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[InspereX] Multi-sided fixed income trading platform

1210
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Fintech
Role: Lead Product Designer
Four Teams: Each with a PM, 1-2 FE, and 3-4 BE
Early-stage (Non-VC) and later acquired

InspereX is a fintech firm with a mission of improving fixed income distribution and trading for all market participants. InspereX is also the merging of 280 CapMarkets (an early-stage fintech startup I joined) and Incapital (a leading underwriter and distributor of fixed income and market-linked securities). As the first and sole design hire, I led product design and worked cross-functionally across four product areas (Reference Data, New Issues, Lists & Alerts, and Trade Desk) with four PMs, four engineering teams, and two web applications (multi-sided marketplace):

  • BondNav: platform for [1] Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) to buy, sell, and manage bonds and [2] firms to leverage as a tool for their internal trade desk to review and work orders
  • BondNav Admin: internal tool for the internal trade desk to manage orders and other administrative tasks

During my time at InspereX, I unified the overall Bondnav brand by defining a color palette and usage guidelines. I also created a design system with standardized patterns and components that were used across design and FE. While I do not get into the details or highlight the complex workflows I worked on, the following snippets will show how much BondNav has evolved.

Market Redesign

Highlighted Improvements:

  • Subnav: Enabled users to quickly navigate to other asset classes and also know what is available.
  • Filters: Provided top-level filters based on usage and showed active/applied filters.
  • Search Results: Grouped actions together, grouped data points together, and allowed users to quickly add to preferred watchlist on top of their Favorites.

Saved Searches

Saved Searches was historically bare and didn't provide important context. For this reason, users would have to create long names. A new feature was added to allow users to subscribe to alerts on their Save Searches and I took that as an opportunity to also enhance the experience without significantly increasing the project scope.

Highlighted Improvements:

  • Type Column: Let users know what the search type is.
  • Asset Type: Let users know what asset type their saved search is for.
  • UI: Update the UI to match what has already been applied.

Bonds Details View

Highlighted Improvements:

  • Banner Image: Removed the map image because it served no purpose and increased the height of the page for no reason.
  • Best Offer: Highlighted the best offer so it will stand out to users.
  • Empty States: Provided messaging to the user if there is no data available so it's clear why something is empty.

Bond Details View: Additional Details Tab

Before: A static template was used to display all possible information even if the data was not actully relevant. Often times, there would be a lot of empty sections/tables which made it look like a questionable bond.

After: Page now displays dynamic data! If a data point section isn't relevant to a specific bond, then it will not show up. Users can then quickly assess the bond without having to sift through irrelevant content.

Modals

Modals were used throughout BondNav but there were many versions because every instance was a unique creation. I worked with FE to implement a reusable modal component and we were able to consolidate all modals. This is an example of how the Buy Modal's UI evolved to the defined BondNav look and feel.

Activity Redesign

Highlighted Improvements:

  • Name: Updated "Order History" to "Activity" since not everything that flows here is actually a trade order.
  • Subnav: Added a subnav to differentiate trade orders from inquiries. Previously, they all lived together in a single table.
  • Action Required: Added a dedicated section for trade orders that require an action at the top to make the user aware they need to do something.
  • Order Data: Updated data points to only show what is relevant for each order type.
  • Order Status: Introduced specific statuses with different colors to give transparency to the user (previously only "In progress" / "Completed" / "Closed"). Colors include green = filled/sold, gray = not filled/sold, orange = in progress, red = cancelled. 

Activity: Order Ticket Details

Highlighted Improvements:

  • Ticket Details: Added way to view additional order details (there was nothing before).
  • Negotiations: Allowed for users/advisors and our trade desk to negotiate pricing on the platform (previously, it was a manual process that required multiple phone calls).

Note: This is not a before/after.

Portfolios

Highlighted Improvements:

  • Actions: Grouped actions together in a dropdown button to have one central location for all actions. Previously, they were scattered all over the place.
  • Sharing: Enabled users to share a list with someone from their firm (new feature).
  • Notifications: Enabled users to opt into different notifications to be alerted about investment opportunities (new feature)
  • Data: Surfaced additional data to give more value to users.
  • Filter & Sort: Allowed users to filter and sort on multiple columns to better organize their holdings.