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Intelligent hashtag suggestion for Instagram
Free your brain from arduous searching experience
Final outcome
Role
Team Leader
UX Researcher
UX Designer
UI Designer
Time
2020
Deliverables
Wireframes
Hi-fi Prototype
BACKGROUND
Good hashtags are important for business to market in IG
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Why important?
A post with at least one Instagram hashtag averages 12.6% more engagement than posts without a hashtag.
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Why need hashtags?
Good hashtags are the hashtags that can help the post get more exposure in IG, to generate more followers, comments and sales as a result.
BACKGROUND
But the process of coming up with good hashtags is arduous
Brainstorming ideas using IG is arduous
When searching hashtags on IG:
6 clicks
It takes 6 clicks
7 screens
It takes 7 screens
Using various tools to come up with ideas is time-consuming and low-quality
There are some 3rd party tools that help generate hashtag ideas.
But users need to switch the screens to other apps or move to the web end when they are using the tools, which is very time-consuming.
Imagine a small business, how frustrating for them to come up with hashtag ideas, and repeat the process over and over again for every single post.
PROBLEM
How might we provide the hashtag suggestion to make the process simplified and efficient?
RESEARCH
Our users say, “More ideas in hashtags, less time in decision making.”
We interviewed 6 people who market their business in IG to understand their pain points and needs. By synthesizing, we found out the following insights.
BREAKDOWN PROBLEMS
1. How might we provide high-quality hashtags?
2. How might we provide as many ideas as possible?
3. How might we help them make quick decisions?
1. How might we provide high-quality hashtags?
Field Study - The hashtags that can help posts get more exposure
There are millions of advice and opinions after conducting the field study. However, to summarize up, we can roughly group them into these 4 categories:
Brainstorming
For each category, we brainstormed design ideas
Popular hashtags
Niche hashtags
Sensitive hashtags
The features:
These features should be interdependent. The most efficient hashtags are the popular & nich & non-sensitive hashtags.
2. How might we help them make quick decisions?
What metrics should we use?
From previous research, we found that showing the metrics of a hashtag can help users make decisions.
But there are so many metrics that we can use, such as CTR (Click-through-rate, impression, trends, changes, likes, saves).
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The core metrics - CTR
After discussing with an engineer and a marketing specialist, we decided to use CTR (Click-through-rate) as a measure.
The features
The first sight matters for quick decisions
We've come up with metrics that can help users compare the efficiency of various hashtags. How are we going to order the hashtags to make it more efficient for users to make decisions?
3. How might we provide as many ideas as possible?
In order to solve this problem, we explored various ideas through wireframes.
Idea 1
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Set “hashtag suggestion” as a secondary button
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go to another page to select hashtags
Idea 2
User a drop down menu for users to select hashtags
Idea 3
Suggest hashtag automatically when users start to type #
Idea 4
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Use the color of the hashtag circle to communicate the engagement rate
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Combine popular hashtags and related hashtags together
The most simplified experience
After critiquing among the team, we decided to choose idea 3 as our final solution, because it keeps the original information hierarchy, it’s easier for users to understand this feature, and it’s more convenient to access the hashtag ideas.
Start to insert hashtags
Type #
show Hashtag suggestions
Sensive hashtag explanation
related hashtag ideas
ready to post
Communicate metrics effectively through visual language
Before we mentioned that, metrics are important for users to make quick decisions. So how to communicate the metrics is important when it comes to help them make quick decisions?
we did a few explorations. It was a fun process. Can you guess which one we picked finally?
After doing A/B testing, and based on the user feedback, we combined some elements as our final solution.
Final Outcome
Get popular hashtags that are aligned with your intention
Popular hashtags would be suggested based on the letters that users type in
This can make sure the suggested hashtags are what users really want, instead of just providing general popular hashtags but are not alined with users’ intention.
Get the niche hashtags generated by the Caption
Related hashtags will be generated from capturing the keywords of the caption, as well as the inserted hashtags, to make sure it’s related to the post topic.
Detailed Information for sensitive hashtags
Some hashtags used to be popular but are sensitive at the moment. Giving these details to users help them make good selections.
Non-intrusive design to make it the most simplified
The design layout is similar to current hashtag searching page. The least cognitive load makes it very efficient for users to use.
Get inspired in Comments too
Some users like to add hashtags in comments, which can also help them promote the business by adding to caption.
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