Ryan Klein

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Ryan Klein

Work

Experience

Leadership

FAQ

Get in Touch

Ryan Klein

Work

Experience

Leadership

FAQ

Get in Touch

Fixed Income Visual Data Creation

Morningstar’s Fixed Income Visual Data Set, the company’s first visual tool dedicated to Fixed Income investments, was created to help users navigate this critical area with greater ease. Fixed Income data, essential to balanced investment strategies, was often difficult for users to interpret quickly. The interactive chart was designed to simplify complex information, applying accessibility principles and design standards to build user confidence and support informed decision-making.

Company

Company

Morningstar

Team

Team

Fixed Income Data

Project Timeline

Project Timeline

6 weeks

Portfolio Reports

Portfolio Reports

306K

Net Promoter Score

Net Promoter Score

48

Average Monthly Users

Average Monthly Users

2.6M

Challenge

Users struggled to interpret critical Fixed Income data, essential for evaluating investment risks and returns, as it stemmed from summarized data points viewed from a single vantage angle. This limited perspective hindered their ability to draw meaningful insights, navigate information effectively, and make confident investment decisions.

Methods

Conducted user tests, interviews, and analyzed data visualization approaches that addressed accessibility concerns.

Results

Net Promoter Score 67% higher than the average company product score, driven by improved conveyance of fixed income data's role in providing safety and security relative to market swings, serving as a key indicator of broader economic conditions for investors. Additionally, the solution introduced 8 new core datasets across primary and secondary dimensions, enabling users to better assess fund holdings. The product also achieved WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance two years ahead of company mandates, ensuring accessibility for users.

Legacy Approach

The previous approach to Fixed Income data relied on static tables within PDFs, supplemented by a curated Excel file for raw data. While the Excel file provided flexibility, both formats lacked visual appeal, interpretive support, and relational context to users’ interest in seeing data told as a story. Without chart visualizations to highlight trends, users were left to manually analyze rows of numbers, making it challenging to extract meaningful insights. This approach fell short of presenting the data in a narrative, engaging way to drive confident decision making.

Refined Solution

The redesign makes the Fixed Income Exposure Analysis accessibile by incorporating hover states for better interactivity and enabling seamless chart-to-table and table-to-chart actions. These updates allow users to easily switch between data formats, improving engagement and understanding. By default, components render in chart view with the option to switch to a data table view, while also providing affordance for consuming products to show just the data table if preferred to ease load speeds.

The redesign makes the Fixed Income Exposure Analysis accessibile by incorporating hover states for better interactivity and enabling seamless chart-to-table and table-to-chart actions. These updates allow users to easily switch between data formats, improving engagement and understanding. By default, components render in chart view with the option to switch to a data table view, while also providing affordance for consuming products to show just the data table if preferred to ease load speeds.

A corresponding data table format introduced dimensions of interest rate risk, credit risk, and yield, measured across the primary investments section and Morningstar-specific region. This provided more delineated formats and combinations, helping users better understand the precise areas where an investment is reflected. As a result, users gained clearer insights into the specific risks and returns associated with each asset.

A corresponding data table format introduced dimensions of interest rate risk, credit risk, and yield, measured across the primary investments section and Morningstar-specific region. This provided more delineated formats and combinations, helping users better understand the precise areas where an investment is reflected. As a result, users gained clearer insights into the specific risks and returns associated with each asset.

Charting capabilities in Excel were used to visualize how raw data would plot before transitioning to design system standards, exploring different variations of color relations and key arrangements. The implementation of chart standards and accessibility testing with international teams helped solidify the visual direction, ensuring both usability and compliance across regions.

Charting capabilities in Excel were used to visualize how raw data would plot before transitioning to design system standards, exploring different variations of color relations and key arrangements. The implementation of chart standards and accessibility testing with international teams helped solidify the visual direction, ensuring both usability and compliance across regions.

Collaborating with developers on hover latency, dropdown states, and smooth scrolling created a seamless user experience, allowing effortless transitions between diverse data combinations in both visual and chart formats.

Collaborating with developers on hover latency, dropdown states, and smooth scrolling created a seamless user experience, allowing effortless transitions between diverse data combinations in both visual and chart formats.

Conclusion

This success stemmed from collaboration with the Design Systems team, international accessibility experts, and developers to refine color range percentages, ensuring a user-friendly, compliant product. European and Canadian markets, which were ahead in accessibility standards, informed and accelerated the process. Additionally, the integration of more data set combinations strengthened the reliability of the company’s data, amplifying the value of Fixed Income data for investors.

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Let's start the conversation.

Ryan Klein

Reach out and touch face.
Let's start the conversation.

Ryan Klein

Reach out and touch face. Let's start the conversation.

Ryan Klein