Design Makes a Difference
Bloomberg is undoubtedly one of the biggest players in the financial industry offering a wide range of products for people in and around Wall Street. One of their products is the Bloomberg Terminal. It is a 17" dual screen setup that displays the financial information from Bloomberg Profession Services - all in one tightly packed system.
...and it looks like this:
This terminal is undoubtedly useful for the people who need this kind of data, but in these days with high-end design and rich media interfaces, the Bloomberg interface is a disaster.
When you create an interface like this one, you send out a clear message that you boring, old and lack any sense of quality or innovative spirit.
But that is not the worst part. The worst part is that an uninspiring system will reflect on the mental state of the people who work with it. This looks like an old DOS systems, something that has been obsolete for 12 years!
People are saying that the Bloomberg Terminal is great - but hideous to look at. And, if that is the sensation you give people every time they see your product, then you have failed. It is like an ugly car. It can take you to work, but you do not want people to see you driving in it.
"It's a great machine, in that it has information you can't get elsewhere, but it hasn't improved its interface in the past five years," says a private equity associate in Chicago who regularly uses a terminal to check interest rates and historical prices. "It's hideous."- source: Portfolio.com
Design is extremely important. It is the tool you use to energise, inspire, empower, and encourage your employees to do better. A good working environment can transform a workplace.
But remember, I am not talking about design as art or as graphic design. This is a productivity application, and as such, it has to work efficiently. It should never be fancy - but it must have a modern and effective design. The design must make you happy, but it must also help you to work faster and better.
The redesigned Bloomberg Terminal
Last month, Portfolio.com asked three top design companies to redesign the Bloomberg experience. These companies were the well renowned IDEO, thehappycorp, and Ziba - and this is what they came up with:
Note: See high-res images and an interactive presentation over at Portfolio.com
IDEO:
Thehappycorp:
Ziba:
I do not like thehappycorp's and Ziba's design.
Thehappycorp's concept is over-designed. It is fancy instead of efficient. Sure it looks pretty, but all those design elements gets in the way of digesting information fast. And the remote + a golf game as part the interface? - that is just another proof that they have no sense of reality.
Sure I will give them 10 point for innovative thinking, but also -200 for not being able to work efficiently.
Ziba's design is even worse. It is clearly made by a graphic designer. It has extremely low contrast, terrible waste of screen space and useless interface elements. This is fancy design without substance. It doesn't work.
But, I really like the IDEO design. It is beautiful. It has an immense amount of information, designed in a way so that it isn't cluttered to look at. More importantly the information is all about work.
The best thing, I think, is that you do not have to navigate to see the information you need. It is all there instantly available. Not like the Ziba or thehappycorp interfaces where you constantly have to move around and click on varies elements to get the information you need.
This is what modern user experience is all about:
- Never create old and ugly interfaces - it hurts your company more than you can ever imagine.
- Never over-design and create flashy interfaces - it completely kills your productivity and moves focus from doing meaningful things to looking at irrelevant design effects.
- Do create beautiful interaction focused on getting things done well - it will empower you employees to do the same.
(Tip: Adam from Supersonic Feet / via: PortFolio.com)
Comments
Thomas Baekdal - Sep. 4, 2007
Blaise, White text on a black background is harder on your eyes then black text on a white background.
But it very much depends on the environment you are sitting in. You want your background to mimic the lighting intensity of your environment. Which basically means that if you are working on a submarine or at night (in a poorly lit room), then a black background with white text is better.
However, if you are working during the day, in a modern well lit office, a black background would create too much contrast between the screen and the things around you. Thus, it would be much better to have a white background with black text.
Another interesting thing, is that a study recently found the lighting intensity of our screens can affect how awake we feel (sorry I do not have a link). A black background tends to lower our efficiency because the lighting intensity makes us sleepy. While a bright white background helps us stay awake and efficient.
...Maybe we should have a white background in the morning, and a black background before we go to bed in the evening :o)
Also a black background dampens the intensity of the white text - especially in small font sizes. You generally need to make text larger, wider, and stronger to achieve the same level of readability. The result is that each text element takes up more room, decreasing the available screen-space.
