RESeARCH | PRODUCT DESIGN | PROTOTYPING
Multi-leg options trading platform for Wealthscape
Background
What was the problem?
“Multi-leg” option (MLO) strategies are defined by the simultaneous trading of multiple option contracts, as opposed to individual, “single-leg” options traded one-at-a-time. Wealthscape, Fidelity’s enterprise brokerage platform for institutional investors (e.g., financial advisors), only offered single-leg options trading and had fallen behind its competitors in this regard. As a result, it was very difficult for our users to build and execute optimal MLO trades. Trading MLOs is a fundamental capability for institutional investors, so the successful design and development of such a trading tool (aka, “trade ticket”) represented a potential new revenue stream for Fidelity.
What didn’t we know?
- Which MLO strategies are most important or useful to our users?
- How do we identify existing pain points as well as potential pain points while designing a completely new product?
Segment of our project’s experience brief, or product design “vision”.
“Adding MLO functionality to our platform will streamline the advisor/rep order process, reduce errors, and create an additional revenue source.”
– A Fidelity analyst, 2018
Vision & Methods
What were our objectives?
- Ensure that the visual design meets Fidelity’s design system standards for institutional investors
- Bring the options trading capabilities of Wealthscape up to parity with competitors
- Provide the best possible UX for institutional investors
How did we get there?
We were tasked with creating a new trade ticket for Wealthscape that would enable institutional investors—particularly, registered investment advisors (RIAs) and broker-dealers (BDs)—to quickly build, analyze, and execute MLO trades on behalf of their clients. Our 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.
What were my responsibilities?
- Conceive a product design vision
- Write design and research briefs
- Process flow diagram & concept mapping, wireframing, and interaction design
- Produce high fidelity designs in Sketch
- Build interactive prototypes in Axure and InVision
- Co-create moderated user test guides
- Conduct creative quality assurance passes
Segment of our concept model of the main MLO trade workflow.
Research
What insights did we seek—and gain?
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 also relied on internal feedback from Fidelity’s own RIAs and BDs to learn about their pain points and preferences when interacting with a MLO trade ticket. Speed, accuracy, and comprehensiveness of options data were all of greatest importance in their workflows.
Design
What was my approach?
We initially considered the design and development of an option roll* feature that would supplement the existing single-leg option trade ticket. Upon analyzing the proposed option roll functionality and further research into MLOs, I helped to convince our team that a comprehensive MLO trade ticket made more sense than a dedicated option roll tool, and so we changed our project’s scope accordingly.
*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
Early brainstorming of potential option roll modal designs, which were scrapped when we decided to build a comprehensive MLO trading tool.
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*. 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 institutional 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.
*when teaching me about options, our analyst used an analogy that an option contract is like a “grocery store coupon” for a stock; while options can be used to buy or sell stocks at better prices, there is also an entire market dedicated to the buying and selling of these “coupons” themselves
Sample of one interactive Axure prototype that we used in moderated user testing.
Test & Learn
How did we validate?
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, pain points, 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.