Instagram redesigned the layout of its app to give its Stories feature greater prominence, a move highlighting the increasing importance of the service.

The company told TechCrunch it rejigged its mid-feed engagement box for Stories, which will now show previews of people’s activity.

Each box (representing different people) is also considerably larger than the Stories bar positioned on top of the app, which also keeps its place.

The Facebook-owned app company added it does not plan to redesign the Stories bar currently located on top of Instagram’s main feed.

Deployment of an additional Stories section mid-way through the main feed reduces the chances of users missing a story update and indicates how important Instagram considers the feature.

An Instagram representative explained to TechCrunch: “We recently updated the design of the stories bar that you see while scrolling through feed. This update makes it easier to preview the stories from the people and accounts you care about.”

Instagram Stories launched earlier this year, with the feature seen as a clone of Snapchat Stories, a major rival. Instagram Stories allows users to add photos and videos to a stream which then disappear after 24 hours.

Usage of the feature increased rapidly since launch, with 250 million daily users.

Right to left
Instagram also announced its app will support Arabic, Hebrew and Farsi languages for the first time, adding to the 36 other languages Instagram already supports

The move means the app will update to enable users to read from right to left. The feature will launch on Android initially.