Another interesting study found that neither black on white nor white on black is the best combination to use, because the contrast is too high in both cases. Instead you should use a light-yellow background and dark-green text. I do, however, doubt the "freshness" of this report. It was made in 1997 - a time where the resolution of our screens was much lower, and before technologies like ClearType was invented.
Thomas Baekdal - Sep. 4, 2007
BTW: I wrote "You generally need to make text larger, wider, and stronger to achieve the same level of readability."
This is only true for small font-sizes. You actually need to make text less strong when you use large font-sizes.
Paul Rouke - Sep. 4, 2007
Whilst quickly trying to put myself in the shoes of a financial professional (as you do!), and quickly scanning down my rss reader page to see the 3 designs, my immediate reaction was that the IDEO interaction design was far superior for this particular kind of solution.
As you point out both Thehappycorp and Ziba certainly took a more visual, richer interface design approach, which is ideal for certain applications (the new Joost application springs to mind) but for such an information rich and potentially complex information architecture application, the use of white space, clean lines, simple headers and columnised layout is an ideal combination.
I imagine user testing these 3 solutions for key scenario based tasks would make for fascinating observations..
Thanks for bringing to my attention such an interesting project!
George - Sep. 6, 2007
It doesn't look like thehappycorp even understood what they were designing. What does a Wii remote and playing golf have to do with anything? Why do you need a Wii remote when you have a mouse? Were they designing a new media/gaming console for Bloomberg?!
IDEO wins hands down. Someone at thehappycorp should be fired.
Jesper Rønn-Jensen - Sep. 9, 2007
A black background tends to lower our efficiency because the lighting intensity makes us sleepy. While a bright white background helps us stay awake and efficient.
Hmm, i don't doubt your opinion, but it does not explain why light text on black background has become so popular in editor environments amongst developers.
Good examples are E-texteditor and TextMate, where some of the most productive developers seem to work.
Any thoughts on this? Personally, I use E-texteditors theme "sunburst" which is charcoal gray background with syntax colored text in colors that are not too bright or screaming.
For me, it seems to be more relaxing on the eyes. Can't remember where, but recently I saw that it's possible to style even the Microsoft development tool in these colors too. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Thomas Baekdal - Sep. 9, 2007
Jesper, I can only refer you to studies like the one in my comment above.
When light text is placed on a dark background the text may seem to glow and become blurred; this is referred to as halation, and it may make the text harder to read.
Personally, I do not think products like E-Texteditor and TextMate use black because of a result based on a usability study. Instead I think they chose that color because of two things.
- It looks cool
- It is the color used in UNIX, DOS, and many Terminal windows - being developers, they tend to like those things.
I have personally changed the font and the background color in Visual Studio (my development platform of choice). I didn't set it to "white text on a black background - using Courier New".
I changed it to use "black text on an off-white background" (not white) And, with the new "Segoe UI" font in Windows Vista.
I find this to be a better solution. The off-white color breaks the high contrast and releases tension in my eyes. The Segoe UI font allows me to read the code much faster, because the code looks more like normal text.
It looks like this:
Kai - Sep. 13, 2007
It's good to see - how bad things become good. i think ideos version is best, because it looks clean and friendly.
Srdjan Prodanović - Nov. 11, 2007
I think it's apparent that the happydesign is a comic relief, and should be treated as such. Rationalising the use of wiimote is pointless. I like the fact the other two solutions are such a big contrast, so features "from both camps" can be examined.
Jon A - Dec. 7, 2007
I find it amazing that you can write an article on how to improve something which you know nothing about. This is the tool of finance. If you knew about the amount of information necessary, the urgency to display that information, and the need to understand it quickly, you would understand that it's interface is crucial. Trying to "improve" the interface by adding a "slick" skin and multimedia options is wrong.
Next time you try to improve something, make sure you're really improving it. When form hinders function, it should follow.
