Audience Builder
Audience Building Tool to Create Custom Audience Segments
IMPACT
At a glance
Built an in-house tool which is helping the staff to serve the clients faster and use the audience for multiple workflows within the platform resulting increase in workflow efficiency.
20%
Reduced Workload for Data Team
1 week → 5 min
Turn around time reduced significantly
$400K
Yearly savings for the company
9% ↑
Increased Workflow Efficiency
Role
Lead Product Designer
Timeframe
2 Months
Tools
Sketchbook & Pencil, Whiteboard, Adobe XD, Miro,
Tasks Performed
End-to-End Design, Lean UX, Design Strategy, User Research, UI Design, Component Design, User Flows, Wire-framing, Prototyping, Usability Testing, Design Handoff, Collaboration with Product, Engineering, and QA teams.
Overview
Context
Ampersand is a multiscreen advanced TV advertising company empowering brands to reach audiences with precision at scale. Ampersand is jointly owned by the largest cable operators in the US — Comcast, COX, and Charter. The cross-screen, data-driven solutions, powered by America’s largest TV inventory and largest set of data viewership insights, are revolutionizing TV planning, buying, and measurement. There are three lines of business: National, Local, and Addressable.
The Problem
When clients want to run their ads on TV or a streaming platform, they have to define the target audience they want their ads to reach, including or excluding certain types of audience for their campaigns.Ampersand AEs build the custom audience according to their needs, so the number of audience can be calculated to meet the client's expectation in terms of reach and impressions, for the campaign to be successful for the clients. Limited number of users having access to an expensive tool where they can create custom audience. If AE's want to build a custom audience to for the clients would require to send a requestto the data team and the turn around time was at least a week as the team is small. AE's had to wait for getting their coustom audience for the campaign.
Goal
As a solution to this problem, we wanted to build a tool where 1. Account Executives and Account Directors could build the custom audience without depending on the Data Team. 2. Cut the waiting time for Account Executives & Account Directors -The Data team took on average a week of turnaround time to fulfill a custom audience creation. 3. Take this responsibility off the Data team shoulders. 4. Cut down the cost of the external tool used to build custom audiences.
Research
User Interview
Ampersand has a tool to create custom segments, but its UI was complicated and not intuitive. To understand the user's needs, frustrations, and pain points, I conducted user interviews with 5 different users.
I talked with both of the user groups who were going to use this tool. I asked users with access to the tool to give me a walk me through the tool and observed how they use it and all the functionalities they are using.At the same time I asked them to tell any pain points and shortcomings with the current tool, what they like and don't like about it
I gathered 3 users with no access to the tool and asked them to create custom audience by using think out loud method as they try to use it for the first time. This way I made sure to understand friction points to address while designing.
Observations for the new users were
1. Users had difficulty in how grouping of the segments work
2. There were 2 searches for the audience on left and right side which were confusing
3. The screen was very busy due to the way UI was designer
4. If you want to include an excluded segment and vice versa it was 3 to 4 clicks process.
I also studied the existing tool to understand all the functionalities it performs and made sure I did not miss any part of the tool. which we needed to build, plus a few more things to enhance the functionality and make it easy for users.
1. Not very intuitive for.
2. Copy the whole segment logic once it is built.
3. Copy and modify an existing segment.
4. Ability to see segments created by other users and copy them.
User Groups
Account Executive
- Tasks 1. Develop customized media strategies for agency stakeholders. 2. Build Custom Audience for Clients / Agencies 3. Create a schedule with created custom audience
Account Director
- Tasks 1. Manage full sales cycle to achieve campaign success. 2. Create custom audience for the campaign 3. Work with AE's to create a schedule for the created audience
Design
Component Design
This tool design demanded custom a few component and some were reused for this project .
- Segment Pill - was the main component designe apart from few more like logic switches, Include/ Exclude switch , bracket all are shown in the left side image.
- While the Audience Segment Selector on the right side image is a reused component that adapted the requirement of the tool.
The custom component built for the projects are shown below
Wire-framing & Feedback
The reference point of the design was the tool which we are trying to replace. Some parts felt complicated specifically for the first-time users, as observed during the research phase. The process of building a segment and grouping felt complex for them. I wanted to simplify that part for both new and experienced users, so they could understand and adopt it quickly. I took the drag-and-drop approach, which was best suited for this tool.
User flow
There were 2 main flow of users which I needed to design for. By creating task flows that center on the key functions of the Audience builder tool — First, to generate a custom segment for client and use the created segment to 4 different flows as per requirement on for building a schedule for their campaign, create a Container, use it for Addressable campaign or Audience guaruntee.Second one is to search for the existing list of custom build audience copy the segment and modify it to use it. Below is the flow for 2 tasks.
Testing
Usability Testing
- I did remote testing with 6 users 3 of each user group.
- I divided functionality in 6 tasks to check the task completion rate and time required to complete those tasks.
- The objective of the test was to identify how easily users are able to understand usability and how intuitive it is for users to complete the given task.
- Based on the test result data, not all users had knowledge of AND/OR logic, so I added a help section to help them understand how it works, so they can create segments with a clear understanding and more precisely.
1. Search an audience segment. 2. Drag and Drop it to the build area. 3. Create a group of segments. 4. Switch between OR & AND, Include and exclude. 5. Name and save a segment. 6. Use the created segment in either of the 4 workflows.
For testing, we decided to release it in the beta environment as the functionality was drag and drop. I connected with users, asking them to share their screens, and observed how they were using the tool. It was working for them.
Solution
Click to watch a short video
Reflection
We successfully deployed the tool, and it significantly reduced the time for creating a custom audience, as users no longer had to wait for the Data team to make it for them — including those who did not have access to the paid tool. We saved a good amount for the company and were also able to provide a few more features than the existing tool by making it more intuitive. I learned to make sure all possible resources are available for users, for learning and smoother adoption.
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