I interviewed my 3 roommates, all who know a little about the stock market, but not enough to comfortably participate and know what they are doing and why. All 3 are seniors in college and I felt that this atmosphere for a novice, with 2 others present, would be the least intimidating and they could all bounce ideas and suggestions off of each other, and myself.

I first asked what they want to know about the market:

“How to make money!” (All 3 said this was their top priority for learning the system, all which showed me user motivation.)

“How to know when you will benefit most from a company, and which company over another” (An answer that relates back to the first response of making money.)

“I see the graphs on TV and on the internet and in the newspaper, but I don’t know how to read them, and the terms that go along with them.”

“The differences between NASDAQ and DOW? or Bear and Bull?”

“I want to know what percent of my personal gross income that I should/could invest in the market.”

After these and a few more similar responses I asked them what they already knew about the market:

“How to read the basics about stocks in the paper (the red and green arrows, the share prices, etc.)”

“I know some symbols” (relating back to the above question)

“How dependent our economy is on it, but not necessarily how the two directly effect one another.”

“I know some rules, like about no insider trading, but only because of the Martha Stewart scandal.” (Pop culture has some relations with the stock market, shows that taking part of the “more interesting”  and legal aspects of the market.)

“I know some of the overall benefits of investing, and the risks.”

“I know that it is important to diversify your portfolio, and more stocks are better than one.”

I then asked the girls about what they would think the best way to learn the things they are interested in through a mobile application:

“Visual aids, explaining the graphs and charts, or the reports. Showing them, and then labeling them in a way.”

“Show an example portfolio over a period of time and explain the decisions and investments that person made.”

After a few more responses I told them I was thinking about making a simulation game where along the way a user would learn more about the stock market. They all agreed that this would definitely be the best way to learn more. After I told them my idea, they had several more comments of what I could bring to the game.:

“When you make a decision in the game it would be nice if right after, the app. could tell you if the decision was beneficial or detrimental. Or what you could have done differently in your strategy.”

“It would also be nice to see the technical analysis (the price facts, influence forecast, etc.) along with the fundamental analysis (the outside influences on the market) that could play into the simulation.” (Of course this comment was made by my roommate who is majoring in Accounting.)

I finally asked the girls when they would be most likely to use this application:

“Now, when I am taking my personal finance classes, and I’m not catching on as quickly as I should be.” (my roommate in Accounting)

“Later, when I begin a salary job and start making money that I could invest.” (my roommate going to medical school next year, and the other Biology major roommate agreed.)

Talking with my roommates, the novices, helped me understand what non-design oriented users want out of an application. Nowhere in the mentioning of the application was there use of a system or color-coded objects, or anything that dealt with the design of it. This helped me get out of “design mode” for a while and see what potential users would want who are not as focused on “what it looks like”, but more “what could I get out of it”. From this feedback, I can take what they said, and incorporate those ideas with my design knowledge and make the information visually pleasing as well organize and map out the application so it is easy for any type of user to control and understand.

This conversation also helped me realize that most people using this application for the first time will be novices, but not completely in the dark about the stock market. There will be some things that they do know, but many ideas and concepts that they will not. It will be my job as the designer to not dumb-down the information, but to make it where it is approachable to any first time or eighth time user.