Campaign View | Usability Benchmarking

Usability Benchmarking Study for a Social Media Platform. Usability was focused on improving efficiency for actions within the Campaign Page for Ads Growth Team.

Lead Researcher

Advertiser Tools

Qualitative Study

Usability

Context & Problem

Client & Problem

Client is a Social Media company that has a advertiser tools platform where advertisers can run campaigns for their business/ clients (if they are an advertiser).

The goal of this specific benchmarking round was to analyze the success of previous improvements to customizing columns in the campaign view, via implementing a metrics taxonomy framework. We were studying the success of this change.

My roles

Lead Researcher
Direct point-of-contact to Client
Moderator
Developer of Materials (Discussion Guide, Final Reports, etc.)

Research Approach

Discussion Guide Development

Task 1: Incorporate recommended Metrics to Advertiser Tools

Task 2: Search & Filter for Specific Campaign

Task 3: Identify Campaign that is performing below threshold

Recruitment
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10 advertisers who are regular to frequent users of the platform.

Mix of spend levels among advertisers

Fielding
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Fielding occured via remote sessions on the Discuss.io platform.

Qual Data collected: quotes, video clips

Quant Data collected: Task Success rate, Error Rate, Decision Count

Analysis & Reporting

Findings were presented via both an issue tracker and one-pagers. The use of multiple mediums allowed for different teams to focus on prioritizing the issues most pertinent to them.

Key Findings

Finding 01

Entry point confusion undermines task comprehension

Participants frequently landed on incorrect screens or used wrong features.
Unclear terminology made it difficult to predict where to complete tasks
Users relied on familiar pathways that didn't exist in the interface

Finding 02

Search and filtering interactions created friction
‍

Users expected a visible, persistent search bar within the campaigns table
Unclear filter categorization made it hard to identify what was being searched
Extra step of exiting a filter box after searching disrupted flow and delayed completion

Finding 03

Anomaly detection lacked visual clarity and discoverability
‍

Participants struggled to locate flagged anomalies within metrics columns
Adjacent UI elements were misidentified as the correct action path
Key links were perceived as too small or poorly positioned

Impact

Stakeholders Response:

Client XFN teams responded positively to findings

Product Changes:

Clearer labeling for campaign entry point

Removed extra step of exiting a filter box after searching

Implementation of Anomaly Detection Highlight Button

Continuation of benchmarking program

Implementation of rounds within the usability benchmarking program among various product-sectors

I wanted to note that as an agency side researcher I do have limited information into specific product implementations come to fruition.

Reflection

This study stood out to me because of its rapid research format, it required staying efficient across every phase while collaborating closely with recruiters and client-side engineers simultaneously. It was also a unique experience in that I wore multiple hats beyond moderating and leading the study, including async clip tagging post-session, which came from being short-staffed across concurrent projects. That stretched my range in a meaningful way. What made the impact especially tangible was the speed of implementation. By the next benchmarking round, we could directly compare usability scores against previous sessions and see how the product changes moved the needle.