Overview
In 2022, I led the design exploration for a new Trading Station experience at FXCM built as a Progressive Web App. The platform was designed to work seamlessly across desktop, mobile, and installable app environments while maintaining a consistent trading workflow throughout.
Although the project never reached production due to business direction changes, it remains one of my favorite explorations in simplifying complex trading interfaces. Many of the UX decisions and interaction patterns still feel relevant today.
The Challenge
Trading platforms often grow into fragmented systems overloaded with tools, panels, and competing priorities. The challenge here was to rethink the experience from the ground up while balancing the needs of active traders across multiple devices.
The platform needed to feel powerful without becoming overwhelming, and flexible without sacrificing clarity.
The Approach
The design focused on creating a modular interface that could adapt naturally between desktop and mobile contexts. Instead of building separate experiences, the system was designed around shared interaction patterns, responsive layouts, and consistent workflows.
The desktop experience emphasized focus and customization, allowing traders to monitor markets, manage positions, and execute trades without visual overload.
On mobile, the experience shifted toward speed and prioritization. Information density was carefully reduced while preserving the core trading workflow, ensuring users could move through key actions quickly and confidently.
A major focus throughout the project was simplifying navigation, reducing cognitive load, and creating a visual system that could scale cleanly across both light and dark themes.
Outcome
The project demonstrated how a modern trading platform could move beyond traditional desktop-first thinking into a more flexible, unified experience across devices. Even though it was ultimately shelved, many of the concepts explored in this work influenced future design thinking and still hold up years later.
Takeaway
Good trading UX is not about showing more information. It is about organizing complexity in a way that feels fast, clear, and controllable across any device.