These eye-tracking heatmaps reveal why Instagram's new icon could actually be a huge improvement

When brands release new icons and logos, previously loyal customers often groan with frustration.

This happened when Instagram changed its app icon at the start of May. The flatter, more abstract design was described by Adweek as possibly "one of the biggest design fails of the year."

But the industry trade title was wrong, according to new analysis from Dragonfly, a design-analysis app created by Black Swan and researchers from Queen Mary University of London.

The new logo is actually 10% more engaging to the human eye than its predecessor, according to the app.

Dragonfly uses a computational model to process the visual characteristics of what someone is looking at (orientation, contrast, texture, luminance) to assign a stimulus attention score to every pixel, demonstrating its attractiveness. The resulting graphics are heatmaps that display what grabs human attention in the first three seconds of interaction.

Business Insider asked Dragonfly to analyze the old and new logos of 10 major brands, giving each a saliency score out of 100. Below are the results:

Instagram's old logo has a mediocre saliency score of 58. Dragonfly suggested that it relied on "nostalgia" and that much of its saliency relied on the 'Insta" text, offset against the lighter background.

The new, controversial logo has a more impressive saliency score of 68. It is "more impactful," according to Dragonfly, with the "bright gradient of colors interrupted by the white outline of a camera," drawing eyes to the center of the image.

Google's old logo has a decent saliency score 67, which is unsurprising for such an iconic brand.

Google's new logo, however, dropped two points to 65. Dragonfly said this was caused by the lack of a loop in the second "g," which apparently draws the eye.

Uber's old logo, with a white "u" on a black background, is described as "impactful" by Dragonfly, which gave it a good saliency score of 63.

Uber's new logo is much less attractive, however, Dragonfly says. It has a saliency score of just 53.

Airbnb's old logo came out with a very high saliency score of 76.

Airbnb's new logo is almost as good, with a saliency score of 75. Airbnb's strong performance could be linked to its founders' background in art and design.

Twitter's old bird logo may have a larger beak than the new version, but it scored just 47 on Dragonfly's saliency analysis.

Twitter's new logo came out better, with a saliency score of 58. The beak is more of a focal point in the new bird, and it lacks the distracting feathers on the top of its head.

Yahoo's old, iconic logo has a solid saliency score of 67.

Its new logo is a slight improvement, rising to 69. The "deeper color of purple with added shadowing makes it crisper to the eye," Dragonfly says.

Facebook's old logo scored a massive 80 by using a clear, attractive font.

The new Facebook logo has undergone only minor changes, but the slightly finer font, with the more curved "a," knocked its saliency score slightly down to 79.

The beer brand Coors Light's old logo scored an impressive 73. This was due to the "tightly packed" text, which "draws focus," Dragonfly says.

The new Coors Light logo is much worse, according to the analysis, scoring just 57. The wider logo "quickly gets washed out," Dragonfly says.

The white edging of Paypal's old logo gives it a strong saliency score of 72.

With this white highlighting removed, Paypal's new logo's saliency falls to 66. Also, the lighter shade of blue in the new logo makes it "slightly washed out," Dragonfly says.

Foursquare's old logo was pretty good, gaining a high saliency score of 72.

But Foursquare's new logo was even better, gaining the highest saliency score of the analysis, with 82. This is down to the sharp red "F" and the all-capitals lettering, which is clearer than the old cursive font.

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