A tool for capturing route prices for bringing more accuracy in the P&L calculation.
CHALLENGES
PROCESS
Recognizing the problem
For too long, the way we captured physical prices was fragmented, inconsistent, and, quite frankly, outdated. Different teams (Mid Office, Risk, and Trading) each had their own way of interpreting and applying prices. This created unnecessary volatility, misaligned P&L, and made risk management harder than it needed to be. Conversations with customers were tough, and decision-making suffered. We needed a better way than everybody “having their own Excel file”.
Building a community
Traders used scattered tools to track prices: Teams, emails, Whatsapp conversations etc. Key was understanding what they were trying to do: making sense of price data. We needed a unified tool to collect and share pricing information. The requirement collection was done in collaboration with a business analyst. However, my role as a designer was to familiarize with their best practices. I did a large field study: I walked on the trading floor observing what they did, how they did it, how they structured their excel files, exchange data and information between each other.
I also organized and led technical workshops to understand how we could speed up processes, inject external datasources and avoid user errors. In the wireframing and prototyping sessions it was crucial to find a way to minimise user errors: a wrongly inputed price (i.e. 100,000 instead of 10,000) would have had a tremendous impact on the precision of the tool. So we found ways to visually indicate to users thresholds. But at the same time giving them also the flexibility and freedom to input prices outside those thresholds.
A unified, real-time system
We asked a simple question: What if we could capture physical prices instantly, with precision, and in a way that seamlessly integrates across all our systems?
The answer was PPC (Physical Price Capture)—a tool designed with:
Real-time price inputs
A seamless web and mobile experience
A universal system that compares multiple price sources
Smart guidance to help traders capture the most relevant price while reducing error rates.
Requirement collection and user flows in collaboration with the Business Analyst.
Creation of a complex data viz palette (since the DS didn’t have a sufficient range of tones)
Here are some prototypes and concepts that I’ve explored for the price inputs with different screen resolutions.
Clickable prototypes were crucial to understand time on task.
Designing for speed
PPC had to be fast, reliable, and intuitive. No delays. No clunky interfaces. Just real-time data that traders could trust.
We integrated price feeds from the best sources—FFA BE prices, Maritech broker prices, TC contracts, and fixture prices—to give traders a true market view. Now, they could make better, more aggressive trades with confidence.
My prototypes were dense with data: one one side the monthly prices coming from external datasources presented with intuitive data visualisation techniques. On the other side a quick and intuitive month-by-month form flow, allowing them to fill in and submit the prices in a matter of seconds.
Collecting data
While traders were inputing data in a matter of seconds, we would collect these data to have a better ideas of the trends. This way we could create more accurate forecast with the result of having also a higher trading accuracy.
Risk metrics become real, P&L became precise.
Customer conversations: traders were aligned and they all had access to the same data.
Strategic decisions get sharper: traders can play the game smarter, pushing the best trading routes aggressively.
We didn’t just build a tool. We built a decision engine.
CHALLENGES 101
Lessons Learnt
Pushing the boundaries: the best technology doesn’t just work—it empowers. This was evident from user testing sessions post-launch. Initially, as a designer, I thought it would be challenging to get users to adopt the tool daily, as the benefits were not immediate and only observable after a few months.
However, an easy-to-use solution that required only a few seconds to complete tasks was key to a steep adoption rate. The tool's reliability, intuitive UI, and availability of market trends turned PPC into a daily investment.
A little push
No user would have willingly adopted the tool without senior management's support. They endorsed the solution and encouraged users to try it. Sometimes, design needs a push, which is guaranteed only through good partnership and collaboration with stakeholders.
Within a few months, we transitioned from using hundreds of different tools to a single source of truth. This reduced reliance on external tools, saved money, and fostered collaboration between different desks. Traders could behave more aggressively in the market without taking extra risks, as their decisions were based on internal research and data findings. Success came from pushing people to share and collaborate, which is exactly what PPC facilitates.
