Case Study
August 2020 – September 2020
Team: Erica Huang, Jannell Lee, Elyssa Tong (Me), and Vanessa Yu
All members participated in every aspect of the design process
Introduction
Instagram is a photo and video-sharing social media platform originally created in 2010 for iOS by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. On August 5th, 2020, Instagram released a brand new feature entitled “Instagram Reels,” a function that would give users a new way to create, share, and view short 15 second videos with friends and the public.
Initial reviews for Reels were not favorable. And through employing methods of user research and design, we sought to to figure out why and how the design could be improved.
Note: We began the project a week after Reels was launched. Since then Instagram has been undergoing A/B testing causing some users to display different designs of Reels. The “original Reels design” shown in this case study is from that initial two weeks of release and may not reflect or correlate to the current Instagram Reels design.
— Setting Project Goals —
At the start of the project, based on comparisons between Instagram Reels and TikTok, another short-format video creation platform, we initially wanted to focus on the experience of making a Reels video. Because of the stronghold TikTok has on the short-format video market, we hypothesized that most users familiar with TikTok would have frustrations or difficulties creating an Instagram Reel.
Synthesis and data created by Erica and Vanessa
To test our assumption, our group split into two teams. Erica and Vanessa would analyze initial app store reviews to understand people’s general thoughts on the feature, focusing specifically on ones that commented video creation portion of Reels; while Jannell and I would survey Instagram user’s feelings about the new Reels feature, focusing specifically on differences between those who report frequently using TikTok and those who do not.
The initial analysis and synthetization of the app store reviews, however, did not affirm our assumption about that people would find creating a Reels video difficult. There was actually very few comments about about people creating a Reels video at all. Instead, a majority of comments primarily mentioned:
Reels taking up too much space in the Explore page interface
Frustrations with the Reels algorithm suggesting inappropriate videos for the user
A desire to turn off the feature all together
Some reviews even mentioned users wanting to delete Instagram all together because of the above mentioned reasons. Based on these opinions that seemed to take up a majority of the app store comments, we decided to shift our project’s focus and goals:
How can we redesign the current Instagram Reels so that we can improve and increase acceptance of user’s initial experience with the feature?
— Hi-fidelity Design —
As a team, we came up with two designs that we felt would better incorporate Reels into the current Instagram UI: a minimized view in the Explore feed and a tab at the top of the Explore page. We then split into two groups to design the high-fidelity mock-ups, Erica and Vanessa creating the minimized view, and Jennell and I creating the tabbed view.
Minimized (left) and Tabbed (right) high-fidelity redesigns
When creating the tabbed design, Jannell and I also discussed what the experience would be like once the user clicks on the Reels tab. While the minimized view would function the same as the original Reels design, we felt that users may have a different expectation if Reels were incorporated into a tab. We ended up designing what the interface would look like once you clicked on the tab. We modeled this design after IGTV interface to keep with user’s potential mental models of what to expect when clicking a tab in the Instagram Explore page.
— Research, part I: Preference Test —
We then set up two preference tests to test each new design against the original. Each group member posted one preference test to a one specific online platform in order minimize the likelihood of the same participants taking both tests. Each test ran for about 1 week till we received 34 responses for each.
Click here for full readout
Image depicting the percentage of participants who preferred the the Original vs Minimized Reels design (n = 34)
Original vs Minimized Findings
On average, participants who preferred the original design reported to spend more time per day on Instagram.
Participants who preferred the original design had positive reactions to the larger Reels view, saying it “puts more emphasis on the video itself” and “draws [their] attention.”
Participants who preferred the minimized design did because they liked being able to see more on the Explore page, saying “it’s easier to scan”, is “less aggressive”, and that they can “pick which one catches my to choose to watch.”
While there was a slightly high preference for the new Minimized design over the Original, from the number of participants it was not a significantly higher number of people
Image depicting the percentage of participants who preferred the the Original vs Tabbed Reels design (n = 34)
Original vs Tabbed Findings
On average, those who preferred the tabbed design reported spending more time per day on Instagram
Participants who preferred the original design had positive reactions to the larger Reels view, saying it “puts more emphasis on the video itself” and “draws [their] attention.”
Participants who preferred the tabbed design preferred that it gave them the choice of whether or not to view Reels at all, and that the tabbed version gave a “more organized view” of the Reels
In the Original vs. Tabbed preference test, a significantly higher percentage and number of participants preferred the tabbed view over the original
Key Takeaways
After analyzing the results separately and then coming together to discuss as a team, we concluded two key points overall:
Participants did not dislike the large Reels display on the Explore page as much as the app store reviews would suggest, even having many participants prefer the design because of it
Participants who preferred the minimized or tabbed redesign did so because of a perception of choice, with participants preferring the Tabbed redesign because they felt they could choose the type of content they viewed
— Research, part II: Usability Test —
We then wanted to conduct a usability test to see how users naturally navigate Reels and its functions. We also wanted to see different user’s thoughts and engagement with the Reels algorithm as reviews mentioned that videos being shown felt inappropriate for them, and comments in the preference test mentioned a desire to choose what types of videos to watch (suggesting that videos being automatically shown to them may not be of interest).
Click here to view raw data
All participants were able to locate Reels and its core features (finding where to comment, finding number of views, and how to save)
2/3 participants searched for new Reels by scrolling through the explore page (tapping on a Reels, exiting, scrolling till they found a Reels, and then clicking on that Reels) instead of remaining in Reels and flipping through the videos
All participants reported confusion over the difference between normal videos and Reels, and all participants expressed indifference toward the new feature, stating that they “do not personally seek them out,”
During the test, participants only found 33% of the Reels videos shown to them to be interesting
