Adding a feature to “Instagram Collections” for effortless saved post access.
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Time
+4 weeks
Project Type
Career Initiative
scope
Adding a feature
My role
Ux/Ui Designer
Overview
Instagram users who save recipes encounter difficulties in remembering their saved posts. This led to the idea of adding a feature to Instagram that allows users to “add recipe ingredients” directly to a linked grocery store. The research found that this new feature saves users time by eliminating the need to search for recipes in collections, allowing them to add ingredients directly to their shopping cart.
A significant challenge emerged during the ideation process when it became clear that this feature could only assist with recipe-related posts. To ensure scalability, the focus was shifted towards making it easier for users to search from all their saved posts, not just recipes. This finding led to emphasize the importance of adding a search bar to collections for all saved content. With this broader search functionality, we can enhance accessibility and post discovery, ultimately resulting in an improved user experience and benefits that extend beyond just recipes.
1research
Research goal
How can Instagram users who like to try new recipes streamline their ingredient buying experience?
Research objectives
- Identify user challenges in converting Instagram recipes to shopping lists.
- Define user expectations for combining Instagram recipes and shopping lists.
- Explore user satisfaction from a streamlined process.
- Identify key features and improvements for integrating recipe and shopping list apps.
Methods
- Surveys to study target audience.
- Competitive analysis to study other platforms to identify successful features and best practices.
- Interviews: To gather qualitative insights from selected users about their recipe-to-shopping-list experiences, pain points, and desires.
- Create personas from research to grasp diverse user needs and expectations.
competitive analysis
Competitors
In conclusion, each platform has its unique strengths and areas for improvement. Yummly stands out for its exceptional user experience and grocery delivery integration. Chicory and Whisk are both strong in terms of integrating recipes with shopping but may improve their social media engagement features. AnyList is a solid choice for general list management but has room to enhance its social media integration for increased collaboration.
There's a clear trend toward integrating recipes with shopping for ingredients. Instagram could potentially add a feature to shop for ingredients in recipes found in posts, enhancing the user experience. This would align with the broader trend in the industry towards simplifying the transition from recipe discovery to ingredient purchase.
surveys & interviews
The research journey started by conducting a survey, which was distributed among friends and family who shared the same passion for food and cooking. This allowed to determine if they encountered similar challenges when searching for recipes and purchasing ingredients.
When conducting interviews, passionate Instagram users who are enthusiastic about cooking and consistently share recipes on the platform were targeted. The insights gathered from these interviews proved to be exceptionally valuable, and were organized into an affinity map to ensure clarity in drawing conclusions.
survey insights
participants
9
gender
women
Age range
25-65
Instagram user
active
Food
Enthusiasts
90%
70%
80%
87%
80%
75%
Interview insights
Research Results
Participants experienced challenges in remembering saved recipes, and even when they managed to remember them, the task of locating where they saved those recipes proved to be a struggle. When they decided to try a recipe, they often had to do it promptly and attempted to memorize ingredients and instructions because theprocess of writing down ingredients and taking screenshots of instructions proved to be overwhelming.
They preferred posts of recipes with familiar ingredients and expressed interest in a feature for convenient ingredient lists and online grocery shopping links. Participants strongly believe that having this feature would not only save them time but also encourage them to explore and experiment with new recipes.
Target Audience
Individuals who save various types of recipes on Instagram who have experienced pain points with the current saved collection feature and are looking for more efficient ways to find and access their saved posts, especially when it comes to discovering and organizing recipe-related content.
Alex
A busy real estate agent, passionate about cooking. She's a creative, intuitive cook who finds culinary inspiration from YouTube, Instagram, friends, and family.
She uses saved recipes as a starting point and shops from memory.
Cooking Inspiration
Goals
- •Wants to expand culinary repertoire and explore new flavors
- •Save time and effort in grocery shopping and ingredient planning.
- •Reduce food waste by utilizing ingredients effectively.
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Motivation
- •Keep up with her passion for cooking and the joy it brings to her loved ones.
- •Continuously improve her culinary skills by trying new recipes.
- •Discover unique and delicious dishes that she can share with her friends and family.
Needs
- •Seamless recipe access and retrieval.
- •Effortless ingredient list creation for shopping.
- •Customizable quantities for different household sizes.
- •Recipes with shared ingredients for efficiency.
Frustrations
- •Difficulty recalling and organizing saved recipes.
- •Complex process of extracting details from social media posts for cooking
- •Budget concerns with unfamiliar ingredients.
- •Challenges in adapting quantities for portions
Emma
A cooking enthusiast and housewife, enjoys preparing meals for her loved ones. She plans weekly meals with inspiration from recipe books and Instagram. She relies on memory and manual lists for ingredients, preferring familiar recipes to reduce ingredient waste.
Cooking Inspiration
Goals
- •Broaden her recipe repertoire and explore new culinary experiences
- •Enhance her cooking skills and surprise her family and friends with new and exciting dishes.
- •Save time and effort in the process of planning and executing her meals.
Motivation
- •Keep up with her passion for cooking and the joy it brings to her loved ones.
- •Continuously improve her culinary skills by trying new recipes.
- •Discover unique and delicious dishes that she can share with her friends and family.
