Instagram Foodie

Overview

Instagram Guides provides a way for users to create curated lists of places, products, and posts to display on their profiles. Although useful for creating lists, there is opportunity to improve the user experience through research informing design.

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Goal

This project aims to evaluate how food-based Instagram accounts are used and redesign the UI for Instagram Guides for casual food-based Instagram users. This will provide a platform for these users to document and reflect on their adventures as they create memories through food by providing more spaces for follower interaction and documentation through Stories. The Foodie widget creates a seamless experience that addresses the needs of Instagram foodies.

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Outcome

I used Figma to create these designs, starting with an Instagram UI Kit from Figma Community and utilizing the design system components to design new features.

• Map preview of listed locations to emphasize available options
• Bookmark feature allows users to save a guide
• Preview lists the major location of the items included in the guide under the guide title
• Reduced size of the new guide button to make room for other features
• Explore guides based in various cities
• Explore guides made by other users nearby and near previously bookmarked locations

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• Users can add Stories specific to each included location
• Location and type of business are prioritized at the top, allowing businesses to market in a new way
• Shows common locations with followed users
• Each tagged location has captions and comments similar to posts

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Users

I defined a “casual foodie” for this project as an Instagram user who tends to visit trendy restaurants to take photos and share experiences on their Instagram profile. This definition was from a pattern There are several motivations for this including saving memories, sharing with friends, and trying new foods.

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User Interviews

I Interviewed 4 Instagram users who fell into my defined casual foodie to build a better understanding of their motivations to post on their account, how they discover restaurants, and learn about other food-based apps they use and why.

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Guiding Research Insights

Three leading insights gathered from both primary and secondary research influenced my design process the most.

• Location, location, location: Inaccessible restaurants are irrelevant to users seeking places to visit. Interviewees followed friends to support their accounts but did not pay close attention to those who were not based in the same location because they would likely not be able to visit.

• Lasting Memories: Users want to document their experiences to create lasting memories. One major reason for interviewees using Instagram for documenting memories is because their friends are already using it. One interviewee uses the profile to remember recipes her mom/family makes because her high school counselor told her that one of their big regrets was not getting those things before their parents passed.

• Sharing is Caring: Creating shareable posts are very important to increasing interaction. One interviewee stated that the reason they ran a food-based Instagram account was because their friends were constantly asking where they went and how they felt about trendy restaurants, and an Instagram post was the easiest way to share to multiple people.

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Mid Fidelity Prototype

This prototype added functions to rate and tag photos in a collection. However upon reflection, this iteration doesn't follow Instagram's current minimal design philosophy and it turns too much focus towards the review system which diverges from the target casual user.

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Systems Design Research

As I moved forward from the mid fidelity prototype, I conducted research on Instagram's design system to better understand how the philosophy and features could be utilized in my final product. As a designer, I wanted to learn about the boundaries of designing within an existing system.

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‍Next Steps

• Conduct user testing with a wider audience
• Iterate on more features specific to food based creators

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Future Recommendations

• Integrate additional opportunities for businesses to advertise and grow

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Reflection

Working with systems design is something that greatly interests me what I want to do in my career. Through this project I was able to apply practices that I had only previously read about or observed. There are always opportunities for growth, but overall I enjoyed working on this project.