Usability Case Study: Facebook Advertising

A short case study on usability. It is all of a sudden relevant to me (because everyone is doing it wrong) and because I myself have learnt more about usability over the past six weeks than I thought I would. Therefore I feel I have an obligation to share my knowledge with you.

The other day I was investigating Facebook’s social advertising mechanism. Half of it was business related, the other half curiosity. I clicked the "advertise" link and was taken to a screen that pitched their advertising. After scanning that I clicked the “create ad now” button.

This took me to stage 1 of 4 of creating an ad.



This is also where I started to groan. All I wanted to know was how much it would cost to advertise on Facebook. I am not ready to start advertising, I am not even convinced that Facebook advertising is even a viable alternative.

The last step is called “Set Budget”. So I figured I could skip past the first three steps to find out. No Dice! I had to supply my URL, name and a brief description before I could continue.

Page 2 wanted my expected audience and the third, images and the advertising text. Luckily you can supply an image later, but dummy values in the advertising text were rejected as illegal words. At this point I quit. Seriously I said, fuck off.

Some advice to people who are looking to solicit services via the Internet. I don’t care who you are or what you think you know about what I want. You don’t. Secondly, I am not going to give you real information if I am looking for a quote. I just want a quote, be thankful I even know who you are and that I am interested in your services.

In my opinion this application would fail usability testing. It's target audience is businesses. What do businesses want from your service?

• They want to know what it is you do
  
• They want to know how much it costs
  
• They want to be able to purchase the services when the time has come
  
• They don’t want to wait to find an answer out.

The last point holds true for anyone, anywhere. It’s not like I can’t just click somewhere else. Seriously, realise how far your competitor is away in Internet terms and then meet them.

So, how should the Facebook advertising web-app have been written?

If prices are fixed based on simple conditions, put them on the second page or have a link called “prices”. If the prices are based on a complex algorithm, then place all the controls on a single page and let the user tweak the setup to match their needs. It is not that hard.

My reasoning is so, firstly from a business perspective you are being open about your pricing policies. Honesty is good. Dishonesty equals zero business.

Secondly, as a user I want, when I want. I don’t have to jump through your hoops to achieve my goal. I don’t care about your hoops. I only care about my goals.

Thirdly, if you only display one price at the end of four pages of clicking one of three things will occur.

• The price is less than the budget for the advertiser. They may sign-up, but you may not be maximising your business potential. Secondly, they may have been willing to spend more but don’t know how to get those services from you.
  
• The price matches their budget. Not likely.
  
• The price is over their budget. Without a means to reduce their expectations to value they will go somewhere else.

If you display all the controls on one page then the following can occur:

• The user will tweak the control to what they wanted from you at a service level and the cost comes under their budget. This would have happened anyway using your existing setup.
  
• The user will tweak the controls to the absolute maximum of their budget. This is a win for both parties.
  
• The user will play with the figures and may end up spending just a little bit more if they can justify a potential benefit from it. This is a double win for you and a win for them.
  
• The user can’t find anything they like and they leave. However, they now know all about what you offer and what you cost. This is in their mind now and they won’t forget. There is a chance they will come back in the future.

By tailoring the application to the user’s needs rather than your own you do the following:

• You increase your chance of doing business.
  
• You appear to be a honest business entity.
  
• Your application
• Your application won’t piss people off and build a burning resentment within them.

Usability starts at the very beginning of software development and flows all the way through to User Acceptance Testing. You have to have in mind who you are developing the software for the end users before you write a line of code, before you write down a single requirement. For without a user, you have no need for an application.

Happy to discuss this delightful topic further, just drop me a line,