Lance

Problem

Vault Data LLC hired me to develop a financial program's design and visual look. This program required me to think about how the program would function for the user and how I would create visuals that would resonate with the user without overtaking the content.

The product owner wanted a visual design focused on a younger clientele, emphasizing a cutting-edge feeling.

Actions

Based on exchanges with the product owner and research of competitor applications, I believe the application lends itself to a more editor-based design. Like a photo editor, the content was king, and all functions that used that data would only appear when needed.

Discover/ Define Phases

When brought onto the project, The project was already past the discover/ define phases of the process. The target audience was financial professionals, emphasizing more tech-savvy users, with still a mind for older users making final purchasing decisions. The product focused on improving a part of the market that hasn't changed much and requires a large team to manage. The goal was to develop a product that could speed up the process for the end user and reduce the required personnel to produce results.

Develop Phase

I used the previously acquired data and designs before I came on to the project. I initially settled on a photo editor-like UI. The product owner wanted the ability to review and analyze data on a single screen. Based on previous designs and the user’s need to cross reference information against other bits of information, I leaned toward having the content be front and center. A user could have up to three pieces of information on the screen to review.

I reasoned that professional users would conduct multiple research points and needs the ability to cross-reference documents rather than individually look at a single piece of data. To better understand the overall account of what was happening with a given subject matter. Rather than a user having different pieces of information on different pages or multiple pieces on one screen. It made more sense to have a single screen where a user would open up a modal to make selections and have that window disappear when unnecessary.

Based on feedback, I took a slightly different approach. I still stuck with the single-screen mindset but modified the layout. What impressed me was its need to be more game-like in its design. As such, I reworked the design to lean more toward a Real Time Strategy game or RTS UI. I thought that in an RTS, the controls mostly live at the bottom of the screen.

Given that this program was desktop-centric, it would fit with having the number of buttons displayed not be an issue. You would have the controls split up into different tabs and groups. Thereby allowing for expanded ability as new ideas were developed. This space also allows for displaying current market information and temporary saved files.

Results

After the designs were developed, I presented them to the team internally for feedback and revisions. Changes were made based on the feedback received internally and suggestions made by potential clients

These included:

• Modify the communication module to facilitate group conversations

• Adjust the amount of space taken up by the UI in the research section of the platform and give the user the ability to reduce the amount displayed even further

• Find a way to include information on data that isn’t core to the design but is adjacent to what our users may want to learn about

At this time, the project moved to a new phase and changed direction as to the core audience. As such, I moved into a more managerial role. Where I oversee the development of a different UI style/ layout, the current designs are set aside for future development.