This week, the object I have chosen for recording a video is a humidifier. I used the Instagram software on my iPhone 7 to record and edit the media content. Over the recording process, I also tried to use the front-facing camera to record the video of an object the way that I have never tried before because in the recording I am the performer but also I needed to watch the frame while I was operating the humidifier at the same time. One special affordance of Instagram  video recording is that users have to always hit the record button to keep recording, it is sometimes a constraint as well. I therefore set up a tripod to make my iPhone stable while I was operating the humidifier by my one hand. Nevertheless, I eventually needed somebody to help me to keep hitting the record button when I did some shots that need my two hands operation. Another notable thing is I disliked the square format of Instagram before, but it helped me to reduce some headroom of the frame that I could not crop due to the location and device constraints.

Some affordances of Instagram gave me a lot of challenges and difficulties, but opportunities as well. As I said previously, I must keep hitting the recording button to stay recording status, it indeed increased the difficulties level of shooting, especially meanwhile I had to always care about if the unnecessary items, such as my hair, comes into the frame. Whereas, this “start-stop touch” feature also provides a convenient approach to break up a video into multiple shots. I did not want to shoot only one long shot for this video: its actual operation time might exceed the Instagram video limitation and I might perform the unappropriated and superfluous actions, such as rearrange objects position. The easy “start-stop touch” gave me time and relax to rearrange the humidifier parts and rehearsal my performance. The video recording option lacks the flash feature in comparison to the photograph recording and I cannot arrange a suitable light for my subject (I only have a desk lamp, but its light makes the white humidifier over-exposured) which made me upset.

In contrast with my experience with other video editing software, the entire editing process on the Instagram I felt boring sometimes. Firstly, users can employ the “start-stop touch” feature to organized numerous shots though, and the Instagram indeed offers the “trim” option when the recording finished, but I only can trim the first shot for some reasons. I have explored a lot on this feature and hope to find if there are some ways that I can trim other shots, but the outcome is unsatisfied (I can re-upload the original video onto the Instagram, but I am only allowed to trim the beginning and the end of the video as well). Although the “start-stop touch” gives users some breath time from the long video recording, who could guarantee that they would definitely not have a tiny imperfect mistake in the whole recording process and users would like to trim some of shots a little bit? In addition, I am not an editing aficionado, hence I was fine with the few editing options within the video recording software on the app which empowered my video as much concise and clear as possible. I used the “Gingham filters” to create a “contemporary, cool and urban” aesthetics in order to imitate the style of “designed photo” into my video and become one of the members that the Manovich (2016) describes the designed photo authors peer group on Instagram. I muted the sound to make sure audiences would only focus on the content and choose a whole humidifier picture as the video cover.

How did you publish (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?

 

I would like to upload the post which is aesthetics and has a nice visual result, so I tried to practice performing and recording several times and then I got the satisfying shots finally. The video upload process was a little bothered, the first time uploading costed a while and it failed uploaded eventually. But my original post was stored automatically as a draft and I did not need to record the video again, besides the second time of the uploading process only took few seconds and the video was successfully uploaded finally. I think it might because I was a new account on Instagram, hence I met the small problem about the first-time uploading. I added the English geo-tags to my post, I was going to use the geo-tag which is exactly the street where I am living in, but I decided to use a tourist spot which is very close to my home and expected to reach more attention. I also added some hashtags which related to the object I have chosen, and I will explain what these hashtags are and my intention clearly in the distribution part.

 

I spent a lot of time and energy on the text caption. The Instagram is a photo/image visual centered social media platform, but I think the text caption is also vital and has an explanation role when users are not advantaged at photo and video authoring and they expected to use words to convey their thoughts and ideas. I applied the form of text caption is “a summary key sentence of what is a good/bad design and why it is good or bad + my personal experience or understanding towards the object + a question form at the end to get interaction with others”. I tried to avoid any academic terms in the text, such as “affordance” “constraints”, in order to easily understand. I @ the subject brand as well to increase the credibility level of my text description. My first video text caption is firstly paraphrasing Norman’s argument about what is good design, and then I talked about my understanding towards why the object is a good design, I was inspired by the course material ‘How To Get 10k Followers On Instagram Per Week’, the presenter Chris Do (2019) mentioned at the end of the video, the audiences are always more important than the product itself in the process of running an Instagram account, hence I was tried to build the credibility: I did not use the adjective to appraise the subject but describing and listing which part designed well and simple. Many Instagram users would not look through carefully the long text caption, thus I paid attention to the first sentence and last sentence (which two places the eyesight might stay longer), I both emphasized that good design products could be directly operated without extra guidelines.

 

 

How did you distribute (the photo or video) you published on Instagram to other social media services?

 

In order to make my distribution area of the post as broad as possible, I used some hashtags, the geo-tag and I also tagged the brand. I divided hashtags I used into four parts: design-related (#design #designs #good design), the humidifier related (#humidifier #humidifiers #midea #mideaapplications), the home appliances related (#home #homesweethome #homeappliances) and the minimalism related (#minimalism #minimalist). I used the hashtag #minimalism was actually inspired by a sentence from the course reading, “more minimal version of modern design emerged and it found its way into everything”, I took the minimalism design concept into account and made a connection with the humidifier I shown in the video, and regarded it as the type of minimal aesthetics (Manovich 2016, p.64). The new field and the hashtags that I haven’t known before may help me to reach more people. I also tried to tag the brand ‘midea’, tagging brands with large accounts give the post the opportunity to been seen by a mass amount of followers.

 

I mentioned in the publishing part that I used the geo-tag, and I would like to clearly analyze the different language of the geo-tag may influence the distribution realm. I used the English geo-tag in this post because I thought the Instagram is blocked in China currently and Chinese users must use the Instagram with the help of VPN which could reduce the number of Chinese people to use the Instagram. However, I checked the active posts in the English version and Chinese version of geo-tag, to my surprised, under the geo-tag #曲阜孔庙, the posts are active as well and posts update daily. In comparison with the geo-tag #Temple of Confucius, posts are not active and even there is only a new post in a few days. Certainly, the Instagram does not show the users the algorithm of “active visits” “active posts number”, I cannot compare the two geo-tags critically and objectively, and the above analysis only based on my observation, but I will try the hashtag of #曲阜孔庙 in next post and see how it goes.

 

Toggling both the Tumblr and Facebook share buttons allow me to distribute the Instagram video post onto other two social network platforms simultaneously. Whereas, the process of other social platforms authority to Instagram was annoyed and costed time. The authority process was not simple as other social media platforms I used, other platforms directly jump into the social platform page which needs to be authorized. In Instagram, I was required to enter the account and password, and I usually needed to try to enter couple of times and then successfully authority finally. I suggest that Instagram simplified the authority process to save users’ time, and then it further can expand the Instagram post distribution range.

 

Instagram authority process (needs account and password)

 

Other social platform authority process (directly authority)

 

My post on Tumblr

 

 

My post on Facebook

 

Reference List

 

Manovich, L 2016, ‘Part 2. Professional and Designed Photos’, Instagram and the Contemporary Image, University of San Diego, USA., pp. 58 – 70.

 

The Futur 2019, How To Get 10k Followers On Instagram Per Week, YouTube, 6 November, the Futur, viewed 15th May 2020,

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89bF5Dzh_F4&feature=emb_logo>