Product design for Instagram: what Stories should look like inside the Explore tab

You are a product manager on Instagram. Explore is the tab where people browse posts and Reels recommended from accounts they do not follow. Stories are full-screen posts that disappear after 24 hours and mostly reach the poster's followers through the tray at the top of the Home feed. How would you bring Stories into Explore? Set a goal, decide who you are designing for, propose and prioritize the experience, and explain how you would measure whether it worked. ```hint Two audiences, one story Stories are usually posted with followers in mind and vanish within a day. Before designing, think through what changes for the person whose story is shown to strangers, and what the short shelf life means for recommending a story at all. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Should the change mainly help viewers discover accounts worth following, give posters reach beyond their followers, or increase time spent watching Stories? - Which stories would be eligible: any story from a public account, only stories from accounts that opt in, or only creator and business accounts? - Can Stories get a new place in Explore, such as a row or an entry point of their own, or must they compete for space in the existing grid of posts and Reels? - Is monetization, such as ads between recommended stories, in scope for this version? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A goal for Stories in Explore that explains what they add beyond the posts and Reels Explore already recommends - Both the viewers and the people whose stories would be shown, with one viewer segment chosen and the reason for the choice - Placement and interaction designs compared and prioritized against explicit criteria, including the risk to posters - How eligibility, ranking and moderation handle content that expires within a day and reaches people who never followed the poster - A primary metric with guardrails that would catch harm to other parts of Instagram and to posters ### Follow-up Questions - A poster says a story meant for their followers showed up in Explore and drew abusive replies from strangers. What does your design do about that? - Recommending a creator's story changes that creator's reach for every viewer, not only the ones in your test group. How would you design the experiment? - If the feature raises Stories viewing but total time in Explore stays flat because Reels viewing falls, would you ship it?