Audience Hub

As Lead Product Designer on Loblaw’s Audience Hub, I led the end-to-end redesign of a complex audience-building platform. By simplifying query logic, strengthening visual hierarchy, and restructuring core workflows, I transformed the experience into a more intuitive, reliable, and scalable tool that better supported business decision-making.

Role – Lead Product Designer, Design Systems, Competitive Analysis, Prototyping, User Interviews, Usability Testing, Design QA

Team – Only designer on a team of ≈ 15 Enginers, PM, UX Researcher

Duration – 12 months

Tools – Figma, Miro, Jira

AI Tools – Garfielld (Internal Generative AI Platform), Claude

Key Outcomes & Results

140% increase in active users after the initial launch, achieved by reducing usability friction and making the product more intuitive for core users, which strengthened adoption and sustained engagement.

70% faster task completion after restructuring the audience-building workflow and simplifying key interactions, reducing completion time from 10 minutes to under 3 minutes by removing unnecessary steps and clarifying the interface.

Enabled data-driven decisions by introducing a performance reporting system with clear, actionable insights including real time audience demographics and campaign metrics, making key data accessible and enabling teams to make more informed product decisions.

Understanding the Problem

Users struggled with the legacy Audience Hub: the query builder was cluttered, confusing, and slow, and teams couldn’t track audience performance. Although users could complete tasks, the platform wasn’t flexible enough to support evolving business goals, limiting adaptability and growth.

Research Insights

Turning Research into Product Direction

I partnered with the UX Researcher to understand our core users. The goal was to uncover how they build and manage audiences, what metrics matter most to them, and where the existing Audience Hub fell short. This research helped identify key opportunities to improve workflows, simplify complex tasks, and provide actionable performance insights.

Aligning Product Decisions with User Motivations

The primary users of Audience Hub are media buyers at major brands like Coca-Cola and P&G who need fast, intuitive audience-building tools with real-time demographic and campaign insights to support data-driven decisions. On the legacy platform, unintuitive workflows, a cluttered interface, and confusing tools like the Query Builder made audience creation slow and error-prone. Working under tight deadlines and across multiple ad platforms, these users prefer streamlined workflows that minimize manual effort, so understanding their goals and pain points guided the design of a more efficient, user-friendly, and insight-driven experience.

Competitive Analysis to Identify UX Gaps and Opportunities

I analyzed leading audience-building tools to uncover UX and functionality gaps, as well as opportunities to differentiate the platform. Using AI to organize and structure research notes, I efficiently synthesized insights that informed design decisions and guided improvements to the audience-building workflow.

Mapping the User Journey to Inform Design Decisions

I mapped the user flow to understand how media buyers navigated Audience Hub, uncovering pain points and opportunities that informed key design decisions.

My Design Contributions

Optimizing the Query Builder to Reduce User Effort

The original tool was slow, required too many clicks, and offered minimal visual feedback, making it frustrating for users to build audiences accurately. My solution focused on usability, clarity, and visual hierarchy, simplifying workflows, providing clearer feedback, and streamlining interactions so the experience felt faster and easier to use. The impact was clear: users could build audiences with less effort and fewer errors, and active users grew by 140%, increasing from 51 to 120.

Streamlining How Users Build Audiences

The original workflow for segmenting target audiences was slow and complex, taking users up to 10 minutes to complete a task. Using AI to explore different design solutions, I streamlined the experience to be more intuitive, introducing real-time filters and clear visual feedback. The result was a dramatic improvement: task time was reduced by over 70%, bringing completion down to just 1–3 minutes.

Making Performance Data Visible and Actionable

Users previously had no access to performance data, leaving them without insight into how their audiences were performing. I designed a Performance Reporting tool that provided clear metrics, at-a-glance visuals, and one-click attribution reporting, giving users meaningful visibility for the first time. The result was an experience that empowered teams to track performance, make informed decisions, and take action with confidence.

Optimizing Complex Data Tables for Clarity and Speed

Users struggled to navigate large data tables, making it difficult and frustrating to find the information they needed. I optimized the tables with improved layout, spacing, and sorting and filtering features, making large datasets easy to scan and interact with. As a result, users could access and act on information more efficiently, reducing frustration and improving workflow speed.

Making Audience Insights Instantly Accessible

Users couldn’t view audience demographics in real-time, which made it difficult to gain insights and make informed decisions. I designed a sidebar that displayed live data, allowing users to explore and act on information quickly. The result was a more transparent, actionable experience that helped teams understand their audiences and optimize campaigns.

Validating Through Prototyping and Usability Testing

Stakeholders needed a way to preview the product and validate key user flows before development. I created a high-fidelity prototype that allowed for early feedback and usability testing, uncovering pain points and refining interactions. The result was a streamlined, user-friendly flow that aligned with the overall vision and reduced development risk.

Key Learnings

This project taught me a lot about working with tight deadlines and complex workflows. One of the biggest challenges was making the platform feel clear and intuitive while keeping it accurate and scalable. I leaned on rapid prototyping to test ideas quickly with users and iterated based on feedback, and I made sure to document workflows and design decisions for developers so handoffs were smooth and everyone was on the same page.

This project reinforced the importance of understanding user workflows deeply from the start, helping me reduce trial-and-error and make more informed design decisions. It was a strong opportunity to grow in prototyping, and designing for complex workflows, and it highlighted the value of clear documentation and close collaboration with engineering.

Angelo joined us during the launch of a new platform – an exciting yet challenging period that required adaptation to uncertainty and ambiguity. He demonstrated exceptional ability in managing these complex situations while maintaining a consistent level of creativity. This intrinsic capacity to navigate through unchartered territories speaks volumes about his ability as a designer.

Daria Yurchenko – Product Design Lead at Loblaw Digital