Instagram Exams New Placement of the DM Button within the Foremost UI

Instagram’s increasing its check of an alternate placement of the message icon in the primary app UI, as DMs proceed to see extra utilization within the app.

As you may see on this instance (posted by @novellearts), some customers are actually seeing the DM icon in the midst of the underside perform bar within the app. Which is presently the place the “+” creation button is for normal posts, however in accordance with IG chief Adam Mosseri, individuals are actually messaging much more than they share feed updates.

As per Mosseri:

“Messaging is used much more than the create button, so we’re testing placing DMs in each within the center place, and in place two the place you may nonetheless swipe over to it. We’ll see the way it goes.”

So some persons are seeing the DM icon within the center, whereas others are seeing it within the second spot within the decrease perform bar.

Or they might be seeing a special variation of the DM icon:

This model was noticed in testing again in July, so the experiment in shifting the DM icon has really been dwell for a while, although it’s now seemingly being expanded to extra customers.

Which, as per Mosseri’s observe, make sense. Over time, increasingly more social media interactions have switched to DMs as a substitute, with Mosseri noting this shift again in 2022.

Which is why Instagram has been working to lean into this variation, by additionally including new parts like inbox Notes to encourage extra DM interplay, and making it simpler to share posts through DMs.

As a result of whereas messaging might not really feel like the primary focus of IG, it now sort of is.

Once more, as per Mosseri, in an announcement earlier this yr:

“Whenever you consider Instagram, you in all probability consider a feed of sq. photographs. However how Instagram works has modified loads over time, and in case you take a look at what individuals share, and the way individuals categorical their creativity, the first means they achieve this is definitely DMs on Instagram. Extra photographs and movies are shared in DMs than are to Tales or to feed on any given day.”

So greater than what Mosseri famous in 2022, DMs are literally now the first channel for engagement between customers, with the primary feed changing into extra of a TikTok-like stream of really useful leisure.

As such, the change in all probability is smart, even when it does appear a little bit uncommon. It won’t really be essential, however perhaps it helps to gas already rising behaviors.