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Helping active traders view a company’s symbol information across a network of connected tools

Helping active traders view a company’s symbol information across a network of connected tools

Helping active traders view a company’s symbol information across a network of connected tools

Power E*Trade Desktop: Linking

Power E*Trade Desktop: Linking

UX/UI Design

User Flows

User Research

User Testing

Prototyping

Team

1 Designer, 1 Project Manager, 1 Developer, 2 QA

Year

2020-2021

Challenge

Trading pages on Power E*Trade desktop are informational tools driven by a symbol search that allows the user to select a valid equity, option, or futures symbol (later, crypto), and see information relating to that symbol. These pages include Quote details, Charts, Options Chains, etc. When journey mapping the process advanced traders take in their daily activities, what we learned from contextual inquiry and heard from user interviews was that active traders like to look at a symbol across a range of tools, and may need to quickly cycle through different symbols across the tools they have set up in their workspace. Sometimes the user may be monitoring a few different symbols across several different clusters of tools (either the same tool, like multi-charts, or across several different tools that pair well together).


Most users are not coming into the experience every time and setting up a new configuration, The expectation is to set up an arrangement of windows that work for the flow of that particular trader, and then do monitoring or inquiry on a single symbol at a time across those tools. How do we allow the user to quickly change the data across a range of tools without having to manually update each window?

Trading pages on Power E*Trade desktop are informational tools driven by a symbol search that allows the user to select a valid equity, option, or futures symbol (and later, crypto), and see information relating to that symbol. These pages include Quote details, Charts, Options Chains, etc. When journey mapping the process advanced traders take in their daily activities, what we learned from contextual inquiry and heard from user interviews was that active traders like to look at a symbol across a range of tools, and may need to quickly cycle through different symbols across the tools they have set up in their workspace. Sometimes the user may be monitoring a few different symbols across several different clusters of tools (either the same tool, like multi-charts, or across several different tools that pair well together).

Most users are not coming into the experience every time and setting up a new configuration, The expectation is to set up an arrangement of windows that work for the flow of that particular trader, and then do monitoring or inquiry on a single symbol at a time across those tools. How do we allow the user to quickly change the data across a range of tools without having to manually update each window?

Goal

Users want to be able to set up different trading layouts in their workspaces and then quickly change the symbol across a range of tools, or send a symbol from a non-trading tool and have it update trading windows. The goal is to link windows together to update in tandem.

Users want to be able to set up different trading layouts in their workspaces and then quickly change the symbol across a range of tools, or send a symbol from a non-trading tool and have it update trading windows. The goal is to link windows together to update in tandem.

In the Power E*Trade web experience, Users can only view only one tool for one symbol at a time.

Without linking, Users would have to update each tool to the symbol they wanted to view window-by-window. Users would also need to manually type in symbols from the tools that contained data tables of symbols they are monitoring, such as Watch List or Market View.

With Linking, Users can create (up to six) modular connected layouts for quickly looking at symbol information across several tools. Users can then connect their windows containing data tables to swiftly cycle through different symbols.

E*Trade Pro had a linking experience with inconsistent UX....

....And was not easy to find

Empathize,
Ideate

Empathize, Ideate

We started with E*Trade Pro

E*Trade Pro contains a linking feature that fits the concept of our user need, however when the design and product teams audited the feature, we found that platform’s version to be very unintuitive, hard to find, and unclear on how it worked across both data tables and trading tools. However, we could use the location on Pro as a starting point, and test it.

The first locations of linking were on the chrome controls (top) and with the secondary nav (bottom)

And we iterated. And tested.

We approached two possible paths - one with linking as a function of the window chrome controls, and one with linking positioned on the filter bar in the location that Pro users would be used to. We first conducted internal hallway testing with Power E*Trade web users and stakeholders to get their feedback before testing with external clients. The results and feedback from the initial testing led to abandoning the chrome concept in favor of the filter bar location, and we moved forward with doing remote usability testing with Pro users using prototypes.

...and we found some interesting things.

  • Our first internal testing gave us the insight that people found the chrome control concept extremely confusing, it was unclear exactly what was getting linked - the account? the window location? the symbol?

  • We learned that internal users could eventually complete the flow of linking windows, but multiple respondents made note that the feature was unclear and unintuitive to find -- but oddly enough we heard similar feedback from Pro users


  • Pro users who had familiarity with the location of the linking feature in Pro had issues intuitively linking windows on the new platform

  • Some users mentioned they had to look all the way over at the symbol and then all the way back to the link - this made us ask if we had a problem with affordance

  • Our first internal testing gave us the insight that people found the chrome control concept extremely confusing, it was unclear exactly what was getting linked - the account? the window location? the symbol?


  • We learned that internal users could eventually complete the flow of linking windows, but multiple respondents made note that the feature was unclear and unintuitive to find -- but oddly enough we heard similar feedback from Pro users


  • Pro users who had familiarity with the location of the linking feature in Pro had issues intuitively linking windows on the new platform


  • Some users mentioned they had to look all the way over at the symbol and then all the way back to the link - this made us ask if we had a problem with affordance

Linking was moved directly adjacent to the symbol search

...and we iterated and tested some more.

