Instagram "business version"
User Experience redesign

A more personalized social network for Instagram
Project Summary
Course: User Experience Design, Fall 2022

Instructor: Professor Regine Gilbert

Timeline:
3 weeks

Softwares: Figma, Figjam

My Role: Solo project

Project Details
Nowadays, Instagram is becoming one of the most popular social media platforms. It allows users to do multiple actions, including sharing photos and videos and adding friends to socialize.

However, the compositions of users on Instagram are becoming more diverse. Alongside personal users, there are more and more business accounts appearing. Since the nature of the Instagram platform is suitable for companies to promote their products, it is inevitable that the group of business accounts is getting larger.

Therefore, I am aiming for helping the business accounts to promote their products and services in a more effective way, and helping them to build stronger brand images by enabling personalization of profile pages and QR codes. Additionally, I optimize the add friends flow, making it more convenient, for all the users.



See Prototype



Desktop Research
I began conducting desktop research to learn about the demographics of Instagram users, the income and educational level of the users, the number of business accounts, and more. 


A glimpse into Instagram Business Picture
01
The majority of companies in the U.S. (reported 70%) use Instagram as one of their campaign platforms.
02
In the U.S., Instagram audiences are more likely to be from higher-income homes, which indicates the high purchasing power.
03
Only 33% of Instagrammers reported having a high school degree or less, which indicates that Instagram has a highly educated group of users.
Survey & Interview
for Instagram customers
Although I now knew more about Instagram’s business situation and the user demographics, I needed to understand how those non-business users felt about seeing business accounts or ads, and what parts they felt frustrated or satisfied with.

I ran a survey during the class, and I received 18 responses. The survey gathered responses from 20-22 years old. It included both required and optional questions in open-ended and close-ended formats. All open-ended questions were optional, but still returned a high number of responses.

What is the most common way for you to discover new business accounts on Instagram? Including all kinds of brands and influencers.

30%
Recommended page
50%
Instagram Stories ads

10%
Friends recommend and add instantly
10%
Search categories/keywords
Do you think the "business accounts" on Instagram are distinguishable?

16/18: No

"Their homepages look just like the non-business users' at the first glance."
2/18: Yes

"There's usually a shop section in business accounts. "
If you own a business account on Instagram, what features do you think you would like to have?
"A personalized QR code. When people scan you, they can see your brand's logo. Or when you need to share your code to other people, the logo should be included."

"I think it would be nice to allow business accounts to have the profile page background, just like the LinkedIn page background."
Problem Statements and Questions
How to differentiate the business pages from normal personal account pages?
How to improve the efficiency of business accounts promoting their content?
Personas &
User Journey Maps
After collecting the data and insights, I decided to humanize the information in order to emphasize with my users. Then, I created 2 Personas, and put their user journey maps together; through creating the personas and walking through their user journeys, I have new insights.

On the business accounts’ side, the QR code is a convenient way to allow customers to follow them. Therefore, this functionality should be put to a more obvious position. Also, the QR Code could be more personalized, since it could also be a "name card".

On the customers’ side, the accounts they are following could be categorized so that it would be easier for them to navigate to the pages they want to visit.

Reframing the Design Goals
How might we help accounts to make stronger brand images?
How might we add friends in a more effective way?
Ideation & Wireframes
Before jumping into making first prototype, I visualized all the pain points and user needs. I made use of SWOT analysis, and then did the sketches and wireframes.

There are two main aspects that I want to improve for Instagram Business Version.

1. Optimize the original “add friends” function for all the user groups. Sorting all the possible ways into one button, and making it easy to find. 

2. Distinguish business accounts with non-business accounts. Enable business accounts or influencers to personalize their pages, and enable them to attract more customers and build brand images.



Key insights
01
Since the button is a new feature, there should be a on-boarding animation to introduce this new feature.

It is hard for people to notice that there's a new button on the page. For this function, consider every user as the "first time user".

Next step:
Create introduction for this new feature.
02
The layout of the QR code page could be restructured into a clearer way.

My professor pointed out that the share code button and the open camera button could be put together.

Next step:
Sort out the buttons together.
The Final Product
Here is the final product. I also made the screen recording for each main section.


The first part of the optimization was the Add Friends Flow for all users.
In order to make the whole process more convenient and obvious, I add a new "shortcut button" on the profile page including 3 options: by QR code, by contacts and by Facebook.



The second part of the optimization was focusing on the Categorization of following accounts.
Instagram users could create categories to sort out the accounts they are following.



The final part of the optimization was the Customized Business/Personal IP Pages.
I made the "Share Page" button to make the sharing process more accessible. Clicking on the button, users could navigate to multiple shortcut functions, including Copy profile URL, Share profile to other users and QR code.

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