Understanding Instagram User Persona: A UX Research Study

Introduction

Social media platforms thrive on user engagement, but what happens when engagement starts to decline? As part of the Uxcel UX Research Career Path, one of the key exercises is to conduct user research and build a persona. In this study, I take on the role of a UX researcher investigating the reasons behind a drop in engagement on Instagram.

Through a combination of user interviews, surveys, and content analysis, this research aims to uncover key pain points, behaviors, and motivations of Instagram users. The ultimate goal? To design a user persona that reflects the needs of real users and provides insights to improve engagement on the platform.

Research Goal

The primary objective of this research is to understand why Instagram users are engaging less with content and what factors influence their behavior. Specifically, this study aims to:

• Identify key challenges users face when interacting with Instagram.
• Explore motivations and frustrations that impact engagement.
• Develop a user persona based on real user insights.
• Provide actionable recommendations to improve user engagement.

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User Interview Goal

I want to understand what keeps people coming back to Instagram, what makes their experience enjoyable, and what frustrations might limit their engagement. I’m curious about how they use features like Stories, Reels, and DMs, and what content feels most meaningful to them.

I’ll focus on:

• What motivates users to interact with posts, stories, and reels.
• What features they enjoy and what feels repetitive or frustrating.
• How they balance staying connected with friends and discovering new content.

The insights I gather will help me design an experience that feels more authentic, engaging, and personalized to their needs.

Below are the participants’ answers from the interview. Each question is followed by the corresponding participant responses.

After gathering the answers, I moved on to build an affinity map to connect the dots and identify patterns, which helped me develop the user persona.

Based on the insights gathered from the affinity mapping, I created the user persona that represents the key behaviors, goals, and pain points of the target users.

Conclusion

After carefully reviewing all participant responses, I organized the insights through affinity mapping to spot meaningful patterns. This helped me build a user persona that truly reflects our users’ needs, goals, and pain points. 🚀🌟