Thomas Baekdal - Dec. 7, 2007
Jon,
1: I do actually know a thing or two about these things :)
2: I am in no way saying that this is just about adding a "skin".
As I wrote:
This is what modern user experience is all about:
- Never create old and ugly interfaces - it hurts your company more than you can ever imagine.
- Never over-design and create flashy interfaces - it completely kills your productivity and moves focus from doing meaningful things to looking at irrelevant design effects.
Do create beautiful interaction focused on getting things done well - it will empower you employees to do the same
The original interface is not very good - many people think it is "hideous". In this case many problem could be solved by making an interface that takes advantage of modern interaction design concepts.
It needs to highly efficient, which was why I wrote that the TheHappyCorp's design was bad, because they have focused more on creating fancy design than making usable efficient design.
kofty - Dec. 9, 2007
It's good to see - how bad things become good. i think ideos version is best, because it looks clean and friendly.When light text is placed on a dark background the text may seem to glow and become blurred; this is referred to as halation, and it may make the text harder to read.
Yousef - Dec. 10, 2007
Jon, what are you talking about? When I read your comment, it sounded like a 12 year-old commenting. No offence, but everything you typed there looks to me like it was all out of pure jealousy towards Thomas, because of his awsome website and these uniquely interesting articles.
Yousef - Dec. 11, 2007
I bet you work for TheHappyCorp.
Niels - May. 20, 2008
Yes it is difficult for us designers to judge a concept for a specific target group as financials. We ought to dive into their context and conduct interviews, creative sessions etc to really understand what they need and what helps them to achieve their goals in terms of usability. But by looking at the three concepts it is fair to say that the IDEO concept is the best although the content seems a bit similar there is not a clear hierarchy from less to really important.
I agree with other commenters that the last concept is made by a graphic designers since there is no hardware just two screenshots. And the second proposal has no information about finance at all so it is difficult to judge it on terms of usability.
lk - Jun. 29, 2008
"Blaise, White text on a black background is harder on your eyes then black text on a white background. "
Not necessarily. All that white on the screen - essentially you are staring into a lightbulb. Ouch!
I agree black and white both can be too contrasty together. But for people with poor eyesight, or vision problems, contrast can be good.
What they need to do is have stylesheets that let the user choose dark on light or light on dark, as well as have higher or lower contrast (not to mention changing text size). One is better in a bright office in the day, and the other at night. (These people often work late)
BTDT - Sep. 25, 2008
Having actually worked for Bloomberg, I can assure you, the ugliness of their UI is the direct result of their customers' demands. Their customers are financial analysts and traders, not designers, not programmers. Any attempt they make to change their UI is invariably met with extraordinary resistance from their user base. Bloomberg has done more research into possibilities for changing that UI than you can imagine.
Mind you, they're a terrible company for which to work and the terminal IS ugly, but don't make the mistake of thinking that that terminal is as ugly as it is because they don't know how to do UI design. The look of that terminal has been fundamentally unchanged for over twenty years for a reason- traders want it that way- at least the traders who aren't fresh out of college and seeing that UI for the first time and wondering who on earth would think it's attractive.
As somebody pointed out, you may be a bit out of your element with this particular target, because the reality is, once you've actually USED the BB terminal for its intended purpose as opposed to a design critique exercise, it's an incredibly efficient (albeit ugly) tool. And the eyestrain is far less than a white screen (again, I speak from experience, having sat in front of the thing for years).
The BB terminal is actually completely customizable, by the way- it's not difficult to radically change the look of it, should a user desire to do so. The fact that you virtually never see people doing it is a testament to the entrenched, bizarre affection that Bloomberg's customers have for that "hideous" UI.
Published: Sep. 4, 2007 in Usability
FaceBook
Twitter
LinkedIn
YouTube
Flickr
Blaise Kal - Sep. 4, 2007
The IDEO design is the most efficient and best looking. But the background is white. That may be very pretty, but when you're watching that screen whole day long, you probably want something darker.
I find this much better: http://spookpaard.nl/host/files/muchbetter.jpg (without the white border)