Instant Bloomberg (IB)

Instant Bloomberg (IB) is the leading communication tool used by the global financial community. Users can design and instantly share live data, charts, analysis and lists with internal and external colleagues.

As a marquee function, it is imperative to deliver a unified cross-platform experience to our clients. In 2020, one of the main goals for IB on Mobile was to find the gaps between the two platform experiences and create transparency between the Terminal and Mobile teams. This is the story of how the Mobile Team collaborated with the Terminal Team to establish consistency for Bloomberg’s most powerful communication tool.

The Problem

Before this effort, the IB Team on Terminal and the Mobile team were working in silos and communication was at a minimum. Without communication, the teams were working on different priorities at different times and, therefore, would lead to an inconsistent experience for our user base. Mobile made it a priority to unify the teams as one cohesive unit and to start prioritizing efforts together. As mentioned earlier, our first task was to find the gaps between the two platforms and create transparency between the two teams. Here is what we found…

Finding the Gaps
This is a list of styles, components and patterns the Mobile team found were necessary to align with Terminal.

• Aligning the font style to Bloomberg on Mobile

• @mentions

• Adding Attachments to the transcript

• Reply to Post

Create Transparency
By aligning the elements from Terminal to Mobile, we not only created consistency between platforms, we created synergy between the two platform teams. Our communication and process grew stronger and we were able to build on that and establish a solid business relationship.

Communication and Collaboration

In 2021, the Mobile and Terminal team’s synergy continued and evolved to become stronger. Product Owners from both sides started planning and prioritizing work together. Designers established weekly rituals to become more efficient. Our teams joined forces to tackle some of the more complex problems.

My Role
Lead Product Designer

My Team
4 Designers | 4 Product Managers | 36 Engineers | 1 Researcher

Platforms
iOS | Android | Terminal (Desktop)

The Scope

Alignment of Platforms
UX can build support and feature alignment across both platforms.

Establish a Process
World-class software has to be innovative, yet deliver a consistent experience. A cohesive process help balance these two imperatives.

Improve IB Features and Workflows
Enhancements to features to compete with the modern communication and collaboration softwares.

Success Criteria

UX Adopting the Process
Both Terminal and Mobile Teams establishing, adopting and practicing the process to create a single design team for the IB function.

Clients Adopting the IB Collaboration Features
IB users utilizing the new features built to enhance their workflow.

Feature Parity
Making sure Terminal and mobile experiences are aligned and as seamless as possible.

IB as a Collaboration Tool

Collaboration is the new normal in the workplace. This should mean improved efficiency and increased productivity, but can only be achieved with the right tools for the user's workflow.

Understanding the cloud-based platforms in the collaboration software market. Although, Instant Bloomberg is not a cloud-based platform, we can learn from them and develop a space that meet modern chat requirements.

Competitive & Comparative Analysis

Auditing patterns amongst many different apps to understand the landscape of collaboration.

Symphony
Financial market chat space

Microsoft Teams
Chat, Meet, Call, Collaborate

Slack
Channels, Connect & Collaborate, Messaging, Accessibility, Voice & Video

Sharing via IB

From the comparative analysis to extensive research, UX discovered that, of all the collaboration features that should be prioritized, improving sharing documents through social tools (Instant Bloomberg) is critical for working together, streamlining workflows, and eliminating inefficiencies.

Document collaboration tools allow team members to upload, store, sync, and share files without having to send email attachments to each other all day. On Terminal, sharing via IB is as easy as uploading or dragging and dropping content into IB and clicking “Send”. On mobile, the workflow was a bit more complex.

Sharing on Mobile

The ability to share content through the Mobile App follows the theme of “Finding the Gaps” between the Terminal and Mobile experiences. Although, “sharing” content on mobile has been a pattern for several years, the experience seemed clumsy and less intuitive. We needed a more modern approach.

Enhancements needed:

• The ability to add a message with the shared content

• A more noticeable content preview pane

• A universal contact picker widget that can be used not only by IB, but other subapps like email, note, etc.

• The shared content needed a modern preview within the the transcript

A More Modern Approach

As you can see in the mockups below, sharing a News Article via IB will send the user to the Unified Contact Selector or UCS. We had designed and implemented the UCS as a global component that provides mobile users with a consistent experience across any workflow which requires the selection of one or more contacts and/or rooms. At the bottom of the UCS we had designed a preview of the News Article so the user can continue to view the object that they’re trying to share throughout the flow.

Sharing to one recipient vs. multiple recipients

Focusing on the mockups to the right, adding one recipient will, of course, just send the article to the 1:1 chatroom. Sending to multiple recipients changes the logic of sending. The Action button will change and provide two options:

• You can send to a group chat

• OR you can send separately as a “Blast” message. A Blast message refers to a user sending a single message or sharing content to multiple chat rooms simultaneously.

Cross-Platform Alignment

Alignment between Terminal and Mobile is a focus in our Success Criteria. In the mockup to the right represents the News Article preview within the transcript when they are finally shared on both Mobile and Desktop.

What We Learned

Sharing via IB is one of many successful features that has enhanced Instant Bloomberg as a Collaboration Tool. Product Owners from both Mobile and Terminal teams have seen the advantages of working together and eliminating inefficiencies. The effort of unifying the teams as one cohesive unit to tackle complex problems in IB was a success and continues to work together today.