I’m not here to report how a particular ad campaign went. I want LinkedIn to view this as free user research – they need to improve the user experience and usability of LinkedIn Ads.

The ad campaign setup consists of what seems to be three simple steps. But as the user moves through the experience, what initially felt simple becomes rigid and constrictive when trying to make changes, update, or delete.

The top three key items LinkedIn Ads could fix to improve usability and the user experience:

1. No delete? You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve heard this complaint within other areas of LinkedIn before, so I wasn’t surprised to find it in LinkedIn Ads. Once created, there is no way to delete an ad campaign or ad variation. You can hide them, but not delete them. Users should always be allowed to delete anything they create (just make them confirm it’s really what they want to do).
   
2. No “Save” option. If you leave the ad campaign setup process at any time, LinkedIn saves everything you started. This is great, except they don’t tell you they’re going to do that. So if you leave before finalizing a campaign, you would assume you’re losing what you started. Upon coming back to find it’s still there—you might be surprised, and also annoyed you didn’t know it would be saved in the first place. If the functionality is there, tell the users upfront so they can plan for it.
3. Cannot add new ad variations. I love that LinkedIn gives users 15 ad variations per campaign. But after you go through the initial three steps, there’s no way to come back and simply “Add a new variation.” You have to use a workaround where you duplicate an existing variation and just make changes to that. Users should never have to use a workaround for something that should be basic functionality. In fact, they should never have to use a workaround, period.
   

Despite my rant here, I love LinkedIn, and am very pleased to see it growing so much (100 million members as of March 2011!). As they grow, usability and the user experience is definitely something they’ll want to put more focus on. For now though, these few items would make a nice improvement.

Don’t forget to follow our usability and user experience design agency  on LinkedIn!

Sandstorm Design recently launched AskBlue Medicare, a health care web application for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.  The interactive experience educates users on Medicare health care coverage options. To offer this helpful tool to an even broader audience, the application has now launched in Spanish! Ver aquí la nueva aplicación! (See the new application here!)

We are so excited to welcome Adam Wilbur to our Chicago marketing firm as the Account Services Director. Adam’s experience in account management, leading account teams, marketing strategy, integrated planning and project management make him just the person for the job! On top of his many professional skills, he’s also got quite the hobby list – he DJs, plays drums, volleyball, kickball, and has a slight obsession with softball (if 8 leagues per summer defines “slight obsession”).

We can’t wait to work with you, Adam. Welcome!

This time a month ago, Sandstorm Design was attending the Drupal conference in Chicago. Since then, our team of Drupal 7 developers have been sharing with the rest of the company the key takeaways from the conference.

Over sandwiches and soda, our Technology and Usability Director Michael Hartman talked to the team about new possibilities Drupal 7 features open up and how we can use them to continue to provide exceptional content management solutions. We were inspired enough to keep discussing Drupal long after the last bite had been eaten. In fact, we’re still talking Drupal this and Drupal that. And the conversation isn’t likely to end anytime soon!