USA TODAY Ad Meter
Role: UX Design
Category: Product Design, UX Design
Ad Meter is one of USA TODAY’s longest-running and most iconic properties, originally launched in 1989 to gauge public opinion on television’s most influential commercials. Over the years, it has become the industry standard for measuring consumer response to Super Bowl ads.
As the sole designer of previous Ad Meter iterations on the Sports Media Group’s content platform, I led a design refresh alongside a small team, transitioning the product onto USA TODAY’s proprietary platform, Tangent. Ad Meter serves as a second-screen experience, allowing users to rate commercials in real time—even as some ads debut live during the game and are added to the platform on the fly.
To streamline the experience, we simplified the rating scale from a 1–10 range to a more intuitive 1–5 format—mirroring the familiar 5-star system and making it faster and easier for users to submit ratings. We also redesigned the progress meter to clearly show how many ads a user had rated, along with how many had been made available as the game unfolded.
To guide development, I created animations that demonstrated the expected motion and responsiveness of the rating interactions. These animations—for both desktop and mobile—are available 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.↓
© Evan Russell 2024