Earlier this month, Instagram rolled out an update to its app which introduced a new icon and a new UI. Not much was said about the new UI, but it seemed that many users really disliked Instagram’s new icon, with dozens of memes being made that made fun of it. Adweek even called it one of the biggest design fails of the year.
However as it turns out, maybe it isn’t. According to analysis provided by Dragonfly, an app designed by Black Swan and researchers from Queen Mary University in London, it seems that despite the negative feedback, Instagram’s new app icon is actually proving to be more engaging than its predecessor.
They relied on eye-tracking heatmaps to come to this conclusion in which they found that the new icon is 10% more engaging to the human eye. The app found the new icon to be more impactful, thanks to the use of bright gradient colors interrupted by the white outline of the camera, which draws the eye to the center of it.
If we’re talking strictly about logos and their engagement, it seems that other bigger companies did not do so well, like Google’s new logo actually got a lower saliency score than its old logo. Uber’s new logo was also found to be not as engaging as its older design, so in reality it seems that Instagram did a good job, However design is art, and art is subjective, so while it might be more engaging, we guess we can understand if some users did not appreciate it from an aesthetic point of view.