Instagram's UX Problems

While these are certainly improvements that Instagram could make to improve their app, this article is more attitude than helpful critique. Absent the cruft, there is little substance here.

Unworthy of HN, IMO.

I actually don't get one point that I hear often and that's made in this article. Namely that Instagram used to have higher quality of photos. And now that it's more popular, the quality has gone down.

But what does it matter to YOU, what the average user is putting up? I have a list of people that I follow - who I consider good or am interested in. The fact that there is a million or billion other users snapping ugly photographs is irrelevant. Would you judge a photo-lab based on the service they offer or how good the photos of their other users are?

Right now, the UX problem I am faced with is the sheer non-readability of your blog. First, I trust the fonts look beautiful on a Mac, and it certainly is not your fault that font rendering on Windows sucks big time, but unless you want to lock out a rather large share of potential visitors, you should really test your design on a Windows machine. Your fonts are simply unreadable on Win7/Chrome. Second, light gray text on salmon background? Seriously? That is virtually zero contrast!

Another one: if I know someone's user name I can't add them through the "Find & Invite Friends" page under options, I can only do it through the explore page.

Also, the forced cropping of pictures taken outside of the app is by far the most annoying UX thing from my perspective.

"people taking pictures of their weed and their 18 children with their baby daddies"

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