A few years ago, Instagram released dozens of major updates that contained big features like IGTV, new Stories features, additional customisation and more. Since that point, the Instagram app has only ever gained more users, but the company have held back on releasing new functionality.
In this opinion-based article, I discuss six features I think Instagram should release to make the experience more fun and advanced.
1. Changes to Direct Messages
Instagram is always changing Direct Messages, with the latest change being colourful gradients on the chat bubbles. This is set, by default, to a purple/blue and there’s no way to change it. Adding more customisation options for the user interface – on a chat-by-chat basis or for every conversation, would be a good way to make the app more personal.
More notification options and the ability to automatically delete conversations or threads could also make full inboxes more manageable, especially for public figures.
Update: it appears Instagram is working on this.
2. Bulk-unfollow options
If you want to clear your account of old high-school friends or accounts you’re not interested in, you need to manually tap ‘Unfollow’ for each user. And, making it harder is Instagram’s choice to prevent you from doing so after you quickly unfollow large amounts of people in one go. The option to clear everyone from your following list, or select people to unfollow, would make this process simpler and much easier. Additional filtering choices, like ‘From A-Z’ or ‘Businesses Only’ can refine this even more.
3. More tools in Stories
Earlier this year, Instagram Stories received a facelift, making the UI easier to navigate and use one-handed. It’s also more personalised you and suggests tools it thinks you might want. Branding options and more font customisation (the latter Instagram is testing) will allow creators to better personalise their content for their audiences – more colours, gradient text, better layer control and embedded videos are also something that many rely on third-party apps for. Instagram could eliminate that need and keep more users sticking to the Stories platform for their images.
4. Better post controls
Better post controls: you can currently choose to pin comments, turn them off, delete offensive words and change many more settings, but after you’ve posted something it’s quite hard to change the post without removing and reposting. A post-publishing editor could let you apply a quick filter, add a second (or multiple) images and iron out any mistakes in the actual image.
5. UI Changes
Like Facebook, Instagram should allow users to customisation the navigation bar and choose what sections of the app to pin there. For example, for quicker access to DMs, you could replace Explore with Direct Messages. Quick Post options should be accessible, allowing you to hold and post a recent photo or story, right from the bottom of the screen. Making the app more one-handed friendly would be a welcome change for many, especially on larger iPhones.
