For those who have spent the years since Instagram's debut begging for a more minimalism-friendly design, your digital prayers may soon be answered. Instagram is currently testing a black-and-white redesign on some users, as Anton Abramov reported to the Verge on Tuesday. The new design, which beautifully ditches the blues of the past for the modernity of the present, has also started popping up in tweeted screenshots from those lucky enough to be given a test drive:
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"We often test new experiences with a small percentage of the global community," an Instagram spokesperson told the Verge in a statement. "This is a design test only." Instagram, as any multi-network socialite can attest, has maintained a much slower pace of reinvention than Facebook, Twitter, or even Snapchat.
Just last month, Instagram introduced the long-awaited ability to share 60-second videos for all users. Video engagement on the app, according to9 to 5 Mac, has increased "more than 40 percent" over the last six months. The possibility of a non-chronological timeline, similar to that of Twitter, has also been (very controversially) teased by the 'gram team.
"On average, people miss about 70 percent of the posts in their Instagram feed," Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom told the New York Times of testing the timeline. "What this is about is making sure that the 30 percent you see is the best 30 percent possible." As long as these new developments don't negatively impact Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's prolific Instagram output, then we're good.
