Repost in Instagram without external app
Instagram, the social networking most used around the world for its visual content and easy way to connect people, hasn’t yet implemented a native function to repost content without using a external app.
My first solo project in Ironhack was scheduled to be completed in just 4 days. The main goal was to include the repost feature to the native app, Instagram. I decided to go deep and start with The Design Thinking method:
1. Empathize
With that in mind, I made a deep investigation and I interviewed 10 people to get first hand information to solve the problem: “repost through Instagram”.
I got some interesting information as you will see below:
6/10 Users use Android operating system.
6/10 Users have a personal and a profesional account.
8/10 Users use Instagram during working hours.
5/10 Users use their personal account during chill moments in night shift.
7/10 Users considers there isn’t any competitor for Instagram.
Insights
6/10 Users would like to repost directly from native app and appear it on the feed.
7/10 Users repost professional content through an external app to have more views in Instagram.
8/10 Users only had reposted through Stories.
2. Define
The results outlined me Sara, a user persona that uses Instagram 80% on a professional profile with her Android mobile.
“I use Instagram 80% professionally and 20% just personally”
Motivations
- She thinks Instagram is popular and connect more people.
- She uses most of the time her professional account to share and promote clients content.
- She likes the repost option to have good performances for her clients.
Pain Points
- She doesn’t like to download an external app to repost on Instagram because it wastes a lot of time and it’s weird.
- She only can repost from native app from stories if first the client tag them.
Needs
- Repost directly from Instagram.
- Repost professional content from her clients to have more views.
Problem Statement
Entepreneurs from 30 to 40 y/o need a way to repost in the native Instagram app because currently they have to download an external app to do that so it generates them some fustration due to not being able to make a good promotion.
3. Ideate
The ideation process helped me to find different solutions to solve the problem and implement the feature at Instagram.
I drew two possible ideas in two storyboards where I define two different user flows with uses cases. It helped me to express and capture the ideas better.
Idea 1:To add a repost icon attached to all photos appearing on Sara’s timeline. A lock icon would be displayed when the photo owner chose to limit the privacy. If so, Sara would need to ask permission.
I discovered testing that users found easily the repost icon and they liked the place where I showed it. They agreed to ask for permission if you wanted to repost a post, maybe some people didn’t like that you could repost their photos.
The advanced settings were interesting for them but they said that normally you have to pay to show a “promotion” several times so the “automatic repost” section would mean a lot of reposts from everybody that did that shown at the feed and it would be caothic.
Idea 2: To add at Instagram timeline, a tab panel to separate the normal posts and reposteable posts of all the followed accounts in Sara’s professional account (most of them, clients). Also include a filter panel to find faster the desired photos.
Finally 5 out of 6 interviewed chose the second idea over the first. It was a useful function with an innovative filter in the app that enabled easy access to the content. I just had to make some changes in the prototyping process.
4. Prototyping & Testing
With that in mind, I started with the wireframe in a low fidelity. The main user flow would be:
Sara clicks on “Repost” in the upper tab panel and uses the filter to select “business company”, then she would press OK. A new display of the feed applying the selected filter. Sara would chose the desired client photo and click on the repost icon. A new screen will appear where she will choose where to add the author mention, write some extra information and finally press OK to perform the repost.
I decided to test the low fi giving the repost mision to the users navigating through the different shown screens.
I got 5 interviewed people out of 6 that were confused with:
- The separation on the timeline. People didn’t understand the content they will find there.
Other things to consider were:
- 4/6 The filter options that includes some unnecessary categories (friends, famous people, etc)
- 3/6 The cross icon to remove the filter was too small to be used with a tap.
- 3/6 suggested that the space between the repost options (mention author and photo color) was too close “side by side” and it felt crowded
Listening to these comments I modified the mid- fi wireframes and I made the following changes:
- Removed the upper tab panel (Post/Repost) and replace with a subtle filter icon on the right side and a “Repost” label.
- Cleaned some unnecessary category profiles.
- Changed the cross icon with a “clear” button to disable the filter.
The last testing led me to a high fidelity design:
- 6/6 felt that the main problem with the timeline repost filter was solved.
- 6/6 thought that the flow was clearer.
- 4/6 suggested a last minute addition: a repost scheduling.
5. Learnings
This project helped me to understand much better all the process and the steps involved so in next steps I could improve the functionality to cover a more general repost on all pics. But first I will try and test how it performs on Sara’s feed.
I found interesting the learnings because it was my first solo project (after prework) so next time I will improve the interviews (less questions and more focused on the feature), try to be practical and have quick decisions.
At the beginning the repost feature on Instagram looked quite easy to work on. But at the time to do it, it was not easy because Instagram has a minimalist design and it was quite complex to know where and how would be better to blend in.
Thank you for reading! I hope you found it interesting.
