Five UX-tricks to create exchange software

Usability issues, UX / UI are becoming increasingly important not only for purely design firms and companies developing software and gadgets for wide consumption, but also, in particular, for various trading platforms. The stock market is a rather specific area, one wrong move here can cost a fortune, so when designing interfaces for trading, it is important to foresee all possible problems and correctly structure the work. In this, however, nothing is impossible - at ITinvest we always developed the software ourselves, which our clients then used for trading, and developed certain approaches and techniques in the field of UX.

UX should begin at the stage of formulating ideas and product requirements.

At the initial stage of working on a project it is important to make sketches - sometimes even from a series of drawings on a napkin. It helps a lot in the future, helps to find different solutions. After the approach is chosen, you can proceed to work on a simplified version of the framework - at this stage, the team should work designers and designers.
')


Do not strive to create a detailed prototype as early as possible - you need to be sure that you are doing everything in accordance with the standards of design, brand, etc. So at this stage, it is the combined efforts of the product manager, the design team and the designers that make it possible to determine the overall look and quality of user interaction.

It is necessary to prove that usability testing does not slow down the work on the project.

This is a fairly common opinion that usability testing is a long and dreary process. Convince people here in only one way - by showing that in reality it is not. It is necessary to select a project or two, by the example of which it should be shown that the use of UX-practices in fact only accelerates the launch of a product on the market. And here it is important to remember the first piece of advice - if UX starts already at the stage of creating frameworks, then during the high-level cycle of work on the product, you will have to make fewer changes. That is, the product will be more consistent with the original plan, which almost does not have to change.

Mobile version is a continuation of the main system.

In the stock market, when users want to access trading during the operation of stock exchanges, they tend to do so from stationary computers. But outside of trading hours, when users are out of the office and not in front of the computer, they use the mobile platform. Therefore, the mobile version of the exchange product must be perceived as a continuation of the main system, which is used to view data where it is convenient. In addition, the market situation often changes, so traders love to be able to close their positions using the app on a smartphone. That is, it is a kind of “plan B”, which is activated in a critical situation - so it is necessary to make the mobile version of the product functional and understandable.



At the moment, most users, of course, subconsciously expect less opportunity from mobile applications than from desktop software or the web version. But with the increase in the speed of information processing on mobile devices, the need for additional functionality will grow. The iPad has become a very interesting device in this regard, because in some way it smoothed the line between smartphones, laptops and PCs - this is another reason to make a separate application for tablets (we have a SmartPad ). Now there is a gradual change in the needs of the mobile user compared to the needs of the archetypal smartphone user.

UX should facilitate development

It is very difficult for developers to work in a situation when they are pulled into a document with screenshots of 1200 pages - they begin to reason like this: “Well, well, let's do what we want.” This is precisely the situation in which prototyping and similar tools give a powerful leap forward - they offer technological support, providing tools that can be really used in the work - thus, the developers see what the user experience really should be when working with the product being created. .

Security is important to keep abreast of users

Finance is a very sensitive topic in terms of security. Of course, it is necessary to provide the user of the software for trading on the stock exchange with maximum security, but, of course, it is impossible to “load” this user.

In such a situation, certain restrictions are unavoidable - the regulatory authorities have certain requirements that one way or another must be met. The other side of the coin is the users themselves. With regard to security, for example, the question of authentication remains relevant: users do not like to confirm it. They say: “This is my device, it is always with me, I did not lose it. Log me in forever. ” Here we need to find a balance between safety and convenience, but we believe that at this stage safety is still a priority.



SMS alerts on login to the ITinvest trading system

If you think only about the need to provide the best user experience, you’ll get the situation: "All our users want to stay logged in and not enter a password, which means we need to give them this opportunity." Of course, this cannot be done, because losing a computer is quite difficult, but a smartphone is easy. It is unlikely that your users, who do not think about security now, will be very happy afterwards if someone picks up this smartphone and gets access to their assets.

That's all for today. In the next posts we will describe how these techniques were used by us in practice when creating the SmartX trading terminal. Thanks for attention!