The challenge

Charles Schwab was looking to take their active trading platform (StreetSmart Pro) to the next level. Their trading platform was robust and powerful but cluttered, disorienting and overly complex due to the tool-centered windows based UI. They wanted to completely rethink the application in order to align it better with the active trader’s needs and mental model.

The result

projekt202 conducted an in-depth two-month design research and strategy process culminating in a 2 day deep dive with various cross-functional stakeholders. The research phase was followed by 9+ months of ideation, design, iterative testing and front-end development. We worked closely with the business analysts and development team at Schwab through an Agile development process. The result of this work gave Schwab a deepened understanding of traders combined with unprecedented design innovation via a new integrated experience we dubbed “symbol hub”. The new design was built to align with the trader’s workflow, from researching a trade opportunity to taking action with precision, and gaining a clear view of their investments in the market.

My contribution

As Senior Design Researcher, I was the research lead throughout the Discovery and Ideation phases. I crafted the design research and UX strategy approach from data gathering, through analysis and synthesis, to establishing core personas and trading modalities, as well as a set of themes and success metrics for the future user experience. As well, I defined the projekt202 deep dive format that set the stage for the design phase, successfully getting the stakeholders to move from thinking about features and functions to thinking about human beings and their needs. This process became our standard UCD research and synthesis process, which we internally refer to as “our secret sauce”.