Adding a Categories Feature to Instagram
The new Instagram Categories feature enables users to organize the accounts they follow into groups, and allows them to choose which Category or type of content they’d like to see (or use the default).
Background
While there is still a lot of research still being done on the effects of social media, one of the current prominent ideas involves the distinction between active use and passive use. Passive use includes things like endless scrolling, and has been linked to increasing rates of negative effects like depression and low self-esteem. Active use includes more meaningful activity like interacting with friends and posting updates. Active use is hypothesized to not have the same negative effects as passive use, and even potentially have some positive effects [1, 2].
These scientific studies get quite complicated and difficult to compare due to the uncontrolled nature in which individuals use social media and relative newness of this field of study. However, there also seems to be a theme that “meaningful” activity can be good, while “unfulfilling” or “meaningless” activity is what produces the negative effects.
The Problem
Although Instagram started as a way to keep up with friends, it has now evolved to include content creation for many different hobbies/topics, news outlets, and advertising. These days with many users following several hundred accounts (if not a couple thousand), scrolling your feed can become a chaotic mess.
Discover
The Process
User surveys
Competitive analysis
Affinity Mapping
Define
User personas
Feature set ideation
and prioritization
Site mapping
User Flows
Develop
Sketching
Branding
Wireframing
Prototyping
Test
Usability testing
Analyzing test results
Design iterations
Tools
Figma, FigJam, Maze, Google Forms, Zoom, Otter.ai
My Role
UX/UI Designer, UX Researcher
Proposed Solution
Creating a feature to categorize your Instagram feed into larger buckets (e.g., Friends/Family, News, Music, Cars, Cats, Fashion, Food, Memes). There could be a “smart” integration to automatically categorize the accounts you follow based on the hashtags they use and/or types of followers they have, as well as a manual way to adjust any mistakes.
This would allow the user to choose which category or type of content they want to see at a particular time, or they can keep the default (current) view of seeing everything at once.
Discover
User Surveys
I conducted a user survey with 15 participants. Common pain points included too many ads, it’s too easy to waste time or get distracted, and a potential negative effect on mental health.
On average, participants liked the proposed new feature. Positive comments included feeling like this would enhance the user experience, keep the user focused on a particular subject or task, and one participant even said they considered making multiple accounts as a work-around to organizing their feed.
Affinity Mapping
I used affinity mapping to help synthesize the qualitative data generated by the user surveys extract insights.
Insights
Pain Points
Passive use and endless scrolling has negatively affected users’ mental health.
Users get easily distracted and sucked into the addictive rabbit hole of scrolling, and end up feeling like they are wasting time.
Users are frustrated with the amount of ‘suggested’ and sponsored content, sometimes leading them to avoid the home screen altogether
Reactions to Proposed Solution
Users feel the use of a Categories feature would help them have more control over their algorithm.
One survey participant said they considered making separate accounts with different lists of people they follow to achieve the “Categories” filtering
Users would like to be able to access specific topics without scrolling through others
📈 Addressing Business Goals
The obvious barrier to the use of this new feature is the business goal of Instagram to continually capture as much attention from their users as possible so they can achieve maximum advertising revenue. However, this attention-grab and advertising requires algorithms and feed interruptions that users now find frustrating, all causing user engagement to stagnate [3].
Allowing users to have more control over their personal accounts and feeds has the potential to make the product more popular, and also deliver more relevant targeted advertising. For example, if a user has a Category for travel, they could be delivered ads for airline sales, Instagram-worthy boutique hotels, or a shiny new luggage set. This would meet business goals while delivering a product that solves users’ pain points.
Competitive Analysis
After first reviewing Instagram’s interface, I explored the offerings and business practices of its competitors to gain a better understanding of the industry landscape and user trends.
Define
User Personas
To help build empathy, I created a user persona. Tayla is a young adult who uses Instagram to keep in touch with friends, relax, and find inspiration. She wants to find ways to use her time more mindfully and keep her online time more focused.
Feature Set and Prioritization
I created a list of feature functions focusing on user needs and concerns, while considering how best to integrate this new feature with the existing product.
Develop
Brand Values
Simple Flexible & Adaptive Content-First
To ensure the new feature looks seamless, I researched Instagram’s brand guidelines.
Branding
Color Palette
Typography
Sitemapping
I studied the current product to produce a sitemap of currently existing structure (colored boxes). Then I added to the sitemap to include the screens and functions needed for the new feature (black boxes).
User Flows
View a Category Feed
Add an Account to a Category
Remove an Account From a Category, or Move to a Different Category
Low-Fi Wireframes
Hi-Fi Wireframes & Prototyping
Test
Usability Testing
Unmoderated usability testing was performed by 10 participants using Maze, and included three flows (listed below). Success for each task were measured by completion rate and reported ease of use ratings.
Viewing the “Friends & Family” Category feed
Adding a user to the “Fashion” Category
Removing an account from the “Friends & Family” Category
Analyzing Test Results
Flow 1 - Viewing the “Friends & Family” Category Feed
Completion: 100% Ease rating: 4 / 5
Some common feedback for this flow was that the placement for the categories menu was too subtle to notice immediately.
What’s interesting is that the menu placement already exists in the Instagram app. So even though it’s not considered the most intuitive based on this user testing, it is the placement that Instagram chose to include in its design patterns.
Flow 2 - Adding a user to the “Fashion” Category
Completion: 100% Ease rating: 4.8 / 5
Eight of ten participants completed the task flow as expected. Two participants took an indirect path, but were able to successfully complete the task.
Overall participants felt this flow was very easy and intuitive.
Flow 3 - Removing a use from the “Friends & Family” Category
Completion: 87.5% Ease rating: 4.3 / 5
One participant was unable to complete this flow.
To give some context to the lower completion score, this flow was intentionally meant to be more complex as I wanted to design all the appropriate settings screens that are usually hidden and not used as much. This is when I learned the drawback of doing unmoderated testing: you can’t directly ask the participant where they got confused or about the path they expected to be able to take.
Feedback
Overall, participants felt this feature would be useful and were excited about it.
“I would love this feature! I think the areas the feature was placed makes sense in the established structure instagram has set up, and though I don't think their paradigms are the most discoverable I was able to complete all the tasks.”
“I would use this because I am starting to use instagram for business, and unrelated content is distracting… having pages dedicated to specific categories, and even the option to explore more similar accounts from that view, would allow for a more focused experience. I love this idea!”
Design Iterations & Next Steps
Based on the results of the usability testing, the design and user flows performed as intended. Interestingly, the one flow that received the lowest ease of use score is part of Instagram's existing design pattern. Since the primary focus of this project was to introduce a new feature, I determined that altering the established design pattern was beyond the project's scope.
Conducting A/B testing on various main menu options could further validate the design or reveal that deviating from Instagram’s existing design pattern might enhance usability.
Given more time, I would like to conduct another round of moderated usability testing with multiple menu configurations and additional flow options fully prototyped. This approach would provide deeper insights into which design patterns users find most intuitive and user-friendly, ensuring the best possible user experience.
Final Product
What I Learned
I was very happy to hear the positive reaction from the usability testing participants in regards to the Categories feature idea and function. Many expressed a desire for the Categories feature to actually be adopted by Instagram.
The biggest challenge for this project was working within Instagram’s design patterns. I would have liked to change the way their feed menu is designed and worked on developing a version with improved visibility.
If given more time, I would like to be able to collaborate with a business team to create a case for why this feature would be beneficial to Instagram’s business and public image and pitch it to Instagram’s team.
NEXT PROJECT.
NEXT PROJECT.
Healthwise Mobile App
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