It’s been nearly three years since Morgan Stanley first launched their ‘game changing’ (in cost, team size and scope) Matrix single dealer platform.
Although Caplin weren’t involved in the project, it’s interesting nonetheless to understand who were the User eXperience (UX) design consultants behind the innovative platforms vision – as distinct from the technical delivery and build team consultants.
From what we can see, RMA-Consulting together with Adobe Consulting were responsible for the UX design of the project, and Matrix appears on the RMA website, where they state their involvement as:
We created a visual and intuitive interface that integrates real-time pricing with rich multimedia and provides users who are more familiar with traditional trading systems with a game-changing experience
The user experience and architectural innovation delivered through the partnership of Adobe and RMA resulted in the Matrix project winning the 2010 P&L award for innovation
So it seems that while RMA and Adobe were the UX designers, others were involved in the build and implementation, although some three years down the road, performance optimisations are still being made to the platform.
Given that the world is moving to HTML5, an interesting question to ask, is whether Flex (being a plug-in technology) would be selected again, were such an ambitious and expensive project (reports that costs are hovering around $100mln and counting) to be commissioned today?
Previous Caplin coverage here and Caplin HTML5 white paper here
Filed under: HTML5, Paul Blank, Rich Internet Applications, Single-Dealer Platforms, Technology Trends, User Experience (UX) |
SingleDealerPlatforms.Org 
That’s an elite made of a bunch of cocky copycats. It would have taken a fourth of the consultants to get to the same result. They wear All-Stars shoes and they advertise them as their own genial invention.
Besides, the cost of that $100M and counting operation makes people think that developing Flex applications is expensive.
Well done!
my apologies you didn’t get the job mate…
you sure, Seb?
I was one of the UX designers to have worked on the design of the Matrix platform? I was working for Adobe (UX Design) who were working along side Lab 49 (Development). RMA were just looking after the recruitment back then.
Hi Oliver, Yes I saw the Matrix case study on Zedko.com and thought, there’s another UX design firm who were involved!
By the way, i wish you much success at your new role as Principal Experience Architect at the leading French Bank, working on their SDP platform.
Regards
Paul