Metrics question

How would you measure the success of Instagram's activity feed?

Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.

What this question tests

Metrics tree construction for a specific, well scoped social feature, distinguishing engagement quality from raw activity volume.

Clarify the feature: Instagram's activity feed shows likes, comments, and follows from accounts a user follows or interacts with.
State the goal: keep users returning to see meaningful updates from their network, driving repeat visits without becoming noise.
Build a metric tree: activity feed open rate (visits to the tab), time spent per visit, and click-through rate on individual activity items (tapping through to a liked post or new follower).
Add a retention metric: whether activity feed usage correlates with, and ideally drives, overall app session frequency.
Set a guardrail: activity feed should not become a source of negative social comparison or notification fatigue, monitored via feed-related notification opt-out rate.
Define a north star, such as weekly active users who open the activity feed and take at least one follow-through action.

Separates raw opens from actual engagement (click-through on individual items), since a feed nobody acts on is not truly succeeding.
Adds a wellbeing guardrail, notification opt-out rate, recognizing the real risk of social comparison fatigue in an activity-based feed.
Ties the feed's success back to overall app session frequency, showing it should serve retention, not exist as an isolated metric.

Measuring only feed opens without checking if users actually act on what they see there.
Ignoring potential negative wellbeing effects of a feed centered on likes and social comparison.

How would you detect if this feed is causing negative social comparison for some users?
How would you segment success between casual users and content creators?