Product Notebook - Instagram v1

Product Notebook
Today, I am introducing Product Notebook, a new category in my blog.
Having been back in school for almost a year now, I have been picking up many product management tools to put into my toolbox. However, where is the fun in just learning and not applying?

Therefore, I have decided to apply what I have learnt in mini-exercises on products that I like. On one hand it exercises my product thinking muscles, on another it is a good way to know a product better. Like a notebook, this will be a place for me to jot down ideas before they disappear. If you are reading this, feel free to give me constructive feedback as well, that's the only way to get better over time. I'll thank you if one day I end up working on these products for real, or if I manage to create a competitor product that resonates with you. We shall see. :)

Today's product: Instagram
Instagram -- This is one of my favorite products because I am someone who likes to capture and share memorable moments with others. Life is full of ups and downs, it is all these moments that make things colourful.

That I realise, is also why Instagram shifted from the original brown logo to the current colourful logo - to reflect this vibrant and diverse place storytelling has become.

With that as a basis, today's topic is on User Experience (UX) product improvement ideas. Any one can always have many ideas on what one thinks is appropriate for a product, but at the end of the day, we do need to know the focus area the product is tackling before we can make constructive suggestions.

In the following slides, you would have realised that I have structured my thinking based on the background of the product, a SWOT analysis, a persona that represents a good % of the consumer base of Instagram, and eventually, top 3 product improvement ideas based on the researched background information. The quality of the images may be a little low due to file compression after uploading to Slideshare, feel free to drop me a note if you want a higher quality version.

Instagram - Product Improvement from Elaine Aw (Yi Hui)

To sum up, the creation of the above slide deck was relatively quick. I did the background research, had a list of ideas, prioritised the top 3 based on potential impact, and completed the wireframe, all within a week.

For the next steps, it would be interesting to perform some exploratory interviews, and to build sample prototypes of the ideas to solicit feedback to refine the initial ideas further. That's all for now, I will leave that update for another time.