Instagram Stories gets a fresh new look on the desktop

Instagram has started rolling out a new look for how we view Instagram Stories on the desktop. It’s been testing the redesign for a little while now, but now it appears to be getting implemented into actual live accounts.

Rather than the usual single card that pops up for your current story, now you get a new carousel-style look with previous and next buttons, pause, play and audio buttons. Clicking on another story to either side of the one you’re watching also immediately takes you to that story, making it very quick and easy to scan the Stories feed.

If the new look hasn’t come to your account yet, then you should expect to see it fairly soon. It’s already popped up on mine, as you can see in the screenshot at the top of this post. It certainly makes browsing through stories much easier than it used to be.

As a viewer, it should allow you to more easily see more of the Stories content you want to see and as a content creator, it should help to get your work in front of more people who prefer to use the desktop rather than a phone to view Instagram. At least, that’s the theory.

Instagram’s been working on expanding the functionality of its desktop UI for a while now, and it looks like they may not be finished yet. It’s only take a decade, but perhaps Instagram is finally getting to be more useful outside of smartphones.

[via Engadget]