Google revealed a new interface for its AdWords advertising platform during a session at the Search Engines Strategies conference in New York on Wednesday. Ariel Bardin and Angela Lai presented the redesign to a packed room of attendees who periodically applauded when certain features were revealed.

Bardin said there were three principles that guided the new interface design: ROI (adding tools to improve return on investment, adding more data and more context to the data); efficiency; and clarity. A casual user of the AdWords program commented after the event that he believed Google had succeeded with the first too, but felt the program remained a bit overwhelming for new users. Hard core users in the audience clearly liked the features that let them make changes to keywords, campaigns and accounts on whatever screen they happened to be using.

The inline editing capabilities and reporting features seemed to be the two biggest changes to the interface. Bardin said the new design lets users easily identify poorly performing keywords very easily. And users of the Content Network will find they can more easily add or eliminate sites. Google also added new tables for negative keywords, making them easier to manage.