Popular photo-sharing app Instagram drew fierce online backlash Thursday after accidentally launching a new format that was not intended to see widespread use.
In an update released Thursday morning, many users found a new format for the application's main feed, with new posts being presented in a horizontal scrolling interface — it had previously been vertical.
Instagram.
— Big Smoke - (@Skepta) December 27, 2018
Nooooo ???????
Many users and tech experts quickly derided the experience as "jarring" and unintuitive.
Sorry about that, this was supposed to be a very small test but we went broader than we anticipated. ??
— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) December 27, 2018
By the late morning, Instagram's head Adam Mosseri indicated via Twitter that the update had been in trial mode, and was not intended to be rolled-out across the application's entire userbase.
The traditional vertical-scrolling interface had been restored for most Instagram users around the world by the afternoon.