Instagram Story Redesign
2024
Designed three features to personalize Instagram for more meaningful views.
Initial Challenge
When Instagram Stories launched in 2016, users were drawn to the spontaneous and authentic content shared by friends and mutuals. However, as the platform expanded, Stories became less personalized, leading many users to feel disconnected from the content and less inclined to engage with it. How might we restore the sense of connection and relevance that made Stories so appealing in the first place?
Current experience
I conducted 10+ user interviews with friends and mutual connections to understand why people lose interest in Instagram Stories. During these conversations, I asked participants to share specific moments when Stories felt irrelevant to them and how that impacted their overall experience with the platform. Then I sorted and highlighted it to three key points to identify what features to implement.
Existing Functions
By analyzing how different features handle personalization, I identify gaps and opportunities for improvement. This insight informs my design decisions, ensuring the solution aligns with user behaviors and creates a more meaningful viewing experience.
These features were too black and white, offering no middle ground
My goal was to design a seamless feature that reduce story spam, prioritizes close connection, and minimizes overwhelming content. By giving users more control, Stories become more personal, engaging, and clutter-free.
Enhancing digital experience through seamless content muting
Enables users to mute someone's main story without unfollowing them. This feature provides a personalized content management option while preserving social connections.
A feature that empowers users to maintain control over their connections.
This feature allows users to opt-out of being included in someone's Close Friends list. Enhances user control over the content they see without needing to unfollow or block the person.
Dedicated space for keeping your favorite moments easily accessible
This page is accessed via an icon beside the user's own story icon, it offers a quick and easy way to engage with favorite or important content. This feature is high feasibility as it is build upon instagram’s existing feed page for “favorites." It is also high impact as it offers a strong social aspect to stories, encouraging users to engage more with personalized stories.
While exploring existing Instagram features, I decided to come up with a feature similar to Close Friends Post and Favorite Post Feed for Instagram Stories, using a de-cluttered layout that tackles the less focused structure currently in place.
Reiteration
I introduced three key categories: "Most Viewed by You," "Creators and Business," and "Least Interacted With." Adding the "Least Interacted With" category helps users gain insight into which accounts they engage with the least, allowing them to manage their story interactions more effectively and curate their experience based on their preferences.
When designing the Pinned Stories Page, I initially considered categorizing stories into Close Friends and Regular Stories. However, since color coding already differentiates Close Friends effectively, I shifted to a more versatile approach by drawing inspiration from the existing categories on the following page.
Users have free control to pin and unpin whenever they want
Users can pin and unpin accounts easily through the (…) icon on stories or profiles. This quick-access option allows them to manage their pinned content effortlessly, ensuring they stay in control of their story feed. Whether they want to prioritize certain users or declutter their experience, this feature provides a flexible and intuitive way to customize their viewing preferences.
Different ways to manage your pinned page
Users can easily manage their pinned content through a dedicated pinned list page. This page allows them to pin and unpin users, while also providing suggested accounts to follow and an option to search for specific users to pin. This feature ensures that users have seamless control over their pinned content, allowing for a more personalized and relevant experience.
