Ad Meter – Evan Russell

USA TODAY Ad Meter

Role: UX Design
Category: Product Design, UX Design

Ad Meter is one of USA TODAY's longest running properties, created in 1989 to gauge consumers’ opinions about television’s most influential commercials. The results have become the industry-leading tool used to measure public opinion surrounding Super Bowl ads.

As the sole designer of previous iterations of Ad Meter on the Sports Media Group's content platform, I worked with a small team of designers to overhaul the look and feel as we moved the product to USA TODAY's proprietary platform, Tangent. Ad Meter functions as a second screen experience to rate commercials during the Super Bowl, even as some are being aired for the first time during the game and subsequently added to the Ad Meter experience as the game progresses. We reduced the rating system down from a 1 through 10 scale to 1 through 5, to both mimic the traditional 5-star rating system most internet users are accustomed to, as well as increase ease of rating at a rapid rate. A progress meter was re-envisioned to allow users to track the number of ads they've rated, as well as the number of available ads as they're added to the system throught the game.

Animations of the rating system in action illustrate for developers how fluid each interaction should feel. You can view those animations for both desktop and mobile further down this page.

Ad Meter was designed mobile-first, and the desktop experience allowed more space for thumbnails for each collapsed ad 'card'. In order to avoid visual repetition when opening the card, the thumbnail slides out of view as the card is opened, and slides back once the card is collapsed. ↓

When you choose your rating, the ad card is automatically collapsed, dimmed, and displays your score on the collapsed state. This allows the user to quickly scan the list of ads and see what has been rated and what hasn't. Filters at the top of the page also allow you to filter ads by rated/unrated, advertiser, or the quarter of the game in which they aired. The mobile rating experience includes a modal if you are not yet signed in/registered, and an option to change your rating before the voting period is closed (later in the evening after the game has ended).↓

The 'view details' link on an ad card takes you to the individual ad page, containing the ad summary. This will also display the score you gave the ad when viewed in the post state. Future iterations will include performance breakdowns by demographic, as well as the ability to view previous Super Bowl ads from the same advertiser and how they performed in the years that they aired.↓