SteveT
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Post by SteveT on Feb 24, 2016 16:14:35 GMT
Having now been able to read it (just about) on my PC, here are a few thoughts:
a) The most critical things are that the essential account figures are all displayed (and calculated correctly!!!!). Currently some are, some aren't. There really needs to be:
Total Account Value, which equals Total Live Loans plus Total Bids plus Available Cash, and which must also balance by equalling Total Stake (ie. cash deposits less cash withdrawals) plus Total Interest plus Total Incentives (cashback, etc.) plus SM Trading Gains/Losses minus Fees (if any) minus Total Bad Debts
The best example of this is Funding Circle's dashboard (in terms of all the figures being there, not the design). ReBuilding Society's version also shows all the correct items, however sadly they don't add up properly.
In the case of Ablrate, I'm unclear whether you regard Instant Returns as "Interest" or "Incentive" (like Cashback). I think HMRC will want to tax it as interest, but it would be wise to show "Total Instant Returns" seperate from "Total Interest"
b) What's the difference between "Active Bids" and "Bids on Proposed Loans" ?
c) There is a fair amount of space devoted to things that really aren't needed on the Dashboard. For example the graph adds little (I don't understand whether its supposed to be total leant [sic] at month end, or net lending in the month, or ...) and the list of "Current Investments" doesn't add much if only 4 are viewable without clicking to see the full list.
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Feb 24, 2016 16:59:57 GMT
Re b), the first is secondary market, the second primary market.
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SteveT
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Post by SteveT on Feb 24, 2016 17:01:32 GMT
Re b), the first is secondary market, the second primary market. Seems a bit backwards then!
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Investboy
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Post by Investboy on Feb 24, 2016 17:24:20 GMT
Can't we please not have the SS syndrome that instead of fixing errors a new website was launched? For me what is more important than "arty-farty new web 2.0 design" that someone is overcharging you is: 1. Fixing existing errors: SM for amortizing loans springs to mind 2. Deliver promised improvements like tax statement What I would like on top of what SteveT said is a: a) month by month summary of interests earned , capital repaid with yearly total. Each month clickable to detailed view of all repayments in that month b) weighted yield/APR of my portfolio c) <edit>almost forgotten: more planes, containers and other loans</edit>
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gt94sss2
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Post by gt94sss2 on Feb 24, 2016 17:37:39 GMT
Others have commented on the readability aspects, what else needs to be included (i.e. a withdraw funds button!) and text colour etc.
To this I would add:
1. Please test any design changes on multiple screen sizes and platforms. I have known to many developers who base everything on a large monitor because that is what they have. These days by choice I browse mainly on a 10.1" laptop and/or an iPad Mini..
2. You have allocated a large area of the screen to your 'featured investment' - what happens if (as in the recent past) you have no new loans to fund?
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unmadem
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Post by unmadem on Feb 24, 2016 20:54:08 GMT
I'd prefer to see the effort going into some of the missing functionality that has been long on the waiting list than fiddling with layout and as other have stated making it less readable or accessible.
Off the top of my head:-
- adding unique loan numbers consistently throughout the site so it is clear which loan is being discussed/reported. Increasingly important as number of loans grows.
- excel export of loan book
- tax / interest earned statement/certificate
- Display of Total Account Value as per SteveT
- sure they are others but I haven't looked through the appropriate posts
These might not be as exciting to code as a swish new look but will be a lot more use to your users.
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jonah
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Post by jonah on Feb 24, 2016 22:31:15 GMT
I'd prefer to see the effort going into some of the missing functionality that has been long on the waiting list than fiddling with layout and as other have stated making it less readable or accessible.
Off the top of my head:-
- adding unique loan numbers consistently throughout the site so it is clear which loan is being discussed/reported. Increasingly important as number of loans grows.
- excel export of loan book
- tax / interest earned statement/certificate
- Display of Total Account Value as per SteveT
- sure they are others but I haven't looked through the appropriate posts
These might not be as exciting to code as a swish new look but will be a lot more use to your users.
I second the above bullets. Substance over style. Fixing the SM for amortised loans would be my addition.
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Post by solicitorious on Feb 24, 2016 22:45:44 GMT
I prefer the proposed new one. But it seems I'm in the minority.
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SteveT
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Post by SteveT on Feb 24, 2016 22:55:55 GMT
I don't really care much what it looks like (although being able to discern the text on a mobile screen is handy) provided that it displays the critical figures needed to track and reconcile account performance. And that they are correct, of course.
Once it delivers that, it can then have as many extra graphics, messages, and buttons as you like!
