COMPANY // AOL 
SOLUTION // AOL Real-Time Quotes Platform Research & Prototyping
MY WORK //
HIGHLIGHTS //
- Consulted with the AOL executives on strategy and requirements
- Worked with AOL Skunkworks team to develop prototype
- Research and designed UX/UI for platform
THE PROJECT //
In November 2006, AOL acquired Relegence, a search technology company that offered real-time information and data feeds on a subscription basis to Wall Street professionals. With this new acquisition, AOL wanted to utilize this technology to provide better tools to average investors to help manage their stock portfolios.
With the success of launching the AOL Money & Finance iPhone app, we set out to redesign the famous Bloomberg terminal utilizing the newly acquired Relegence data. However, we wanted our real-time stock platform to be much more dynamic, customizable, and easy to use by all investors – from novice to experts.
And making the platform free to use in order to better compete against Yahoo! Finance while stealing market share from Bloomberg.
Here’s my experience designing and developing this innovative platform…
Innovative User Experience
To optimize the experience, we decided to allow for free form user based layouts to give users the freedom to layout and manage their screens as they pleased.
Floating Widgets + Grid: To accomplish this, we developed a global concept of free-floating components where users can easily drag the various widgets around the screen anywhere they want. And to simplify the widget organization process, the widgets seamlessly snap to a preset grid.
Main User Interactions: We believed in this user-driven experience so much that we started the user off on blank platform, except for the Watchlist and Search bar where they could start searching and viewing information on their equities.
Pop Outs: Every widget is modular, which allows users to pop out each module into an expanded view, which allows the users to create the optimal view of the specific details of any equity and/or their entire portfolio.
Beautiful User Interface
We wanted to ensure that the finance information, interactive charts, and news would be easily accessible, legible, and intuitive.
I already designed the AOL Money & Finance iPhone app with a stunning visual design that received rave reviews from Apple, our users, and the press, so I wanted to leverage the sexy mobile design for this project. It was just a matter of extending the design further for the various widgets as well as the additional data and information we needed to display.
I set out to create a sophisticated and intuitive user experience, while creating a stunning visual design that was exceptionally beautiful, easy to find key data, and quickly take action on the information.
Once I completed the designs, our engineering team built out a fully functioning prototype. We performed QA and did some initial user testing, and the results were amazing. Everyone loved it.
Unfortunately, executives decided not to launch this platform due to possible patent infringement against Bloomberg.
I’m a little biased, but I think this design I created in 2007 still rivals the best designed finance platforms to this day.
What do you think?
IN THE NEWS //
LET’S DISRUPT THE FUTURE //
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