Prototypes
With analogous domain and design guidelines gathered, we translated inspirations into prototypes which were validated by Liquidnet members and proxy users.
Visuals and Animation
Making urgent alerts visually distinguished

After an audio signal gets a trader's attention, the trader need to understand the alert at a glance. With different iterations and testing, we found that using background colors with different saturation is the best way to differentiate high and low priority.

Actionable Alerts
Layering the information

Only keep the essentials upfront but design for additional access to non-crucial information. Expanded views are a good option to layer directly related information with different impact on decision making.

This keeps the main alert content to the bare minimum while offering users choice to do more in the system.

Providing Justification

Attention is the most valuable resource traders have. The value of an alert system is to help traders allocate their attention efficiently in a not annoying fashion. As every alert is an interruption to the on-going tasks, only be alarming when the alert requires immediate attention, and alert the rest in a calm manner.

Related Guidelines
Informational Alerts
Providing Trading Specific Data

Traders want an array of proprietary information that is custom-tailored to what they are monitoring in their trading strategy. Having the trading data be specific to customized information such as abnormal pricing movements helps traders to figure their next move.

Distinguish informational alerts from actionable alerts

Distinguishing actionable from informational alerts is a matter of valuing priority in the design: traders will want to promptly know what alerts they need to take into consideration or act on immediately. The expanded view will allow them to drill down on relevant details that correspond to the summary alert content.

Found in Domains
Related Guidelines
Grouped Alerts
Providing a summary

Headlines should convey strongly correlated meanings about shared actions and goals in grouped alerts. Categories like symbols and types of alerts are frequent choices of groupings that traders would use. Traders value accompanying headings with suggested actions the most.

Letting users set their own rules

Traders generally want to customize their alerts to their own preferences and needs, but also value settings that allow for automatic groupings. For example, some traders prefer setting algo alerts separate from other grouped alerts, while others did not express this particular preference.

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Minimized View
Saving Screen Real Estate

Traders value saving space while still seeing and having access to their notifications. They preferred this minimized view that showed them the information they needed to know without intruding into their current workflow.

Serving as a gateway to the system

This particular design helps traders get value from Liquidnet on occasions where the app or front-end is not open. It serves as a good entry point into the system as well, providing targeted information that gives context to how traders can best use Liquidnet to serve their needs.

Found in Domains
Related Guidelines
Customizable Alerts
Dashboard for setting customized default

In this dashboard, traders have full control over what types of alert they want to enable or disable. For enabled alerts, they can also control if and how they want to be alerted visually and audibly by changing color and sound settings.

Allowing fine-tuning in the context

When traders are presented with an alert, they have easy access to customization by clicking into the menu of the single alert. This will increase the discoverability of the feature, and let traders customize their alerts without moving away from their workflow.

User Defined Alerts

Traders can create their own alerts by typing in natural language, for example “Alert me when AAPL hits $220." Alternatively, they can also create a new alert by selecting so in the drop down menu.

Facilitating Communication
Building reports efficiently to align stakeholders

An important part of traders' job is to report the performance of their trades to portfolio managers and clients. Currently, building reports is a very manual and laborious process that requires traders to work across multiple applications - Bloomberg, Excel, email clients, OMS, analytics platforms, and more.

This feature will ease the workload of building reports by providing a report draft that traders can edit through a user-friendly editor within Liquidnet. With this feature, the analytics in Liquidnet will bring value to traders beyond informing trading, and will also help inform and connect the trader's clients to the day's trades.

Sharing alerts with fellow traders

Traders work in teams to achieve the investment goal their organization or company sets. When traders need to be away from their desks, the sharing and comment feature will enable traders to let their colleagues handle their orders in their absence.

Found in Domains
Related Guidelines
Search and Navigation
Efficient access to information in Liquidnet

While the alert stream “pushes” information to users, the multi-functional search bar will provide a one-stop-shop for traders to “pull” information from the Liquidnet system. When traders issue queries into the search bar (e.g. Names, > 5% ADV), related alerts and analytics will be surfaced visually by being highlighted and drawn to the top of the UI. Traders will now be able to see all the information they want without jumping between windows or manually searching.

Found in Domains
Related Guidelines
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Analogous Domains