Needs
- •Effortless recipe management on Instagram.
- •Streamlined shopping list creation.
- •Adaptable serving quantities.
- •Ingredient tips and alternatives.
Frustrations
- •Limited variety of recipes she can try due to concerns about buying unfamiliar ingredients and potential waste.
- •Forgetfulness about saved recipes.
- •Difficulty in customizing or filter recipes based on dietary restrictions, preferences, or available ingredients
2Defining
Defining the problem stemmed from identifying the most significant pain points:
Difficulty recalling and organizing saved recipes
Concerns over unfamiliar ingredients and waste
Discouraged by time-consuming search efforts
How can we enhance Instagram's interface to enable users to easily search and filter their saved recipes, improving their ability to locate and access them more intuitively?
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prioritization
A prioritization exercise was conducted to determine the features that should be given higher priority. Based on this exercise, the following features were identified as priorities:By incorporating these suggested features, Instagram can improve the functionality of its saved collection feature, addressing user pain points and enhancing the overall user experience. Instead of focusing solely on recipes, it would be more beneficial to design the system for a broader audience.
P0: Must-have
P1: Nice to have
Feature Name
description
Research supporting it
search bar
Tagging system
Related suggestions
User & task flows
Developing user flows and task flows with the goal of improving the overall user experience was the starting point . With a user-centric approach in mind to help users in efficiently organizing their saved posts, either in new collections for future retrieval or through simplified searches within their saved content.
The process started with the creation of a task flow, which streamlined the design process. As the process evolved, it became evident that a third flow was necessary to enable users to save posts to their existing collections, not limited to creating new collections.
Flows created
- Saving a post to a new collection
- Saving a post to an existing collection
- searching for a post within a collection
3Design
Low- Mid fidelity wireframes
Mobile wireframes for the three tasks were created, employing the Instagram system as a foundation before creating the high-fidelity screens. The primary obstacle involved the incorporation of filtering options in the search section, drawing inspiration from the Gmail system, allowing users to filter results by date, location, and account.
The image above shows the 3 flows created: saving post to new collection, to existing collection and searching post in collection
1
Two examples of the process: saving a post to a new collection in the mid-fidelity wireframe iteration.
2
Two examples of the process: saving a post to an existing collection in the mid-fidelity wireframe iteration.
3
An example of the process: searching for a saved post in the mid-fidelity wireframe iteration.
then this happened...
An update was introduced by Instagram,
which required me to redesign certain screens to accommodate the new feature seamlessly.
High fidelity wireframes
Taking into consideration the new update and in response to feedback received from the low-fidelity wireframes, I made several adjustments to the design:
- 1. A unified version was introduced for saving posts to new and existing posts.
- 2. First, I changed the term "tag" to "label" to better align with Instagram's existing terminology.
- 3. I modified the search user interface (UI) pattern to ensure design consistency, as Instagram doesn’t function with dropdown menus.
- 4. Given the limitations of the Instagram’s system, incorporating multiple “labels” was not a viable option. Consequently, I only included the ability to add a single label.
High fidelity wireframes for saving posts to new and existing collections
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High fidelity wireframes for searching saved posts
In the earlier wireframes, a search bar was implemented, along with dropdown menus for searching based on saved tags, dates and followers/creators. However, the search system was revamped to align with Instagram's existing UI, resulting in a more user-friendly and seamless experience.
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User Testing
participants
6
gender
Women & Men
user type
Instagram user
Age range
25-45
platform
ZOOM
Once the high fidelity wireframes had been completed, the next step was to create a prototype for testing. To do this, a usability test plan was developed which involved several key steps. First, participants were recruited to take part in the testing process. Next, the specific flows to be tested were identified and selected. Based on this feedback, adjustments were made to the prototype to improve its usability and overall effectiveness.
task flows to test
- Save post to new collection.
- Save post to existing collection.
- Search post in all saved collection.
goal
- Evaluate if the new feature is easy to use.
- Identify features or functions that can be improved.
- Identify how long it takes to complete the main task.
- Assess if the new app feature meets user needs.
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test Results
- The feedback received indicated that the tasks were straightforward and resulted in a highly positive and user-friendly experience.
- During the test, 3 out of 5 participants raised an important concern. They pointed out that when creating a label for a saved post, it seemed as if the label was applied to the entire collection rather than the specific individual post.
- To address this issue and provide better clarity, the recommendation was made to change the labeling process to "Add label to post."
Before
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After
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Language was changed for clarification purposes
In conclusion: all participants expressed enthusiasm about the new feature. They felt that it would save time and significantly facilitate their user experience, leading them to use the collection and save posts more frequently due to its enhanced usability.
Final Outcome
Save post to new collection
Save post to existing collection
Search post in collections
Future research
While the new feature received positive feedback from users, conducting further testing with a larger user base would provide valuable insights. It would help determine whether, over time, users engage with the collections feature more frequently. Additionally, the identified pain point from user interviews, namely the need for a button to display similar posts based on labeled features, requires further research and implementation. Introducing this additional feature would involve extensive research, as it might conflict with Instagram's algorithm and the hashtags used by creators. Addressing these challenges would be essential to ensure integration of the new feature and avoid any adverse effects on the platform's functionality.
