Enter the password to view the full project.
Turning appreciation for creators and their Reels into real income, shipped as an MVP in four months.
Showing appreciation for great content in a monetary way has become an industry norm, and creators expect the same opportunities to earn from their content on all platforms. My team and I launched an MVP feature for Instagram in four short months. Instagram Gifts lets people show appreciation for creators or their Reels by sending a virtual item, and creators earn money from Instagram for the gifts they receive.
Led the naming process end to end, including namestorming, preparing for research, localisation checks, content reviews, and legal and trademark checks.
Worked at speed on 0–1 designs, resulting in a successful alpha and a 5% scaled launch with positive feedback from creators, "...it shows that Instagram cares about creators."
Led reviews with content leads and legal partners to gain alignment on the MVP, and contributed to product and design lead decks to ensure clarity and cohesion in every presentation.
Created high-quality design specs including all string descriptions and accessibility labels, helping engineers build accurately and ensuring the feature was ready to localise quickly.
Naming the feature to be intuitive and recognisable.
Educating fans and creators on how to easily use the feature.
Legal and privacy content made simple.
I facilitated brainstorms with the wider team to explore a range of terms, then leveraged concept testing and localisation checks to come up with a shortlist and recommendation.
In a study of which term best represents showing appreciation for creator content, participants responded: 'Gifts' 44%, 'Kudos' 35%, and 'Awards' 21%. Localising the term in other languages confirmed that 'Gifts' was better understood.
Candidates explored
Sending a gift
Fans send a virtual gift to show appreciation for a Reel; the creator earns money from Instagram for gifts they receive.
Reel with gift prompt
Choosing a gift
Gift sent
Educating fans and creators
Fans see a tooltip on first view of a gift-enabled Reel. Creators go through a short onboarding screen explaining how they earn.
Fans
Creators
Legal and privacy content
Messaging explains the Stars balance and discloses the monetary aspect of the feature, ensuring transparency for people sending gifts.
Send a gift
Add to balance
The feature launched as an MVP in four months and scaled quickly once early signals proved out. A naming study across candidate terms, Gifts, Kudos, Awards and others, found 'Gifts' was the clearest and most localisable choice, which shaped go-to-market messaging and helped the feature land cleanly in press coverage.
'Gifts' tested clearest across languages: 44% preference vs. 35% for 'Kudos' and 21% for 'Awards'.
Onboarded 5.6K+ creators in under a month, ahead of projections.
Scaled from alpha to a 5% launch, with positive feedback from creators.