As part of my graduate project, I conducted a heuristic audit in collaboration with fellow UX design students. This analysis aimed to systematically evaluate Instagram's website by gathering empirical data to identify its strengths and weaknesses in usability and overall user experience.
The goal of this research is to evaluate how well Instagram’s functionality meets the users objectives. Discover if users are able to easily manage, edit, and access the content they interact with on Instagram. Understand the efficiency of using IG to execute their daily objectives. Learn about the memorability of finding information that is not accessed on a daily basis. Determine the effectiveness of the user interface to make users feel satisfied with their time spent on the app.
Key Focus
To assess the efficiency and usability of various Instagram features, we conducted usability testing interviews via Zoom. Below is the plan for each interview.
We utilized metrics from Jakob’s Ten Usability Heuristics to accurately assess the user experience.
We sought to recruit five participants who fit our criteria. After screening them, we invited those who passed to participate in a usability test.
We conducted interviews with five participants, each presented with ten scenarios to perform. During these scenarios, we observed their behaviors and calculated a heuristic evaluation score. Users rated their experiences on a scale from 1 to 5. Below, we present the statistics for four of the ten scenarios
Throughout the sessions, we alternated roles between moderating and note-taking/interviewing, which allowed us to systematically gather data on participants' actions, including metrics such as the number of clicks, average time spent, and satisfaction ratings.
Additional scenarios presented to participants included (please refer to the final video presentation below for the statistics on these scenarios):
