A4 media by altice usa

Website

The Product

a4 media, owned by Altice USA, recently launched their Athena media campaign planning tool. Athena enables advertisers to reach more than 90 million U.S. households on television through cable networks, on-demand and addressable inventory across the U.S., and more than 45 million U.S. households through authenticated, privacy-compliant IP addressability supported by rich data sets and powerful analytics and attribution services in a simple, user-friendly way.

Problem

Athena lacked to provide validations to users, even for the simple things. The first thing I noticed is that the user did not receive any email or notification from Athena, letting them know that their Media Plan was submitted successfully. The user would just be left hanging in the dark. The next thing I found out is that users had a hard time knowing when is the right time to go to the next page, or even if they remember completed a specific section. Users did not want to spend the time to go back and forth all the time. This made their experience longer than it should be, leading to frustration and irritation.

problem

Stakeholders wanted to move away from an Excel like format to present information. Athena V1 was very text heavy. In particular, the Plan List screen. The list of media plans were presented in a spread sheet like format. Our users were having a hard time looking at so much information at once. Their confusion resulted in taking longer to find a specific campaign and would quickly get lost after a scroll of the mouse.

Solution

My solution was designing the media plan page using a card system instead of an excel spreadsheet format. This card system will only contain the most needed information, and will be a lot easier to read.

user testing

In order to find out what is the most important information our users really need to see on their plan list screen, I interviewed a handful of our local and national Account Executives. I interviewed half of them in person and half by the phone because we offices located across the country. Our AE’s can always click on the actual media plan to edit or view it, but we needed to figure out what was the information that must be present to minimize the amount of information on the screen. I asked them, out of all the information currently, what are the top 3 that you NEED. I found out that only 3 pieces of information on the media plan is needed to be presented on this screen are the plan name, the advertisers name and the date of the plan.

Results

Our AE’s instantly found it easier to look at their list of media plans. The updated card format is allowing the user to be more organized with their plans. This organization helps the user not to get lost when scrolling up and down, therefore keeping them calm and relaxed. Moving forward, we want to add a stronger search feature.

problem

Stakeholders wanted Athena to be able to target audiences specifically by location. A user should be able to search for a Zip Code, a DMA, or a State. In Athena V1, the user was only allowed to choose from a specific set of already provided locations. They were not in control of that part. We wanted the user to be in full control of selecting where they want to target. Being able to search and select a specific zip code or state in a search bar will be important.

solution

We wanted to create a user interface where they user can search or tap on a specific state, zip code, or DMA. After selection has been made, users will see all locations and can be deleted on the same screen if needed.