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james
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Post by james on Feb 24, 2016 23:24:49 GMT
In general I like it but of course have comments: 1. Too little contrast between black and middish gray used for overview/current investments etc. menu and graph scales. Ditto for the darker blue used in some places. 2. Active/proposed bids is missing active offers number that naturally belongs there as well. And offers between proposed and secondary market bids can help to provide logical separation between the two types of bid. 3. The funds currently lent/all interest earned/12 months interest box doesn't really provide what I want. What I want here is XIRR, money paid in, money taken out, interest paid other payments, charges so that I can easily reconcile all of those and verify that they cross-check correctly. This sort of thing (from Bondora, which removed this page later). XIRR handling for impaired loans would be an interesting future discussion, see much about this in the Bondora section. XIRR tells me how i'm doing compared to alternative uses for the money. XIRR trend over time (Bondora's version) would also be interesting, nice charting opportunity. 4. What's the sort order for the current investments section? Biggest? Ending soonest? Ending latest, whatever? Biggest first seems like a decent choice. Or is this loans available for primary market investing rather than loans currently held? 5. Funds lent, next installment, date of next installment. Bondora had a superb presentation of this. You can drill down from monthly to individual days (the chart at the top changed, a more modern version of that part is here). You might present this on the chart as bars showing amount to be paid each week with hover text giving details. One thing I use such information for is to time withdrawing requests, after the bigger amounts have been paid. Is funds lent total invested each month or new money lent each month? 6. The screen shot is reduced in size. When I click on it to view it in actual size it's substantially wider than my normal browser window size. Almost as though someone expects us to look at this in full screen view for some specific screen size. The navigation space on the left is particularly wasteful of screen real estate, the three horizontal bar sort of picture to indicate a menu like the new loans one would be handy to save horizontal space. Navigation elements going horizontally across the top so they can be scrolled out of sight easily (via say mouse scroll wheel) are a better use of real estate, though. 7. The picture of the person at the upper right doesn't seem particularly useful, we already know what we look like. Might be handy if managing multiple accounts through one user interface, though.
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ilmoro
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Post by ilmoro on Feb 24, 2016 23:38:35 GMT
Complete lack of purple means its an absolute non-starter in the P2P world. Clearly, your specification contained a glaring oversight for this point Its a little dark but very similiar to settings screen on my ASUS tablet so Im used to it and quite like it actually. Doesnt have huge patches of blank space which is a plus.
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Post by ablrate on Feb 25, 2016 9:53:28 GMT
Hi Guys Looks like the dark background is out, although I quite like the style of layout etc.. Some of the features listed are just designer ideas and perhaps won't be relevant, but keep the feedback coming on what you would like to see on the dash, this is all good stuff. Below is the deal page... forget the color, the info that appears there is what we would like feedback on.
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Post by ablrate on Feb 25, 2016 10:06:06 GMT
Can't we please not have the SS syndrome that instead of fixing errors a new website was launched? For me what is more important than "arty-farty new web 2.0 design" that someone is overcharging you is: 1. Fixing existing errors: SM for amortizing loans springs to mind 2. Deliver promised improvements like tax statement What I would like on top of what SteveT said is a: a) month by month summary of interests earned , capital repaid with yearly total. Each month clickable to detailed view of all repayments in that month b) weighted yield/APR of my portfolio c) <edit>almost forgotten: more planes, containers and other loans</edit> Hi Investboy The core functionality is something that is separate to this exercise... just spoke with the developers today on amortising... and they have new code being tested today. Other functionality, like tax statements will follow and much more speedily than these have been, but the amortising loan one is a complex issue, so is taking time. Love the rest of your suggestions, keep them coming. The design is not going to impact development work, you will probably not see it for a while and the core architecture and code and functions is the most important... but what we did with the old platform (which you may not have seen) is bolt on code without to much thought on usability and design and we ended up binning it (well it is still alive and we may use for something else), so we wanted to give plenty of lead time for the implementation and give our lenders plenty of time to make suggestions as to what the would like to see, so that the functionality coming is aligned with usability. We are in it for the long term and platforms need to adapt to the increasing demands of regulators and users, so we are just looking forward to how new additions of functions will interact with our users. Regards Ablrate
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SteveT
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Post by SteveT on Feb 25, 2016 10:13:30 GMT
Hi Guys Looks like the dark background is out, although I quite like the style of layout etc.. Some of the features listed are just designer ideas and perhaps won't be relevant, but keep the feedback coming on what you would like to see on the dash, this is all good stuff. Below is the deal page... forget the color, the info that appears there is what we would like feedback on. Good to have all of the key loan parameters listed on the RHS. I'd suggest giving Instant Returns rather more prominence as it's a key Ablrate advantage (maybe an "Instant Returns - Yes" indicator under the "Interest Rate" figure?). Also to display the sold / unsold capacity in the loan as a value (£) as well as (or instead of) a %.
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SteveT
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Post by SteveT on Feb 25, 2016 11:00:48 GMT
Here's a stab at an "ideal" set of Dashboard figures, incorporating james ' request for the IRR and also active SM offers. The sub-heading items (those not in bold) could possibly be accessed via a "Show Details" toggle if you want to keep the appearance clean, but they do need to be accessible. compressed Dashboard example.pdf (85.67 KB)
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