Case Study: Standing Out on Instagram Stories with Made – Story Maker & Collage App
Team Product
Role Senior Product Designer & Content Creator
Goal
To stand out on Instagram Stories by creating visually engaging, unique content that resonates with followers, fosters deeper connections, and boosts engagement.
Outcome
By using Made, story interactions increased by 25%, and new followers began commenting on the creativity of the content.
App Made — Story Maker & Collages
Challenges
Instagram Stories are a saturated platform, making it difficult to grab attention.
Creating unique, professional-looking content regularly can be time-consuming.
You need a cohesive visual style that speaks to your brand and encourages interaction.
Target Audience
Instagram followers aged 18-35 who are engaged with visual content.
Current followers who enjoy aesthetic storytelling and creativity.
The Product Team
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Charlie Steadman
Creative Director
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John Fabela
Lead Product Designer
As an Instagram creator, standing out on Stories is essential for maintaining follower engagement and building a deeper connection with your audience. With so many users creating daily content, it’s easy to get lost in the noise. The challenge was to create Stories that are not only visually appealing but also align with your personal brand and engage viewers to respond, react, or share.
The problem
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On social media it’s hard to stand out. On Instagram alone, over 500 million accounts use stories. People aimlessly watch stories and hardly ever stop tapping through to engage. Creators that we’ve interviewed have expressed that they find it difficult to stand out on stories with the current tools available. They have expressed a need for something that will get your followers to stop and engage.
Context
Customer Insights
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500 million accounts use stories
This is a key insight that helped us validate the opportunity for us to solve a problem that exists in the story realm
Target Users
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Creator 01
“As a creator, I want to deepen my connection with my growing audience. With so much content flooding stories around the clock, it can be challenging to truly stand out and make a meaningful impact.”
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Influencer 02
“With everyone using similar tools, stories are starting to look the same, making it tough to stand out. As an influencer, my income depends on engaging my audience and inspiring them to purchase the products I promote. That’s why it’s crucial for my stories to be unique and memorable.”
Competitors
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Unfold
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Tezza
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Over
Brands with unique stories
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Vans
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Fila
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Nike
Opportunities
option #1
Use elements from Instasize to create new stories feature
option #2
Create story templates using borders feature
option #3
Create new app with stories experience
User Journey
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sounds like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest.
Template layout exploration
Idea 1
EASY ACCESS TO TEMPLATES BUT...
- COLLECTIONS WILL GROW
- SMALL SCROLL SPACE (4 IN VIEW)
- CAN’T SEE VARIETY
- DIFFICULT TO FILTER
- NO SEARCH
Idea 2
NEW TEMPLATE LIBRARY
- ALLOWS FOR GROWTH
- MORE TEMPLATES IN VIEW
- CAN SEE VARIETY
- SEARCH + FILTERING
Gold Frame Templates
Pride Templates
Made Branded Templates
Opportunities
option #1
Use elements from Instasize to create new stories feature
option #2
Create story templates using borders feature
option #3
Create new app with stories experience
Key Results
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20% increase in Story views
Customers want to know the root cause of broken cartons so they can fix any issues that are stopping production from moving smoothly.
The problem
How are we solving the customer problem?
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Initial Ideas - a. Rejects Log
Difficult to sift through information logs
Logs of information aren’t the most helpful when trying to identify problems. We need to take this burden off of the user and show them potential problems.
Initial Ideas - b. Top Reasons
Simplify information
Instead of giving the customer a log to sift through it’s more helpful if we show them how often these broken cartons/rejects are occurring so they can identify if this is an actual problem or an edge case
Solidified ideas - Specific Reasons
Call to actions are important
Giving the customer a specific reason for rejects and allowing them to visualize how big of a problem this is so they can figure out how to resolve this reoccurring issue
Solidified ideas - Future Predictions
Trending can help predict the future
Customer want to know where they are at and more importantly where they are going. Showing trending information can help them identify problems in quality
Solidified ideas - Simplifying data
Collaborating with other teams
Current look of how errors or reject reasons are displayed.
1. Tells user what to do
2. Technical jargon. The customer doesn’t need to know what to do after the fact this should be handled at the machine level. We need to collaborate with other teams to simplify the way we receive these errors
How are we solving the customer problem?
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
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