The Challenge
Design and build a product for a fervent discord community that helps surface trade ideas and the right analysts to follow. Ultimately helping people improve their trading and make more money.
Summary
Led product design for a startup that had created a robust discord community where users share trade ideas and discuss the market. The product allows users to easily find the right people and the best trade alerts to follow. We created a clean and simple app that is easy to explore and follow, clearly communicates the important information, and allows users to dive deeper where they want to (for example diving into a specific user, a specific stock ticker, or a specific trade idea). Also built out a home for content, sharing content, and educational focused incentives for the members.
Starting Point
An entire product had already been built, but with a focus on visual design and looking cool, there was a huge gap in usability. That product was being scrapped and our focus was going to be taking the community that was already vibrant, and creating an app and ecosystem that would supplement and ultimately replace the discord community. The first thing we did was collect user feedback, understand what they wanted, and started to hypothesize and organize what a true first iteration would be.
Planning & Wireframing
Once we categorized the most requested features and assessed what needed to be built in order to create the proper foundation for future versions, we began designing out the first version’s features, functionality, design, and navigation. Ultimately creating a simple but powerful product that would surface the most reliable trade ideas, most reliable traders to follow, and support the communities conversations around improving as traders.
After sketching out initial concepts, lower fidelity wireframes were created to begin to understand how things would connect and lay out across the board.
Industries
Financial, Fintech, Stocks, Consumer SaaS, eCommerce, Memberships
Financial, Fintech, Stocks, Consumer SaaS, eCommerce, Memberships
Roles & Services
Design Lead, User Experience (UX), User Interface (UI), User Research, Functional Design, Roadmapping
Design Lead, User Experience (UX), User Interface (UI), User Research, Functional Design, Roadmapping
Website
app.Xtrades.net
app.Xtrades.net
Product Hunt
Screens & Prototypes
Working hand in hand with the dev team and product owner, we designed the entire product and handed off the design assets to the dev team, as well as provided support and guidance throughout the process. In addition to designing the initial release, we began working on additional features as they surfaced from user feedback.
Trade Alerts
Trade alerts are the central feature of the product, where people come to share and find great trade ideas. The focus was on highlighting which ticker symbols were trending, in which way, and which alerts were performing the best. Included was a feature that allows users to upvote trade ideas, so the more positive feedback it gets the easier to know if it’s a good idea. In addition, you can click in to see more details on the alerts, discuss, and assess.
____
Ticker Pages
Ticker pages allow users to explore all the trade ideas for a specific ticker symbol, see pertinent information about the company and stock, and also see chart patterns which are embedded in the page. This gives a user the feedback on how the ticker is doing, if it’s heavily traded, and other key metrics, along with trade ideas for that ticker.
_____
Profile Pages
User activity, trade ideas, trading profiles, most traded tickers, rankings, and badges all display in the user’s profile page. This helps other users know whether this person is a good analyst to follow and get trade ideas from. For your own user profile, additional information on your referrals and how you’re performing are available.
____
Content Hub
Part of the products appeal is content generated by the analysts. This includes articles, videos, stock scanners, and more. The xHub is the central repository for all things related to learning and improving as a trader. This would significantly expand and gives the company a lot of opportunity to grow its business.
___
Admin Screens
We also created admin screens for the different backend features needed to operate the product and community.
____
Roadmapping & Execution
This was a great project to work on because it brought in a unique community of avid traders and shined a light on what truly mattered to them. It was incredibly interesting to see how quick to give useful feedback and information those members were. It helped inform and shape the roadmap, by prioritizing and reprioritizing features and functionality we were able to execute and bring the core features to users quickly and build from there. Users started giving feedback from the minute they started using the new app which was an excellent indicator of use and future potential.
____
