Adding a Feature to Instagram
Research informed design to make searching through Instagram DM’s, as well as navigating to saved content seamless.
User Research
I used user research methods to determine the pain points of Instagram. My hypothesis was that it was difficult to find content within a DM. I conducted 5 interviews with Instagram users.
Findings: After synthesizing those interviews, the bigger pain point was that it is difficult/not intuitive to navigate to ‘saved’ content in your profile.
Persona
Organizing Research
Project Goals
User Flows
Low Fidelity Wireframes
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High Fidelity Wireframes
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Final Prototype
Usability testing helped identify if the changes made to Instagram were beneficial and intuitive to users. It helped verify that the changed made were useful to users.
Testing
I conducted moderated testing with 6 Instagram users. Users were asked to complete 3 tasks: view ‘one pan chicken’ in saved content on the home screen, view ‘one pan chicken’ in saved content in DMs, and search for ‘one pan chicken in DMs.
Results:
The users were able to complete all tasks with minimal errors. Navigating to saved content on the home screen and on the DMs screen was simple and intuitive. Some users were even confused about what was different- indicating that it was a natural way for them to find saved content. Searching for content in DMs posed a little bit more of a challenge. It seemed to be unclear at what point in the task from the user was intended to search for ‘one pan chicken’.
Final Thoughts
With additional time, I would continue to do user research to determine what is the best way to set up the search in DMs and how to make that more intuitive to users.