Business Challenge

Our client has its own electronic trading platform which provides access to a range of applications and information tools. In the face of strong international competition, the bank aims to make its platform the first choice for traders and customers. Tobias & Tobias has been engaged since 2009 to improve the user experience and transform the design of this world-class platform and suite of applications.

Solution

Our researchers negotiated (precious) time with traders who use the platform every day, structuring a programme of research to observe and gather requirements without disrupting business. The ways in which individuals and teams operate in the real world differed dramatically from reported behaviour; and also from one team to the next.

Bringing this insight into sessions with stakeholders, our designers used models – workflows, user journeys, structural maps, wireflows – to explore and test solutions.

With the architecture and the interaction models approved, our visual designers were able to deliver completed designs and specifications for development.

Our rigorous, structured approach kept the bank’s internal teams (from business stakeholders to technologists) aligned with our design team. With top project managers running the process, our expert designers were able to produce outputs that met – and frequently exceeded – our client’s expectations.

Results

Our design output continues to improve the bank’s software development process, maintaining data integrity, reducing costs, reducing time to market and adding control.

By solving the complex technical challenges of interoperability, we have enabled users to drag information from one app to another, creating a seamless system that is easy and satisfying to use.

This has helped make internal systems more popular with traders – a significant cost saving for our client. It also enables the bank to re-use market data almost instantly, bringing competitive advantage.

Our body of work includes a set of design guidelines which are now shared and understood by a broad community of business stakeholders, designers and technologists. These guidelines provide direction for all user experience and design work for the bank, and for any companies working with them – or with us – to develop and enhance the platform and any new or existing apps.