Re-Engaging Users on Instagram

Introduction

Social media platforms thrive on user engagement, but what happens when that engagement starts to decline? In this project, I stepped into the role of a UX researcher to investigate the reasons behind a drop in engagement on Instagram.

Since this was a simulation, I didn’t conduct interviews with real Instagram users. Instead, I used AI-assisted mock interviews alongside surveys and content analysis to replicate realistic user feedback. This approach created a safe environment to practice user research while still uncovering meaningful insights about user pain points, behaviors, and motivations.

The ultimate goal of this study is to create a user persona that reflects these findings and provides actionable direction for improving engagement on the platform.

Defining the Platform & Device

I chose to focus on the Instagram mobile app on smartphones (Android + iOS) since that’s the dominant way people interact with the platform.

Conducting Simulated User Research

To mirror real-world methods, I combined:

• AI-assisted mock interviews – simulating one-on-one chats with different types of Instagram users.
• Surveys – broad questions about usage habits and frustrations.
• Content audit – reviewing common complaints about engagement with posts, reels, and stories.

These “mock interviews” generated surprisingly diverse behaviors—from passive scrollers to creative users frustrated with visibility.

Synthesizing the Insights

Creating Personas

Persona 1: The Content Explorer

Persona 2: The Passive Scroller

Persona 3: The Aspiring Creator

Key Learnings

• Practicing UX research with AI simulations is a useful rehearsal tool.
• Instagram’s main challenges boil down to too much content, weak personalization, and struggling creators.
• To re-engage users, Instagram must focus on: simplifying the experience, strengthening community, and supporting creators.

Final Reflection

This exercise taught me that UX design is not about adding more features, but about amplifying meaningful ones. Even in a mock research environment, “users” (AI-simulated in this case) revealed frustrations that echoed what we see in the real Instagram experience: fatigue, irrelevance, and lack of connection.

Documenting this process helped me sharpen my ability to turn raw responses into personas, insights, and clear design priorities.