Instagram Tests New Swiping Feature and Things Go Horribly Wrong

You’d think Instagram would have learned from Snapchat’s mistake about drastically changing the UI of an app, but apparently it didn’t. The popular social media platform began rolling out an update on Thursday that replaced the typical vertical scrolling feed to one that was horizontal.

Instagram touted the feature as “a new way to move through posts.”

The update, as you’d expect, did not go over well with users and it instantly became a hot topic as countless memes began to sprout. A few of us at TechnoBuffalo, including myself, got to test out the new feature before Instagram reverted the feed back to normal.

One of the bigger UI errors it made was the way you navigate through photo albums. As it stands, you swipe through them, which is fairly simple. But with side swiping becoming a more encompassing navigation method, it made swiping between albums much more difficult. It didn’t feel like the feature was thoroughly thought out.

https://twitter.com/mosseri/status/1078322176070021121?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

As the social media uproar began, Instagram immediately began to backtrack, saying it was meant to be a partial test. Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri replied to a comment on Twitter saying it was just “a very small test that went broad by accident.” Now the new UI appears to have returned to the classic scrolling for everyone.

Regardless, people aren’t big fans of the horizontal UI, and we doubt Instagram will ever bring it back.