until both steps were completed.
Adding an Account to a Group
When creating a group, it is very possible that a user might forget to include some accounts to it. If a user comes across a post and realizes the account should be grouped, I want to give that user the ability to do so without actually going to the account profile.
Because this proposed Groups feature is not a main feature of Instagram, I did not want to create an icon for its actions, so I decided to add this feature into the ellipsis button to add to the list of secondary features already available.
Switching Between Groups
At first I thought of swiping left or right to reveal the groups a user has made, but this gesture already brings you to the camera and your direct messages. If the goal of this new feature is to switch between newsfeeds, the gesture should come from areas related to it. I came up with 2 options.
Option 1 — Drop Down: On the newsfeed, there would be a down arrow next to the Instagram logo signifying a hidden menu. This would reveal the different groups a user has made as well as an option to create a new group.
Option 2 — Long Press Menu: Similar to switching between multiple accounts, a long-press on the home icon would also reveal the accounts a user has made.
Both features would be available to the user.
Conclusions
Instagram can sometimes be a mindless activity, where users are left scrolling down their newsfeed, looking at a variety of posts from the accounts they follow. I think Instagram does a great job in keeping me up to date with posts from my friends and family, but as for my interests, it falls flat. I think the ability to have multiple newsfeeds in the form of self-made groups, gives users focus as well as more control in their experience. This tailored experience allows users to view what they want when they want.
