The evolution of trading terminals: Mobile trading in the era of touch interfaces

Earlier in our blog, we talked about the evolution of mobile terminal interfaces using the example of ITinvest applications - compared to the Windows Mobile 2003 phone application released in 2003, the interface of iOS and Android programs became much simpler in 2015 (the menu and buttons became larger, the number of settings has decreased).

The interfaces of trading programs (desktop and mobile terminals) have traditionally been rather complex due to the need to place large amounts of data on one screen. Nevertheless, even the developers of trade applications are trying to follow the trend of simplifying interfaces.
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One of the options for this simplification, in addition to reducing the number of elements on the screen, is to adapt the application to work in the “era of touch”. This is the path that the developers of the Robinhood trading application have taken .

Swipe to the exchange

The Robinhood app for iOS and Android uses for making financial transactions with valuable tapas and swipes - thus, working with the app becomes more like the process of checking mail or viewing a tape on a social network.

According to the plan of the founders of the project, this should attract the attention of representatives of the younger generation, who have an interest in the stock market, but there is no desire and time to deal with complex interfaces to trading programs.



The creators of the Robinhood, Vladimir Tenev and Bayju Bhatt, want to attract more people to the stock market, making work on it much easier. To achieve this, the founders decided to make access to the application free, as well as waive the commissions from each operation.

The simpler the better

“We think that [trading on the stock exchange] is not a particularly exciting activity for many people,” said the co-founder of the project, Baiju Bhatt. “If people do not think about finances, and they somehow have to build the financial trajectory of their lives, then this is a significant problem.”

Creating an account and linking a bank account takes no more than a couple of minutes, the interface is emphasized minimalist, during the trading session the screen background is white, and when the exchange closes it turns black.



Robinhood currently operates in the United States, and the company has also announced plans to expand its business in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. The company in two years has attracted $ 66 million investment, which has spent including the development of applications for Apple Watch.



According to the Wall Street Journal, the average age of more than 80% of Robinhood users does not exceed 26 years. Not all of them constantly trade on the stock exchange - many, according to Tenev, simply study the situation on the market.

How good the idea is to make trading on a stock exchange as simple as viewing Facebook posts, time will tell. But, according to Wired journalist Marcus Walsen, the emergence and popularity of Robinhood testifies to the beginning of the era of “touch-trading”.