Rapid concept design for a new currency trading platform - from zero to high-fidelity in a 48-hour design sprint.
I was asked to create a concept for a new currency trading application with only two days to design from scratch. No user research, prior product framework, or validated requirements were available. The goal was to visualize a potential product direction that could inspire internal alignment and deliver a coherent concept that aligned business goals with usability best practices.
The main challenge was designing a coherent end-to-end trading experience in 48 hours without access to users or existing data - while ensuring the concept felt credible, intuitive, and scalable to real trading behaviour. The key tension: balancing speed with depth, aesthetic appeal with functional clarity, and confident UX rationale with unknown users.
I framed assumptions based on financial UX heuristics, cognitive load principles, and observed patterns from leading trading platforms. I defined experience pillars - clarity, trust, and control - to anchor design decisions consistently. From there, I mapped the core flow from account setup to currency monitoring, order execution, and performance review. I built a modular component structure that could evolve into a scalable design system, and annotated design decisions to explain trade-offs, rationale, and future research hypotheses.
I focused on clarity, hierarchy, and trust as the emotional anchors of the experience - applying patterns from financial platforms and system-level reasoning to balance cognitive load, data density, and trust signals. The Trading View serves as the main screen, giving users a single-screen view of currency pairs, real-time performance charts, and active orders. The order flow was kept deliberately simple: select a currency pair, choose buy or sell, enter the amount, set a validity date, and confirm. A comprehensive settings area gives users control over widget visibility, keyboard shortcuts, and a dark/light theme toggle.
The high-fidelity concept served as a foundation for upcoming user testing and stakeholder alignment. Within a 48-hour sprint, I established the foundational UX architecture for a new currency trading app - creating an intuitive interaction model and modular component framework.