Instagram is considering to change the course of its Stories feature, which is borrowed from Snapchat, to feature TikTok-style navigation. The original Stories navigation, which involves horizontal taps and swipes, was heavily inspired by Snapchat.
But since its Stories feature is more mature now, Instagram only plans to change how users navigate from one story to the other.
By adopting a vertical TikTok style, navigating Instagram Stories will be arguably easier to use. I believe there’s a reason why users navigate web pages vertically and not horizontally. Besides, vertical stories navigation will be similar to Reels; Instagram’s TikTok inspired feature launched last year.
The Vertical Stories feature is in early development, and the company has already buried some of the code in its app. The early preview of the feature was posted on Twitter, and the company confirmed to TechCrunch that they’re working on it.
#Instagram is working on Vertical Stories 👀
Swipe up and down to browse stories. pic.twitter.com/LDJje8l137— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) February 2, 2021
However, the company says this is just an early prototype and perhaps undergoing internal testing but “is not currently testing on Instagram.”
Considering the feature is still in the prototype phase, it may or may never eventually rollout.
Chances are it’ll do as Instagram pivots to offer more of its content into the most likeable vertical navigation form that has helped people flock TikTok.
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