Instagram is now testing a new vertical scrolling design for Stories with a small group of users. The vertical feed, which the platform started to develop back in February 2021, gives a more TikTok-like experience to users.
Social media commentator Matt Navarra first reported the new test when some users in Turkey received an update on Instagram, which brought a vertical feed to Stories on their apps.
As it appears, the new design lets users see more Stories from the same user by scrolling through horizontally and skipping to the next user’s content by swiping down.
Instagram isn’t only testing the vertical mode for Stories in Turkey. Brazilian tech journalist Thássius Veloso also reported seeing the same update.
The change comes as the platform competes with TikTok for users’ attention. Since its inception, the rival app and most visited online destination have based its video viewing experience on the vertical scroll, and Instagram has also been slowly focusing on pushing video formats within Stories rather than static content.
Moreover, among Instagram’s latest copycat features bringing the app closer to TikTok, in December the platform began testing the possibility to extend Stories’ time limit from 15 to 60 seconds.
New ways Instagram is looking to improve its user experience include the recent addition of a new option in testing that would allow users to edit their grid’s arrangement by freely choosing in what order their published content is displayed on their profile pages.
Instagram has also recently introduced new options for its users to choose how they see content on their feed, offering a renewed chronological feed.
And more recently, the Meta-owned company started testing the option to privately like Stories.
It remains unclear whether the platform will begin rolling out these features any time soon or if it will launch or suppress them in the first place. But that’s the nature of testing features before a wider release.
Meanwhile, Twitter has already been testing a vertical, full-screen experience for its Explore tab since December.
