From 2007-2008 I worked for Stock-Trak, a maker of online stock market trading simulations. One part of the business was aimed at the educational market, and a new part was a consumer-oriented trading game, Wall Street Survivor.
One of the key things was a simplification of the site’s trading interface, using validation logic flows to protect users from submitting “bad” trades that would cause an error. This way, users were given step-by-step feedback on how many units of stock they could transact, and previews of what would happen before they placed their orders.
The video below demonstrates a simple stock purchase. More complex trades were possible, including options/futures, put and call, and more.
In addition to standard stock quotes, an aggregate “Mark’s Rating” provided additional buying advice, averaging user sentiment, external stock ratings, and more.
Wall Street Survivor partnered with newspapers to provide “white label” versions of the game for stock trading contests; one of the most popular was the Financial Post Stock Market Challenge.
Publishing giant Meredith, partnering with Charles Schwab, commissioned designs for a custom portal centered around women’s financial education, that would have included WSS trading as part of the lessons.
Wall Street Survivor got into the education sector as well, offering their own online Investing 101 course. This landing page design outlined the benefits and encouraged current players to sign up.