Boosting Trading Activity by 20%

The company offered trading in currencies, commodities and indices, but its clients traded through third-party platforms. That meant no control over the experience and no way to build features around its own business. They wanted a platform of their own.

I designed it from scratch together with a cross-functional team. The brief was a platform traders could set up the way they like, with real-time market data and tools that help them act quickly.

The third-party platforms clients were using had three main problems:

• Hard to navigate. Traders struggled to find the tools they needed.
• No personalisation. Everyone got the same layout, whatever their trading style.
• Slow decisions. Market analysis tools were weak, so acting on a trend took too long.

We set one measurable target: a 20% increase in trading activity within six months of launch.

• The platforms traders were used to felt dated and cluttered.
• Users lost time looking for features they used every day.
• Traders of every level wanted to arrange the workspace their own way.
• Good real-time analysis tools directly affect how fast and how well people trade.

Project Goal

Build a trading platform that is easier to use than what clients had before and gets them to trade more.

Objectives

• Make navigation simple and key tools easy to reach.
• Let traders customise their workspace.
• Bring real-time market data and analysis into the main screen.
• Increase trading activity and retention.

I started with six interviews with traders, from beginners to experienced users. The same problems came up again and again:

• Customising the workspace was hard or impossible.
• Real-time data lived in separate tools.
• Cluttered screens slowed decisions down.

These findings shaped the user flows and the order in which we built features.

I explored ideas with:

• Mind mapping, to see the full range of possible features.
• Low-fidelity wireframes, to test how the main interactions could work.

I walked stakeholders through the concepts, collected feedback and narrowed them down to what served both traders and the business.

I built a clickable prototype in Figma that covered the key actions:

• Logging in.
• Setting up a trading workspace.
• Analysing the market with chart tools.

Early feedback showed two things to fix: saving a workspace took too many steps, and frequently used features were hard to spot.

Usability tests with five target users led to these changes:

• Workspace saving: cut down to a simpler flow.
• “Select Symbol” button: made larger and moved to where users expected it.
• Market Watch table: removed columns and details people didn’t use.
• Customisation: expanded, because it was the feature testers liked most.

The final design included:

• A clear interface with simple navigation and predictable layouts.
• Customisation that lets each trader set up the workspace for their own style.
• Real-time market analysis built into the main screens.
• A calm colour palette and clean typography, chosen to feel trustworthy.

Responsive Design

Layouts adapt to desktop and mobile, so traders can keep working on any device.

Design System

I built it on Atomic Design principles, in two parts:

• Component library: reusable UI elements.
• Pattern documentation: guidelines and examples, so the team used components the same way.

I worked closely with developers through the whole build:

• We agreed on design and technical constraints from the start.
• I reviewed built screens regularly to catch differences from the design.
• Weekly calls helped us resolve issues before they piled up.

Within six months of launch:

• Trading activity grew by 20%, meeting the target.
• Users were more satisfied and engaged than on the third-party platforms.

The project showed me how much early user feedback changes a design. Next time I’d add more quantitative testing, so decisions rest on numbers as well as interviews.