An aspirational document to pull the team forward.
My first vision document was for the redesign of the Yahoo! Ad Systems Campaign Planning Tool. There were two documents generated, the here is the first version, for the client-side application. Although we changed to a browser-accessed application, the main issues were worked out in the client-side document. Issues of window architecture control, data visualization, and use of dialogues were prominent.
One issue that was important to me was whether the window architecture should be locked down or open so the user could reorganize the layout to fit their style. This was a new topic for the Product Managers, but they appreciated the level of detail.
Another important issue was task prioritization. It was decided to implement some level of prioritization based on customer/campaign value or the age of the RFP. Prioritized tasks reduced orphaned RFPs, and made sure that higher value campaigns were expedited.
Locating ads was a complicated process of matching demographic targeting with suitable pages and ad locations. Extensive use of tables to replace tools like Excel were vital, but required a powerful mental model by the user. I proposed using many types of data visualizations, like this stacked heat map. This view allowed visual scanning and identification of suitable ad locations faster than reviewing a table and making multiple sorts.
