Project Overview:

Instagram is looking for an added feature that will keep its users engaged and coming back to use the platform. A hybrid between what users want and what will help the business to continue growing.

Solution:

To increase user engagement and decrease overall user consumption (user spend consume more than they like), an “edit” feature in the comment section will help individuals grow their businesses and personal brands without spending unnecessary time deleting and replacing post.  

Competitive & Comparative Analysis

Since this was an add on feature my first goal was to evaluate market research and determine research objectives. My first orders of business were to determine who uses instagram and how, how users feel about their daily consumption, what draws users to the platform and understanding competitor platforms. This discovery allowed me to determine what competitor sites were offering and market research to gain insight on how Instagram is used globally.

User Interview

I conducted user interviews with 3 individuals to determine whether they currently use instagram, how often, what daily role the application plays in their daily lives, favorite feature, least favorite feature and how they feel about their daily consumption of the application. These interviews were conducted in person and their answers gave really great insight into their why’s, daily usage, pain points and motivations for using the platform. I used this information to accurately develop a persona most representative of someone who would find these features most useful.

User interview questions

1)    What role does Instagram play in your life? What are you main uses for it?

2)    What are Instagram’s most popular features?

3)    When and how often do you use the service?

4)    How would you rate your Instagram intake/consumption? Do you think you spend too much time, too little time or just enough?

5)    Is there a feature you would find beneficial in the comment section?

6)    Would the ability to edit comments improve your productivity?

User Interview Insights:

• People use Instagram for entertainment, inspiration and to keep in touch with friends and family.

• 100% of the users said they would like to decrease their daily consumption

• Favorite features included Insta-story and Reels.

• 100% of individuals said the ability to edit would change the overall experience

Market Research insights:

• Instagram has 1.074 billion total users

• There are 500,000 active influencers on Instagram.

• Users spent 142 minutes on Instagram average

• 68% of people come to Instagram to interact with creators.

• Engagement is currently the highest for image posts

• Instagram videos get over 2 times more engagement than Instagram photos.

• Instagram users engage more on weekdays with Wednesday and Thursday showing most engagement.

• There are 320 million global Instagram users aged between 18 and 24 years.

• There are 354 million global Instagram users aged between 25 and 34 years.

• 1,074 photos are uploaded on Instagram every second.

• 60% of people say they discover new products on Instagram

• More than half of Instagram Captions & Comments Contain Emojis.

• 70% of shopping enthusiasts turn to Instagram for product discovery.

• Nano-influencers (500-5k followers) make an average of $114 per video post on Instagram, compared with $100 for an image post and $43 for a story.

After the interviews, I used the information to create our persona, Jalisa, who happens to be a real IG influencer. Keeping the loyalty of her followers is heavily important in maintaining her brand partnerships which involves heavy engagement. Having the ability to quickly edit a previously posted comment saves her a significant amount of time responding to her thousands of followers. It also eliminates the stress and time it takes to delete an already posted comment and re-typing it in it’s entirety because the option to copy and paste is not available. The ability to edit her comments allows her to give more accurate feedback and still have time for her family which is most important. Adding comment editing will make her interactions more efficient and decrease the amount of time spent on Instagram giving her more time for her growing family.

User Goals: 

• Stay connected to friends and family

• Find inspiration, escape reality, have sense of community

• Interact and engage with favorite businesses and influencers

• Share content via photos and videos

Motivations: 

• Limit overall consumption saving time for other things

• Increase follower-ship and engagement

• Allows you to be more mindful of your words

Empathy Mapping

I used an empathy map to full understand the thoughts, feelings and other necessary characteristics to ensure I was building the best possible add on product for a busy Instagram user. I wanted to highlight the fact that Jalisa is super busy with her personal life and growing family but absolutely loves to engage with her followers. This persona emphasized the importance for me to create a feature that allowed maximum engagement with minimal time and editing.

Hi-Fidelity Design

Since this was an existing feature adding the additional design to the current application was simple

Test

I completed the usability testing in person using 3 participants.

100% of the participants were able to successful use the new feature and edit existing comment. Many of the user are familiar with Facebook that has a similar edit feature which they used as a reference. This added feature was easy to find and easy to edit. This feature will be highly beneficial for long term and continuous usage for Instagram because it allows users to be more effective and efficient online.

The goal for this project was to create an add on feature for an existing entertainment platform. Conducting good market research in addition to user interviews was the key to narrowing down which feature would enhance the engagement experience. Based on the comparative research, and Facebook being a parent company, it seemed like an easy but necessary addition for the platform. Users love Instagram but many hate the amount of time spent using the platform. The ability to edit increases overall interaction and engagement, an advantage for those looking to build a business and or monetize their social media presence.

This project taught me the importance of having the necessary research to justify your design decisions.

Next Steps: The next steps would be to hand off the design specs to the development team to help launch the product.