Modern social apps are usually mobile first thanks to the increased use of smartphones and the decade versions are only given a handful of features that are available on the mobile app. This is thanks to the gradual reduction of relying on desktops to surf the web onto phones and the trend won’t end soon.
There has been a change however where companies are now giving the traditional desktop interface some love. WhatsApp did that with WhatsApp for Web and Skype too gave its web app functionality found in the legacy desktop application.
When it comes to Instagram, it has made major changes to its desktop web app for a while now like a brand new interface and a search bar that lets you search for people or hashtags. Now, Instagram has rolled out another update that a feature we have had on the mobile app: Notifications.
The notification button is on the right side of the page next to the profile button and when you tap it, it displays your notifications in a scrollable format.
This will allow you to keep up with your notifications if you are away from your phone and it is a step in the right direction to make it more useful to users. You still cannot do basic stuff like upload a picture or a video, checking your photo map or have the proper Explore functionality but it serves the purpose for now. As Instagram continues to test their algorithmic timeline to the mobile app, we can only wonder if they will roll out this functionality too on the web although it is not a fan favourite as of now.
