Augmented Reality x Instagram Direct Messaging


Context

In H1 2024, one of the goals of the Instagram Direct (IGD) org was to increase engagement and communication DAU through group chats among Teens and Young Adults. [find better]

After participating in a cross-team design sprint, I identified a collaboration opportunity with IGD PMs to drive an exploration of new bets that leverage Meta’s AR software platform offerings to drive teen engagement. 

As the Lead Product Designer, I led the ideation phase, worked with UXR to design stimuli for testing concepts in UXR, and collaborated with PMs to develop an execution plan.

Hypothesis

Delivering engaging AR formats in Instagram Direct Messaging (IGD) through Spark’s platform offerings can help encourage group participation among teens and young adults and increase overall group participation rate, media sharing, and cDAU.

Approach

Ideation

Early concept development

Our concept development was informed by product principles and a literature review of past UXR.

Product Principles

Concepts should:

  • Prioritize encouraging group activity vs activity in 1.1 threads. 

  • Initiate non-text experiences within groups.

    • Candid photo and video sharing. 

    • While IGD Media’s core focus is on increasing visual media sends, we can also consider other media forms (games, activities etc). 

  • Drive mimicry.

  • Be likely to be reused over time (vs trends that will decline once novelty wears off).

Literature Review

To inform our concept development, I reviewed internal research to make sure our concepts had pre-existing conviction (ie. leaning into opportunity areas and key themes that have been identified in the past). 

General research around what Teens Jobs to Be Done 

Insight 1: Create novelty and fun by introducing features that feel differentiated from competitors like Snapchat and iMessage

Insight 2: Teens are looking for experiences that enable low pressure togetherness and encourage authentic connection.

We landed on the following concepts with the goal of getting early signal on a broad range of categories:

  1. AR party games

  2. GenAI games

  3. Shared virtual object

  4. Remixing in Direct

  5. Quiz your friends

Designs

We created mocks that were illustrative of our concept to test in UXR. They were created in Figma and After Effects.

UXR Round 1

  • we test concepts among x participants 

  • Results

Outcome

I unfortunately was moved to another team as the result of a large re-org within Reality Labs. With the sunset of Spark AR, the team had to pivot and investigate ways to enable the concepts without leveraging AR.

The initiative gained momentum and this work evolved into a Pets chat theme in IGD, which is shipping in H2 2025.