We iterated on the designs to bring linking into greater affordance with the symbol search, and after validating our designs with hallway testing, moved forward with developing that solution so we could test it in code with external users. 





What we had found, and what would be a common obstacle for us on the project, was that testing for some features on a customizable multi-window experience can be difficult to get proper feedback due to the inherent limitations of prototypes. Users are used to being able to explore and inherently start looking around for the tools valuable to their trading style. We felt that letting users interact with the windows in the real experience would give us better insights and a more trustworthy validation. Additionally, we felt that initial testing indicated that the feature itself made sense, it was more a matter of location.

Once we had a working version of the feature up and running, we tested again with internal Power E*Trade web users, as well as remote moderated tests with Pro users. From these sessions we learned:

  • Completion rates were high for both sets of users

  • Feedback was extremely positive for how intuitive it was to find the feature

  • Most importantly - allowing users the ability to wander around the platform and organically launch, arrange, and link windows was extremely important in both validating this feature, as well as receiving feedback and insights at this stage of the project

Once we had a working version of the feature up and running, we tested again with internal Power E*Trade web users, as well as remote moderated tests with Pro users. From these sessions we learned:


  • Completion rates were high for both sets of users


  • Feedback was extremely positive for how intuitive it was to find the feature


  • Most importantly - allowing users the ability to wander around the platform and organically launch, arrange, and link windows was extremely important in both validating this feature, as well as receiving feedback and insights at this stage of the project

Users create a new link to the active symbol via a dropdown menu. Once the link is established, subsequent windows can be added to that link, or a new link can be created. Color and numeration are associated with the links for quick glance recognition and accessibility.

Users can continue to launch new tools and continue the link, even across separate workspaces

Any tool launched from a linked window continues the relationship, allowing the user to quickly build a connected workspace with a dedicated order ticket

Impact

Linking as a feature was a great success. Getting it right was crucial as it served as not only one of the core selling points of the platform, but it also set the foundation for other features that we would hear immediately hear from feedback and testing that users really needed. Later work would expand upon linking in two significant ways:

  • Giving the user the ability to click on a symbol in different locations of the platform to bring up an action menu allowing the user the ability to “send” that symbol to a set of linked windows

  • Giving users the ability to link data table windows such as their positions or watch lists, so they can cycle quickly through symbols they are monitoring or invested already in

Having this feature up and running also gave us increased buy-in from stakeholders and internal pilot group users. More active traders now begin utilizing the platform to actually execute their daily trades on, allowing us to start gaining more actionable feedback based on realistic scenarios while we worked on other features.

Linking as a feature was a great success. Getting it right was crucial as it served as not only one of the core selling points of the platform, but it also set the foundation for other features that we would hear immediately hear from feedback and testing that users really needed. Later work would expand upon linking in two significant ways:


  • Giving the user the ability to click on a symbol in different locations of the platform to bring up an action menu allowing the user the ability to “send” that symbol to a set of linked windows


  • Giving users the ability to link data table windows such as their positions or watch lists, so they can cycle quickly through symbols they are monitoring or invested already in

Having this feature up and running also gave us increased buy-in from stakeholders and internal pilot group users. More active traders now begin utilizing the platform to actually execute their daily trades on, allowing us to start gaining more actionable feedback based on realistic scenarios while we worked on other features.

Linking as a feature was a great success. Getting it right was crucial as it served as not only one of the core selling points of the platform, but it also set the foundation for other features that we would hear immediately hear from feedback and testing that users really needed. Later work would expand upon linking in two significant ways:

  • Giving the user the ability to click on a symbol in different locations of the platform to bring up an action menu allowing the user the ability to “send” that symbol to a set of linked windows

  • Giving users the ability to link data table windows such as their positions or watch lists, so they can cycle quickly through symbols they are monitoring or invested already in


Having this feature up and running also gave us increased buy-in from stakeholders and internal pilot group users. More active traders now begin utilizing the platform to actually execute their daily trades on, allowing us to start gaining more actionable feedback based on realistic scenarios while we worked on other features.

Users can launch a quick action menu from various parts of the platform to quickly launch a tool or commit another action with a selected symbol. We enabled the ability to “send” the selected symbol to any linked relationship they wanted.

Later, Data tables like Watch Lists and Positions were given the ability to have a relationship with linking. Users would enter a state where the highlighted row would “send” that row’s symbol to the selected link group. Users would be able to quickly cycle through different symbols they were monitoring or look at tools relating to positions they held.

Power E*Trade Desktop: Platform

Turning a best-in-class trading experience on the web into a multi-window native desktop solution

Power E*Trade Desktop: Platform

Turning a best-in-class trading experience on the web into a multi-window native desktop solution

Power E*Trade Desktop: Platform

Turning a best-in-class trading experience on the web into a multi-window native desktop solution

Power E*Trade Desktop: Messaging

Creating a frictionless and intuitive set of guardrails to help traders accomplish their tasks

Power E*Trade Desktop: Messaging

Creating a frictionless and intuitive set of guardrails to help traders accomplish their tasks

Power E*Trade Desktop: Messaging

Creating a frictionless and intuitive set of guardrails to help traders accomplish their tasks

© 2023 YLSCLLC

© 2023 YLSCLLC

© 2023 YLSCLLC