RESeARCH | PRODUCT DESIGN | PROTOTYPING
Multi-leg options trading platform for Wealthscape
Background
Multi-leg options (MLOs) involve the simultaneous opening and/or closing of multiple option contracts; there are many strategies one can use to structure a MLO (although, some strategies are much more commonly used than others). Wealthscape, Fidelity’s enterprise brokerage platform for clearing and custody users (e.g., registered investment advisors, broker-dealers, etc.), had only offered single-leg options trading and had fallen behind its competitors with respect to its options trading capabilities. As a result, it was very difficult for our users to build and execute optimal MLO trades.
“Adding MLO functionality to our platform will streamline the advisor/rep order process, reduce errors, and create an additional revenue source.”
– A Fidelity analyst
Segment of our project’s experience brief.
Goals and methodology
We were tasked with creating a new trade ticket for Wealthscape that would enable registered investment advisors (RIAs) and broker-dealers (BDs) to quickly build, analyze, and execute MLO trades on behalf of their clients. Our objectives were (1) to ensure that the visual design meets Fidelity’s design system standards for institutional investors, (2) to bring the options trading capabilities of Wealthscape up to parity with competitors, and (3) to provide the best possible UX for RIAs and BDs. Trading MLOs is a fundamental capability for institutional investors, so the successful design and development of such a trade ticket represented a potential new revenue stream for Fidelity. Our team’s development process transitioned from Waterfall to Agile partway through the project (resulting in some unique challenges between myself and the development team), and my design process adopted classic “design thinking” methodology while remaining lean as possible to meet the urgent needs of product development.
Responsibilities
- Conceiving a design vision
- Writing design and research briefs
- Process flow diagram & concept mapping, wireframing, and interaction design
- Producing high fidelity designs in Sketch
- Building interactive prototypes in Axure and InVision
- Co-creating moderated user test guides
- Conducting creative quality assurance passes
Concept model of the main MLO trade workflow.
Research
Competitive analysis concluded that Fidelity was at a significant disadvantage in this area. While users could, and can, perform multiple concurrent single-leg options trades in attempts to emulate a MLO, doing so may result in price slippage (and thus inaccurate pricing data), undue risk, incurrence of unnecessary commissions and fees, and wasted time. We theorized that successful implementation of a MLO trading experience would (1) boost trade volume and revenue and (2) improve rates of new client acquisition and client retention.
We relied heavily on internal feedback from Fidelity’s own RIAs and BDs to learn about their pain points and preferences when interacting with a MLO trading tool. Speed, accuracy, and comprehensiveness of options data were all of greatest importance in their workflows.
Designs
When Fidelity identified the problem of missing MLO functionality, our team initially considered the design and development of an option roll feature that would supplement the existing single-leg option trade ticket (NB: an option roll is a unique MLO that generally consists of two simultaneous transactions—the closing of an open option position, and the opening of a new option position in the same underlying security, usually with a later expiration date and/or different strike price). Upon UX design analysis of the proposed option roll functionality and further research into MLOs, I helped to convince our team that a comprehensive MLO tool made more sense than a dedicated option roll tool, and so we changed our project’s scope accordingly.
Initial wireframes of potential option roll modal designs for the existing single-leg option trade ticket.
Utilizing our design system and leveraging patterns and components from other Wealthscape trade tickets, I produced numerous wireframes and high-fidelity designs in Sketch under the guidance of our team’s analyst (NB: our analyst taught me most of what I know about options trading today). I soon produced several interactive prototypes in Axure for the intent of moderated usability and A/B testing.
Our intent was to design a trade ticket that contained all of the fundamental data and inputs necessary for our clearing and custody users to quickly build and execute trades on behalf of their clients; we explored a variety of layouts and interactions for features such as custom MLO strategies, adding/removing individual option legs, editing the option symbol vs. entering the expiration date and strike price, and so on. We ultimately landed on a design that was accessible, readable, and easy to tab through using keyboard navigation.
Sample of an interactive Axure prototype we used in moderated user testing.
Test and learn
Our team partnered with a UX research group from a local university to conduct a moderated usability study and A/B test with our MLO trade ticket prototype. Ahead of the study, I collaborated with our analyst, team leader, and UX manager to build a user research brief that captured our goals and objectives, which then served as the basis of our moderated test guide.
Segment of our project’s user research brief, including desired outcomes and insights.
We tested four prototypes: two designs, for both RIAs and BDs separately. In the moderated test guide, I instructed our test conductor to guide each user through a series of tasks (i.e., simulated MLO trades) and ask specific questions to determine usability and other insights to meet our research goals.
Segment of our project’s moderated test guide, including instructions for our test conductor.
The final readout and analysis of the user study concluded that, overall, the new MLO design was, in its current state, a near-success. User feedback was mostly positive, and feedback on specific elements of both the UX and visual design were constructive and used to further improve the design ahead of final implementation to Wealthscape.