Overview
What was the project?
ChathamDirect is a financial platform used by corporate clients to manage their balance sheet and cash flow foreign currency risk and execute FX trades. The FX Trade Queue allows our users to send FX trades from our exposure management applications into it, as well as entering them in adhoc. The FX Trade Queue connects with FXall, 360T, and Bloomberg trading terminals so our clients can send their trades directly from our platform. Once traded, they will automatically flow back into the queue.
The original queue was built when we had much smaller corporate clients, managing a few trades at a time. As we grew and worked with more Fortune 500 companies, the FX Trade Queue needed to be updated to handle much larger sets of trades (100+), as well as better user flows for the approval processes our clients needed. There was also a need for increased visibility for both pre and post-executed trades.
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My Role
Design Lead
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Led user research and usability testing, working with a Junior UX Researcher, capturing and analyzing data using Condens
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Worked with a Product Manager (their first project) to prioritize feature requests and write business outcomes
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Created wireframes in Miro and high-fidelity prototypes in Axure
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Facilitated design critiques and stakeholder reviews
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Assisted with creating an interview script for clients
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Collaborated daily with product and engineering to align on scope and interactions
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Used Appcues to create messaging to our users about the upcoming change as well as for post-production information
Discovery and Research
We Conducted:
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5 internal subject matter expert interviews
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3 voice of customer calls with clients
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Heuristic evaluation of the existing trade queue
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Qualitative and quantitative data using Fullstory
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Analysis of existing internal process for each client
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Led prioritization and business outcome workshop
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Led current and future state mapping exercises
Artifacts:
Prioritization and Business Outcomes
Process Map - Piecing together where feature priorities fit in
Current and Future State Mapping
Key Insights:
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Trade requests should always be in view to the user even if they cannot take action so they can track their requests
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Need a better way to see 100+ trades vs the current card style format
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Need clear visibility into status of trade request, as well as if a trade was executed
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Need ability to filter trade requests in different ways (by currency, entity, etc)
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Need to be notified when there is actions to be taken (approval, rejection, etc)
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Need ability to retract a trade request as well as enter a request manually or in bulk
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Need the ability to add on settlement (wiring) instructions
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Must integrate with all trading platforms: FXall, 360T, and Bloomberg
Ideation and Design
Ideation:
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Focused on highest priorities of features
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Created Initial low fidelity concepts for each of the areas​
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Worked with researcher to develop card sorting exercise to define the table columns
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Gathered feedback from product and subject matter experts
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Artifacts:
Wireframes in Miro
Card Sorting
Design:
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Turned wireframes into a functional prototype using Axure​
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Tested and iterated on prototype with SMEs
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We did not have access to clients for testing​
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​Shared prototype with stakeholders
Artifacts:
Final Design
User Testing
Results
Impact:
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Verbal praise from multiple clients, including Netflix's Asst. Treasurer
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Increased adoption of page by +25%
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Reflection
Lessons Learned:
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Try to think beyond the current scope of a project and think about where it may go in the future
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Nothing can truly replace being able to talk to actual users
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Plan for more time than you think you need in order to talk with users
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Scheduling VOCs ended taking a lot longer than expected due to client schedules​
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​We made up for this by moving forward with anything we were certain about and left room for changes for areas we were hoping to get more feedback on during these VOCs​
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​Sufficient upfront discovery work helps to expedite the prototyping processes