ITI 200 Social Informatics
Agenda
Background
Methods
Think-Alouds
Participants
Name | Age | Instagram User Level |
Participant 1 (Harry) | 15 | Beginner. Occasionally Uses Instagram. |
Participant 2 (Rose) | 19 | Avid Instagram users. Uses Instagram a lot daily. |
Participant 3 (Tom) | 34 | Uses Instagram to post pictures at times. Not a beginner but doesn't use it on a daily basis. |
Participant 4 (Randall) | 21 | Daily. Checks scores, updates, and messages every day. The most used app is Instagram |
Participant 5 (Sam) | 53 | Never used it before. Does not even have an account |
Participant 6 (Elizabeth) | 27 | Average user. Checks Instagram once maybe twice in a day. Posts pictures often. Knows the app well despite not being an avid user. |
Journey Map
Findings or Stress Cases
Allowing users to tag someone without their permission and the location of the picture where it was taken.
Instagram’s photo-uploading feature does not function well when two pictures of different orientations are posted.
Age verification would be a great implementation to protect young people from being exploited on social media, especially where things nowadays are so easily accessible.
Users should have the choice to remove a photo from a post or replace it with another photo from a series of pictures from one post.
Findings or Stress Cases
Users are contacted by too many bot/thirst-trap accounts due to Instagram's inability to verify each account as a legitimate user.
An ad is shown after every 3 posts. We cannot make this the default option when you open the app. Yet another way for Instagram to force you to look at ads.
No design is ever perfect, there is always some things which are not efficient for certain users, but it is for some others. However, it is developers job and insight to keep the user’s experience in mind and make the changes according to their convenience. And that is the reason why we see updates happenings often on devices, softwares, applications, etc.
First Solution (User’s Permission)
Users should be able to manually approve tags by anyone, this would increase privacy and protection
Second Solution (Different Photo Orientation)
1. Instagram’s parent company Meta, who also own Facebook, allows users to upload photos of various orientations without having to compromise on the photo size and quality.
2. Instagram can follow what Facebook does regarding its user interface for this issue. The photo uploading process is very smooth and easy for users on Facebook.
3. This is a frustrating issue because parts of the photos are usually cropped out while trying to upload pictures of different orientations.
People use 3rd party applications to resize their pictures and upload without having to compromise in picture quality.
Third Solution (Age Verifier)
By implementing advanced age verification technology, we’ll be preventing individuals from potentially accessing dangerous content on social media
Third Solution (Age Verifier)
Allowing the user to delete a particular picture
Users should be provided with the option to remove any image from a collection of images. Here is a design that gives a good solution to the stress case, which satisfies the user’s expectations and does what it is supposed to be doing. With not changing much of the Instagram’s dominant design.
Allowing the user to delete a particular picture
The solution to this stressful situation was provided by Instagram in a recent update on October 22, 2022. They ultimately chose to allow consumers to delete and restore a single photo from a collection.
Fifth Solution (controlling bot activity on user accounts)
Solution 1:
Solution 2:
(socialbuddy)
Controlling bot activity on user accounts
Solution 3:
(marketingmag)
Hide Ads You Don’t Want To See
Conclusion
As briefly discussed before, we came together as a team to discuss and research the problems and flaws with the Instagram API. As each member listed one flaw, we each came up with solutions to those problems. The user, who are ultimately the main selling point of instagram, should be able to use instagram stress free every time to log on. The solutions we formulated will counteract the problems directly and efficiently. Solutions such as asking for age verification before you sign up for an account tackles the issue of having minor prone to exploitation on social media. This and all the others will create an better and safer Instagram for all the world to use.
References
References continued:
Questions