Instagram Redesign
Instagram is one of the most popular apps in the world, so when they redesigned their app it made a large number of their users unhappy. I thought this would be a good opportunity to redesign one of my favourite apps and see what I could improve upon. The user experience of the app was already good, so I wanted to keep things very similar but still improve upon the smaller things like layout and colour. The main focus was on the profile page, adding more personality into profiles with the use of a header image. The explore page also got updated by showing images based on certain categories like food photography rather than just having the most popular images that aren’t related to that user's interests.
The Design Process
When Instagram redesigned their app in 2016, it made a large number of users very frustrated and confused. The overall user experience was still really good, but the new design only had a monochromatic colour palette using the images for a source of colour. During the project, I knew that I wanted to improve upon the smaller things like the layout and colour. But before starting to think about how to redesign the app, I did some research to see what other popular social media apps were doing like Facebook and Twitter. This gave me a better understanding of what elements worked well, like the use of a header image on the profile page, adding more personality to the user profile rather than just a white background.
The Outcome
Creating a new design for something that already works can be challenging, but I knew that I could make some smaller improvements that would take the design to the next level. When a user opens the app for the first time, they will see a beautiful and simple login screen giving them a great experience. But if the user is already logged in, they will see their main feed only showing one image at a time to prevent any distractions. The user also has the option to customize their profile to give it more personality, they can add a personal description and a header image.
