TRADE CALCULATOR

You can use a security calculator to determine the profit or loss from buying and selling equities, mutual funds or bonds. It also calculates the return on investment for stocks and the break-even share price. Financial advisors and their assistants use this tool prior to make a trade.

UX Challenges

My team was tasked with updating the existing design of our Trade Calculator to reflect a more modern and accessible interface. At first the product owners were very hesitant to change the UI. Any change or drastic deviation from the existing layout causes a great deal of push back. I encouraged the product owners and my team to test early and often so we could discover what changes we should be making and deliver the best possible experience for the user. Below explains how change was hard, but it paid off in the end.

UX Solutions

1. The original tool's UI is outdated. The small fonts, poorly organized form created a lot of pain for users. They complained that the tool was clunky and hard to use.

2. We took a stab at just making the form itself easier to fill out. We increased the font, made the form and results accessible. We maintained the basic structure the user sees today. We tested this “upgrade” to users. They loved the fact that the form was easier to use. But they did not like that they had to scroll to see the results. The user needed to see the form and the results on the same screen without scrolling.

3. Our final iteration was a drastic shift from the original. From observing users interact with the other layouts, we saw many usability inefficiencies. We split the screen vertically, took advantage of the real estate, enhanced the interaction and removed unwanted data. Testing allowed us to address those usability flaws head on with product support.

The end result was a pretty big change from the initial layout. After clients were pleased with this approach, product owners were more willing to test.