Globe Investor
Posted on | June 3, 2009 | Comments Off
Client: Globe and Mail
Project Role: User Experience Consultant, Lead Information Architect
Agency: Black and Co, Nexklix
GlobeInvestor is the Canadian source for financial and economic news. It is widely read across all regions of Canada. It’s editorial coverage, commentary and analysis has garnered loyalty from the elite self-managed investors down to novices. The online market has seen an increase in competition from a variety of other players such as noteworthy publishers like Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, online brokerages such as ETrade, and giants like Yahoo!, Google and MSN. This has had impact on users perceptions of the quality and usefulness of GlobeInvestor content. It was time to reclaim its credibility as the source for financial news and analysis with a Canadian perspective.
The Strategy
Redefining GlobeInvestor began with speaking directly with its users. We discovered wasn’t shocking to added great clarity to the objectives for the redesign. Users wanted information that was fast. The faster editors could respond to a story or provide financial data would influence the speed an investor could make a decision. They want enough data and analysis to make informed decisions. Investors are creatures of habit. And many have key indicators they look for to confirm a decision. It is the expectation that GlobeInvestor provides enough information to properly cater to all kinds of investors. Finally, the site must be friendly. GlobeInvestor attracts many user types from novice investors who use adviors to validate their decisions to elite professional investors. The site’s content, data and charts must be friendly enough to appeal to everyone.
Each interface was carefully crafted with these user objectives in mind. We redesigned the site with new data charts that allowed for greater user control and analysis. We surfaced more related news and commentary at all levels of the site. With platform enhancements we were able to incorporate speedier data feeds. And with a new watchlist and portfolio tracking tools users can look at their financial performance in a new way that rivals other web properties.
Tags: GlobeInvestor.ca > Publishing > User Experience Design