Promoting authenticity to a notoriously inauthentic platform

The Project Process

Role: Sole Designer

Timeline: 2 weeks

Tools: Figma

Research

  • Statistical Data

  • User Interviews

Define

  • Affinity Mapping

  • User Personas

  • Feature Roadmapping

  • User Flows

Design

  • Low-Fidelity Wireframes

  • High-Fidelity Wireframes

Test

  • Prototyping

  • Usability Testing

Problem

Inauthenticity on Instagram aids in declining self-esteem of some users

According to NCBI, people who spend more than three hours per day on Instagram have higher levels of body dissatisfaction, greater comparisons of physical appearance, and overall lower self-esteem than those who spend less than one hour per day.


Goal

Offer a new way to post, free from filters or redos, to promote a more authentic newsfeed

Research

53% of US young adults admit that social media’s portrayal of others lives has harmed their self-esteem

When the social pressure to portray the most idealized version of yourself is so high, how can young adults these days not help but compare their everyday experience with the carefully curated posts on their feed?


Interview Research Goals

  • What does authenticity mean in regard to social media?

  • What emotions do people feel browsing vs. posting on Instagram?

  • Do people feel they portray an accurate representation of themselves on Instagram?

  • How does being an Instagram user affect one’s self-esteem?

Key Insights

  • Over-edited content not only leads to negative comparison, but has grown extremely tiresome with its prevalence

  • Capturing photos or videos for the sake of posting can take people out of the real life experience of that moment

  • Finding a balance of capturing a moment while staying present within that moment could lead to an overall healthier social media relationship

  • The influencer industry is built off of selling something that may not necessarily be real

Authenticity is tied closely together with the relationship of how users go about capturing photos for social media

Fixating on getting “the perfect shot” can come across as artificial and can make one’s post feel soulless and manufactured. Growing authenticity on Instagram means offering a solution to better this user/content relationship.


How might we help users capture more authentic memories for Instagram while staying in the moment?

Define

User Personas

A more authentic feed will affect both the influencer and the influenced

On a micro level, seeing your friends post in a more raw form can lower levels of negative comparison and help combat rampant self esteem issues. On a macro level, large audiences of influencers would appreciate a more authentic peak into the lives of the people they find interesting, admire or look up to.


Feature Roadmap

Users claim that polaroid pictures feel more authentic than photos we take on our phones

Polaroids, along with disposable film cameras, offer a delayed satisfaction to being able to view the picture. This delayed satisfaction makes the user unable to focus on whether they got “the perfect shot” and forces the user to stay within the experience they’re capturing. Incorporating a feature with these qualities can accomplish the goal of a more authentic platform.


User Flow

Giving users one shot at a photo that they will have to wait to see can emulate the polaroid process

“Moments” are exactly what you’re trying to capture in a photo; a real slice of your life that is raw and unmanufactured. This user flow from start to end will take hours in real time but less than a minute in screen time keeping people engaged with their lives rather than their phones.

Design

Low-Fidelity Wireframes

Delayed gratification allows for the photo to feel more honest

A feature to promote more unfiltered content has been a long time coming for Instagram. This being is an entirely new feature, making sure any new elements, such as the Moments icon, worked consistently within the design system was a priority. The new feature should feel organic within the ecosystem of the rest of the app’s features.

After testing proof of concept on 5 people, it seemed that users who have a basic understanding of how to post on Instagram can intuitively grasp this new version of posting. The key insight from this was that users want a more exciting way to easily differentiate between a Moments post and a regular post.


High-Fidelity Wireframes

An association can help users inherently understand a purpose

Since users associate polaroid pictures with authenticity, what better way to represent this feature than through a polaroid frame. It perfectly encapsulates the mission of what Instagram Moments is trying to achieve.

Test

Prototype

Capturing genuine moments will promote a healthier relationship with how users take pictures for Instagram

The pictures may not come out the best, or your friend is making a silly face, or your hair is just not agreeing with you today. The important thing is that photo is a more genuine peak into that moment the user is capturing, which in turn will mean a more authentic feed of what people post.


Iterations

Based on user data and feedback from the usability tests, these were the necessary changes to improve the overall experience.

  • Added a Moments icon onto the home page to shorten the user flow and increase accessibility of the feature

  • Added a notification bubble to indicate when Moment is done developing

  • Changed X to left chevron when returning to home screen after taking Moment photo, so user won’t think their photo could be deleted

  • Added Moments icon to Moments camera button to reinforce iconography and ensure the user knows what feature they’re using

Conclusion

A healthier Instagram will lead to a confident community

With how prevalent Instagram is, and with younger people being influenced by it with each passing year, a solution to help combat negative self esteem and feelings of ‘less than’ from it’s users is long overdue. This project forced me to follow the research, where I uncovered the relationship between authenticity and the photos people post, and how that inauthenticity is what contributes towards negative comparison and self esteem issues.

Developing a feature within the system of an existing platform to help fight the very thing that system creates was an extremely stimulating problem, that I would not have been able to solve without the perspective of multiple Instagram users and their relationship with the app.